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Obituary of John Meisel

Tuesday, October 23rd, 1923 - Sunday, March 30th, 2025

Surrounded by the love of Hanna and her family, John passed away peacefully on March 30th, 2025.

Born in Vienna to Czech parents, John travelled extensively with his family before and during the Second World War. Thanks to the Bata Shoe Company, employers of his father Fryda, the family escaped the Holocaust, living in the Netherlands, Morocco and Haiti before coming to Canada in January 1942. As a young teenager, John attended Ottershaw College in the UK and later Pickering College in Newmarket, Ontario. He then studied at the University of Toronto, eventually earning his PhD at the London School of Economics.

For more than five decades John taught political science at Queen’s University, mentoring and inspiring many future politicians, diplomats and journalists. He was a co-founder of the The Canadian Journal of Political Science. His scholarly writing often featured titles reflecting his wicked wit, sense of humour and love of puns. From 1979 to 1983 John served as Chair of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, during a challenging period when technology was beginning to outpace regulation. After returning to Queen’s, he dedicated much of his time to the study of broadcast regulation and cultural policy. In 1989 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 1999.

John loved classical music and was an enthusiastic concert-goer. He loved physical activity, bicycled, played tennis, cross-country skied and hiked in the Austrian Alps. He was also an avid photographer and old friends still treasure his exquisite photos on his Christmas cards.

Predeceased by his artist wife Muriel (Kelly), his sister Rose and niece Victoria Wilcox, John is survived by Hanna Dodwell, his partner, caretaker and second wife of many years, his nephew Carl (David) Wilcox and his great-niece Simon Wilcox - along with loyal former students, colleagues and friends.

We express our sincere thanks to the dedicated staff at St. Lawrence Place Retirement Home, Providence Transitional Care Centre, and Providence Manor.

A celebration of life will be held at a later date. Donations in lieu of flowers may be made to Providence Care () in John’s memory.

A Brief Biography of John Meisel | Department of Political Studies

A professor at Queen’s University beginning in 1949, John Meisel (1923-2025) was a pioneer in research on political behavior in Canada, writing widely on political parties, elections, Quebec politics, broadcasting, and culture policy. Throughout his career, he led the broader scholarly community, serving as the founding editor of both the Canadian Journal of Political Science and the International Political Science Review, as well as the president of the Royal Society of Canada.

Professor Meisel was also a public intellectual, contributing to public debates over major controversies. During the political battles over the constitution, he worked hard at maintaining intellectual linkages between Quebec and the rest of Canada. A strong supporter of Canadian culture and the arts, he was appointed as chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), overseeing the introduction of pay TV in the country. His contributions to Canada were recognized in 1989 when he was made an officer of the Order of Canada, and again in 1999, when he was promoted to Companion, the highest grade in the Order.

Charming, engaging, optimistic, enthusiastic: as a member of the Queen’s community, John was all of these and more.

He was a wonderful teacher, inspiring generations of students to engage in political and cultural life. As department head, he recruited stellar new faculty, helping to build the department into one of the strongest in the country. He was an enthusiastic mentor, supporting his younger colleagues and drawing them into national and international networks. John was a symbol of the best of the Queen’s tradition.

To learn more about John, we highly recommend his 2012 memoir, (Wintergreen Studios Press), and this brief video, , filmed in 2017.  

The John Meisel Lecture Series will continue his legacy of engagement of faculty, students and the community in ways that would make John proud.  

Research Interests

• Global Political Economy
• Global Development
• Global Finance
• Geopolitics of Debt
• Corporate Power
• Political Economy of Housing

Brief Biography

Susanne Soederberg is a Professor, who is jointly appointed to the Department of Political Studies and Department of Global Development Studies. Dr. Soederberg earned her doctorate from Johann-Wolfgang Goethe Frankfurt University in Germany.  Prior to her appointment at Queen’s in 2004, Professor Soederberg held a tenure-track appointment in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. 

Dr. Soederberg has been awarded the prestigious Jane and Aatos Erkko Visiting Professorship in Studies of Contemporary Society (2015-2016) at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies where she is undertaking research on the linkages between low-income housing, finance and social reproduction in Berlin and Dublin.

Selected Publications

Single-Authored Books

The Debtfare States and the Poverty Industry:  Money, Discipline and the Surplus Population. London: Routledge/RIPE Series in Global Political Economy, 2014. 

*Winner of the 2015 International Political Economy Group (IPEG) of the British International Studies Association Book Prize.

Corporate Power and Ownership in Contemporary Capitalism: The Politics of Resistance and Domination. London:  Routledge/ RIPE Series in Global Political Economy, 2010.

*Winner of the Rik Davidson/Studies in Political Economy 2011 Book Prize.

*Short-listed for the IPEG BISA 2011 Book Prize.

Global Governance in Question: Empire, Class, and the New Common Sense in Managing North-South Relations.  London:  Pluto Books and Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.

The Politics of the New International Financial Architecture: Reimposing Neoliberal Domination in the Global South.  London:  Zed Books / New York:  Palgrave, 2004.

Editor of Special Issues in Scholarly Journals

‘The Politics of Debt and Discipline: Law, Money, and the State, ' with Adrienne Roberts Critical Sociology, Vol. 40 (5), 2014

'Repoliticizing Debt', with Gavin Fridell Third World Quarterly, Vol. 34(4), 2013.

‘Governing the New International Financial Architecture,’ Global Governance, Vol. 7(4), 2001.

Scholarly Journal Articles

‘Subprime Housing goes South: Constructing Securitized Mortgages for the Poor in Mexico,’ Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, Vol. 47(2), 2015, pp. 481-499.

‘'The US Debtfare State and the Credit Card Industry: Forging Spaces of Dispossession,’ Antipode: Radical Journal of Geography, Vol. 45(2), 2013, pp. 493-512. 

The Mexican Debtfare State: Micro-Lending, Dispossession, and the Surplus Population,’ Special Issue: ‘The Rebound of the Capitalist State: The re-articulation of state-capital relations in the global crisis,’ Globalizations, Vol. 9 (4), 2012, pp. 561-575. 

‘Cannibalistic Capitalism:  The Paradoxes of Neoliberal Pension Securitization,’ Leo Panitch, Greg Albo, Vivek Chibber (eds) Socialist Register 2011: The Crisis this Time, London: Merlin Press, 2010, pp. 224-241.

‘The Marketization of Social Justice:  The Case of the Sudan Divestment Campaign,’ New Political Economy, Vol. 14 (4), 2009, pp. 211-230.

Deconstructing the Official Treatment for “Enronitis”:  The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Neoliberal Governance of Corporate America.’ Critical Sociology, Vol. 34 (5), 2008, pp. 657-680.

‘The Transnational Debt Architecture and Emerging Markets:  Politics of Paradoxes and Punishment,’ Third World Quarterly, Vol. 26 (6), 2005, pp. 927-950.

‘A Historical Materialist Account of the Chilean Capital Control: Prototype Policy for Whom?’ Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 9 (3), 2002, pp. 490-512.

Brief Biography

Dr. Grazia (Grace) Scoppio is a Professor in the Department of Defence Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), is cross-appointed in the Queen’s University Department of Political Studies, and is a fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s. She has been selected as a Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Peace and War Studies at Norwich University, in Vermont, US. During her residency at Norwich, from January to May 2021, her research will focus on immigrants’ participation in the military from an international perspective. Dr. Scoppio was the Dean of Continuing Studies at RMC from 2017 to 2020 after having served as Associate Dean from 2013 to 2016. Between 2002 and 2013, she held appointments at the Canadian Defence Academy and the Canadian Forces Leadership Institute (CFLI).

Dr. Scoppio is an active member of various academic societies including the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, and the Comparative and International Education Society of Canada, where she has been part of the Executive since 2001.

From 2014 to 2017, she was the French Editor of the bilingual, peer-reviewed, international journal Comparative and International Education, jointly with the English Editor, Dr. Marianne Larsen from Western University. In 2013, the Commander of Military Personnel Command was awarded the CFLI, of which she was a member, a commendation in recognition of CFLI’s development and implementation of a series of leadership programs for Veterans Affairs Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In 2018, she was a member of the first Halifax Peace With Women Fellowship Selection Committee for the Halifax International Security Forum. Because of her expertise, Dr. Scoppio is often contacted to provide contributions to the media and to testify before Parliamentary committees.

Current Research and Projects

Dr. Scoppio’s current research is on immigrants’ participation in the military from an international perspective.

Research Interests

• Canadian foreign and defence policy
• International security relations
• American foreign and defence policy

Brief Biography

Dr. Sokolsky has taught at the Canadian Studies Center at SAIS, Dalhousie University and Duke University. He has been a visiting Canada-US Fulbright Scholar at Bridgewater State and has served as a consultant to several government offices including the Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of National Defence (Policy) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He has been a member of the Secretariat Working Group of the NATO/Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes.

Brief Biography

Christian Leuprecht (Ph.D., Queen’s) is a Class of 1965 Professor in Leadership, Department of Political Science and Economics, Royal Military College, and Eisenhower Fellow at the NATO Defence College in Rome. He is cross-appointed, Department of Political Studies and the School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University, where he is affiliated with both, the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy and the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, and Adjunct Research Professor, Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security, Charles Sturt University as well as the Centre for Crime Policy and Research, Flinders University.  A recipient of RMC’s Cowan Prize for Excellence in Research and an elected member of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada, he is also Munk Senior Fellow in Security and Defence at the Macdonald Laurier Institute.  An expert in security and defence, political demography, comparative federalism, and multilevel governance, he has held visiting positions in North America, Europe, and Australia, and is regularly called as an expert witness to testify before committees of Parliament. He holds appointments to the board of two new research institutes funded by the German government, including the German Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies.

His publications have appeared in English, German, French, and Spanish and include 12 books and scores of articles that have appeared, inter alia, in the Florida State University Law Review (2019), Electoral Studies (2016), Government Information Quarterly (2016), Armed Forces and Society (2015),& Global Crime (2015, 2013), the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (2014, Maureen Molot Prize for Best Article), Canadian Public Administration (2014), the Canadian Journal of Political Science (2012, 2003), Regional and Federal Studies (2012), and Terrorism and Political Violence (2018, 2017, 2011). His editorials appear regularly across Canada’s national newspapers and he is a frequent commentator in domestic and international media.

Leuprecht has been a Matthew Flinders Fellow at the Flinders University of South Australia (2017-2018), held a senior and visiting fellowships at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study (2016), the Helmut-Schmidt-University of the Bundeswehr (2016), Université Pierre-Mendès France (2015), the University of Augsburg in Germany (2011), the Swedish National Defence College (recurring) and the European Academy (recurring), and as the Bicentennial Visiting Associate Professor in Canadian Studies at Yale University (2009-2010). He is a research affiliate at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (since 2005), the Network for Terrorism, Security, and Society (since 2012), l’Université de Montréal’s International Centre for Comparative Criminology (since 2014), the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur les relations Internationales du Canada et du Québec (since 2015), l’Observatoire sur la radicalization et l’extrémisme violent (since 2015), the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (since 2010), the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania and Bryn Mawr College (2003), the World Population Program at the International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis in Vienna, Austria (2002), and held doctoral (2001-2003) and postdoctoral (2003-2005) fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.  He holds a Ph.D. from Queen’s University (2003), and graduate degrees in Political Science (1998) and French (1999) from the University of Toronto as well as the Institut d’Études Politiques at the Université Pierre-Mendès France in Grenoble (1997).

From 2015 to 2018 he held a Governor-in-Council appointment to the governing Council of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada where he also served on the Executive Committee and as Chair of the Committee on Discovery Research. He is also immediate past president (2014-2018) of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee 01: Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution. Since joining RMCC in 2005, he has served as Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Deputy Head of the Department of Political Science and Economics. He has twice received the RMCC Commandant’s Commendation for Excellence in Service. A long-time proponent of experiential learning, Leuprecht has also been a finalist for RMCC’s Teaching Excellence Award and has received honourable mention for the Queen’s University Undergraduate Research Mentorship Award (2017). He is a member of the editorial boards of Armed Forces & Society, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, Current Sociology’s Manuscript Series, and the Springer book series in Advances in Science and Technologies for Security Applications. Previously, he was associate editor of the Queen’s Policy Studies series published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Research and Publications

Projects in progress at the Comparative National Security and Defence Lab:

• Methodological innovations in the application of social network analysis to transnational crime, including illicit trade and trade fraud, and terrorism
• Innovative applications of data analytics of semi-structured heterogeneous datasets to security problems
• Transnational Criminal and Terrorist Movement and Flows
• Proceeds of Crime (Anti-Money Laundering), Terrorist Financing, and Tax Avoidance
• Cybersecurity and Cybercrime
• Signals Intelligence
• National Security and Intelligence Accountability, Review, and Oversight
• National and subregional Border Integrity, Security, Cultures and Cross-border cooperation, policy networks, and governance
• Governance and Operational innovations to policing, including Non-Core Policing and Alternative Service Delivery
• Diaspora influence over Canadian international policy
• Political Demography and Diversity in the Armed Forces
• The consequences of demographic and climate change on domestic conflict and stability operations
• Demographic and resource determinants of conflict and instability in Mali

Research Interests

Issues of democracy and diversity, in particular models of citizenship and social justice within multicultural societies, and animal rights.

Brief Biography

Will Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University, where he has taught since 1998. He has published eight books and over 200 articles, which have been translated into 32 languages, and has received several awards. His books include (1990; second edition 2002),  (1995), which was awarded the Macpherson Prize by the Canadian Political Science Association, and the Bunche Award by the American Political Science Association,  (2007), which was awarded the North American Society for Social Philosophy’s 2007 Book Award, and most recently  (2011), co-authored with Sue Donaldson.

Christian Breede's Curriculum Vitae

Current Interests/Research:

• Social cohesion
• Foreign policy analysis, and
• Civil-military relations

Brief Biography

H. Christian Breede is an Associate Professor of Political Science at RMC and cross-appointed with Political Studies at Queen’s University. Christian holds a PhD in War Studies from RMC and has published on the topics of foreign and security policy with a research focus on societal cohesion and technology.   He has deployed experience with the Canadian Army in Haiti and Afghanistan.

Selected Publications

• (as editor) Culture and the Soldier: Identities, Values, and Norms in Military Engagements. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019
• (as co-edited with Stéfanie von Hlatky and Stéphanie Bélanger). Transhumanising War: Performance Enhancement and the implications for policy, society, and the soldier, Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019
• The Idea of Failed States: Community, Society, Nation, and Patterns of Cohesion, London: Routledge, 2017.
• (as co-edited with Stéfanie von Hlatky). Going to War? Trends in Military Intervention, Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016
•  “Special (Peace) Operations: Optimizing SOF for UN Missions” International Journal 73(2) 2018: 221-240
• “Defining Success: Canada in Afghanistan 2006-2011” American Review of Canadian Studies 44(4) 2014: 483-501

Kathy Brock Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests

public policy and the voluntary sector; Canadian government and politics; the constitution and the judiciary; federalism; aboriginal self-government; public law; women and politics; governing institutions

Brief Biography

Dr. Kathy L. Brock is a Professor, at the School of Policy Studies and cross-appointed to the Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University, current Past-President of the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration, and past National Research Chair for the Institute of Programs in Public Administration.

She has published books, academic articles, and reports on nonprofit and voluntary organizations, Canadian and comparative politics and government, federalism and constitutional matters, and Aboriginal governance and issues. She is currently working on a manuscript on the operation of the Canadian federal system, and articles on the views of DMs and CAOs regarding the current state of the public service medically assisted dying (suicide) policy, public sector ethics, Aboriginal policy, and Indigenous governance. She has commenced a new study called “Riding the Trump-Trudeau Wave”.

Active in public affairs, she has served as a nonpartisan advisor to the federal. provincial and territorial governments, political parties, an Aboriginal organization, nonprofit organizations, and on a number of national and local boards, including her current work with the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration, Research Committee of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, and Board member of the Limestone Learning Foundation. She is a frequent commentator in the national and local media on Canadian public affairs.

A dedicated professor, she received the 2008 Pierre De Celles IPAC Award for Teaching Excellence in Public Administration and the 2009 Frank Knox Award (Queen’s University) for Teaching Excellence (Queen’s).

Research Interests

Public policy, especially social policy, in Canada and OECD countries; ethnic diversity, multiculturalism, social integration, and public policy; federalism and public policy in Canada and other Western countries

Brief Biography

Keith Banting is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Studies and Stauffer Dunning Fellow in the School of Policy 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 and editor of over twenty books and the author or co-author of a long list of articles and book chapters. His publications have been translated into seven languages.

Professor Banting earned his BA (Hon) from Queen’s University and his doctorate from the University of Oxford. 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 2004, Professor Banting was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada. 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 Canadian Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. In 2018, he received a Distinguished Service Award from Queen’s University.

Selected Publications

The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), xiv, 452pp. Co-edited with Will Kymlicka.

The Global Promise of Federalism, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2013), vii, 310pp. Co-edited with Grace Skogstad, David Cameron and Martin Papillon.

Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, forthcoming 2013). Edited with John Myles.

Belonging? Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada. (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2007). Edited with Thomas Courchene and Leslie Seidle.

Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Edited with Will Kymlicka.