Philippe Lagassé

Carleton University · Norman Paterson School of International Affairs

Legislatures vary widely in how they affect democratic civil–military relations. In some countries, legislative oversight plays a critical role in guiding their defense establishment. In others, legislators are largely ignorant and happily so. In this article, we explain the sources of these variations in fifteen democratic states. After discussing...

This article examines how the French Senate engaged in legislative oversight of the military between 2015 and 2020. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with French parliamentarians, parliamentary staff, and serving and retired military leaders, the article argues that the French Senate performed “community policing” oversight of the military duri...

This chapter examines how governments are held to account for defence policy decision in a Canadian context. Drawing on theories of accountability and the nature of Canada’s Westminster system of government, the chapter argues that accountability for defence affairs tends to operate subtly. Rather than involving admissions of failure or acceptance...

The Crown’s role in government formation is poorly understood in Canada. As demonstrated by the confusion surrounding the Lieutenant Governor’s duties in the aftermath of recent elections in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, the functions of the Crown are misrepresented by politicians vying for po...

This study introduces a new type of oversight in civil-military and executive-legislative relations: community policing . Building on principal-agent theory, this type of oversight emphasises trust rather than confrontation. To illustrate how community policing functions, the study examines how legislative oversight of military affairs operates in...

Canadian governments held opposite views on how to alter the laws of royal succession for Canada in 1936 and 2013. This contrast was not the result of refined thinking about how the law of succession operates in Canada. Rather, the difference is explained by these governments’ political aims and institutional constraints. In 1936, the government of...

Recent Canadian foreign policy has been shaped by two elections. In 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada won a majority of seats in the House of Commons. The Liberals’ election platform contained a multitude of promises, many of which suggested a significant shift away from the priorities of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. From...

This paper argues that there is a need to question whether parliamentary involvement actually leads to the intended effects of increased democratic deliberation and responsiveness. We compare the unintended consequences of parliamentary votes on the use of force in two ‘most-different cases’: Canada and Germany. Despite substantive differences in t...

Parliamentary influence on security policy has received increased attention in recent years. While a new strand of literature has shown that democracies are characterized by substantial variance in the formal-institutional legislative control and oversight of military deployments (parliamentary war powers), research also shows that security policy...

This paper analyses how democratic legislatures oversee the military, using Canada as a case. The paper argues that the tendency to engage in intrusive oversight versus reactive oversight is shaped by institutional structures and party preferences. Canadian institutional structures discourage parliamentary defence committees from engaging in intrus...

The British and Canadian Parliaments have no legal control over military deployment decisions. Recently, however, governments in both countries have held votes in the House of Commons on expeditionary missions involving combat. In the United Kingdom, this has led to a convention of legislative control of the executive’s prerogative to deploy the ar...

This article looks at framing strategies behind the recent Canadian Conservative government’s rhetoric on the military. Critics argue that Conservative rhetoric has politicised Canadian history and overemphasised the armed forces. Few scholars, however, have looked at the specific forms this rhetoric took and the strategies it suggested. The articl...

Debates about Parliament’s role in deciding military deployments are clouded by misunderstandings of the relative legal authorities of the executive and the legislature, and the mixture of political objectives and democratic obligation that inform these discussions. Much has been written about the legal aspects of this question. This article consid...

The constitutionality of Canada’s Succession tothe Th rone Act, 2013 (Succession Act) will betested in Quebec’s Superior Court in the comingmonths. In a case brought by two law professorsfrom Laval University, with the government ofQuebec as an intervener, the Quebec SuperiorCourt will consider whether the Parliament ofCanada’s assent to a British...

As Canada's military mission in Afghanistan winds down and the country faces several years of fiscal austerity, all of Canada's major political parties are agreed that Canadian defence budgets must stay level or be cut. This comes at a time when the defence department is slated to replace the Canadian Forces’ (CF) major equipment fleets. Canada's d...

This article argues that ambivalence surrounds the prerogative powers of the Canadian Crown and the significant authority they afford the executive in Canada. In strictly legal terms, these residual Crown powers are vulnerable to parliamentary abolition, displacement and limitation, and their exercise is subject to judicial review and remedy, leadi...

Canada's 2005 International Policy Statement announced that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces were committed to “whole of government” interventions in failed and fragile states. This led both the Canadian government and outside observers to declare that Canada wa...

In the spring of 2005, Canada, the United States, and Mexico negotiated a Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), an agreement meant to bolster continental security while preserving a free flow of goods and people across national borders. After the SPP was announced, influential groups in all three countries argued that the new agreement should...

Canada is facing a force structuring dilemma. In spite of Ottawa's desire to promote international peace and stability alongside the United States and the United Nations, Canada's minimalist approaches to defence spending and capital expenditures are undermining the long-term viability of the Canadian Forces' (CF) expeditionary and interoperable ca...

Abstract News that Ottawa may join an American ballistic missile defence (BMD) initiative has rekindled Canada’s missile defence debate. Critics of BMD charge that the system is detrimental to arms control and strategic stability. They argue that Canada, a traditional stalwart of arms control, should not be involved in missile defence. But supporte...