Keith Banting

Multiculturalism Policy Index [MCP]

Keith Banting is the Stauffer Dunning Fellow in the School of Policy Studies and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Studies.  His research interests focus on public policy in Canada and other contemporary democracies. He has had a long-standing interest in the politics of social policy, and has extended this research to include ethnic diversity, immigration and multiculturalism. He is the author or editor of twenty books, as well as numerous articles and book chapters, and his publications have been translated in seven languages.

Professor Banting was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada in 2004. In 2012, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, was awarded an honorary doctorate by Stockholm University, and received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2016, he received the Mildred A. Schwartz Lifetime Achievement Award in Canadian Politics from the American Political Science Association. In 2018, he was honoured by Queen’s University with a Distinguished Service Award.

Professor Banting earned his BA (Hon) from Queen’s University and his doctorate from Oxford University. He taught for thirteen years at the University of British Columbia, before returning to Queen’s. In addition, he has been a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics, the Brookings Institution, Harvard University, Oxford University, the European University Institute, University of Melbourne, Stockholm University and the University of California (Berkeley). In 2016, he was the Willy Brandt Guest Professor at Malmö University in Sweden.

In the field of social policy, Dr. Banting is the author of Poverty, Politics and Policy and The Welfare State and Canadian Federalism.  In 2013, he and John Myles edited Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics, and in 2016 they contributed "Framing the New Inequality: The Politics of Income Redistribution in Canada" to Income Inequality: the Canadian Story (edited by David Green and colleagues). In 2020, Professor Banting contributed “The Three Federalisms and Change in Social Policy” to Herman Bakvis and Grace Skogstad, eds, Canadian Federalism.  

In the field of multiculturalism, Professor Banting is the editor (with Will Kymlicka) of The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies (2017). Earlier, they edited Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies.  In 2013, they published "'Is There Really a Retreat from Multiculturalism Policies?  New Evidence from the Multiculturalism Policy Index," Comparative European Politics. The most recent contribution is “Shared Membership Beyond National Identity: Deservingness and Solidarity in Diverse Societies” Political Studies (2021).

In addition, Professor Banting is the co-director, along with Will Kymlicka, of the Multiculturalism Policy Index project, which monitors the evolution of multiculturalism policies across the Western democracies. The MCP Index project is designed to provide information about multiculturalism policies in a standardized format that aids comparative research and contributes to the understanding of state-minority relations. The Index was recently updated to 2020. 

Professor Banting has played a variety of leadership roles during his career. At Queen’s, he has been an associate dean of Graduate Studies and Research (1989-92) and Director of the School of Policy Studies (1992-2003). He was a member of the governing Council of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (1986-1992), and for the last two years was Vice President of the Council. He also served as President of the Canadian Political Science Association (2009-2010).  He is currently a member of the editorial board of several international journals.

CV [PDF 288 kb]