Professor Jörg Broschek appointed Laurier Research Chair in Multilevel Governance

Jan. 23, 2024

The most pressing public policy issues, from climate change to trade agreements, tend to cut across jurisdictions, requiring cooperation and creativity from multiple levels of government. This delicate dynamic plays out differently across regions and time, and there are lessons to be learned from each approach.

Jörg Broschek, a political science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, spent 10 years studying those lessons as a Canada Research Chair (CRC). His CRC term ended in 2023 and Broschek was appointed the Laurier Research Chair in Multilevel Governance. The Laurier Research Chair program enables Tier I and Tier II CRCs who have completed their final terms and achieved significant national and international recognition to gradually return to their teaching duties while remaining productive researchers. Broschek plans to build upon his achievements as CRC and continue exploring his core research questions.

“How do federal systems cope with major policy challenges?” asks Broschek. “How do they adapt? How do they initiate transformative policies? How resilient are they?”

Broschek has been searching for answers since his time as a PhD student living in Germany. He was fascinated by federalism across the European Union and was encouraged to examine Canada’s system from a comparative perspective. Those regions remain the core focus of his research program today.

Broschek’s research is both timely and archival, responding to current events and deeply rooted in history. He says that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes,” so it’s essential to learn from how policy actors coped with similar challenges in the past.

“Many political observers are inclined to look at problems with a ‘snapshot view,’ primarily interested in what is going on now: the outcome of the latest election or whatever the media is focusing on,” says Broschek. “If we only focus on the present, we miss a lot of important context that is building up over time. Policies have a long history that shape the constraints and opportunities of today.”

This is exemplified by one of Broschek’s emerging interests as Laurier Research Chair: transportation infrastructure policy. He is examining efforts to decarbonize transportation as carbon emissions continue to climb in the sector.

“All levels of government are now dealing with the foundations of our transportation infrastructure which were laid in the 19th and 20th centuries,” says Broschek. “Those decisions constrain the patterns of our mobility today because, for example, they encourage driving a car rather than taking a bike. As a policy challenge, this is extremely difficult to change and a reminder of why we need to look back to understand our current problems.”

During his tenure as CRC, Broschek developed a research agenda based on three basic pillars: institutions and processes and how they change over time; individual policy sectors, such as trade, energy and education; and theory and methodology, or the research tools themselves. These pillars will continue to shape new research questions, such as how leadership factors into multilevel governance. Do different leaders make a difference?

As Laurier Research Chair, Broschek is keen to maintain relationships with policy practitioners like Canada’s Privy Council Office, ensuring his findings inform real-world responses. In particular, he wants to collaborate with local stakeholders to tackle urgent issues at home, including poor voter turnout in municipal elections. Broschek will continue collaborating with prominent think tanks, serving as a board member of the Canadian Political Science Association and regularly writing op-eds. His most recent opinion piece advocates for the adoption of 30 km/hour speed limits.

Since beginning his first term as CRC in 2013, Broschek has published 15 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 16 book chapters. His latest co-edited book was 2021’s A Research Agenda for Multilevel Governance.