A Civil Society? surveys the main approaches to the study of group politics in Canada, with a strong comparative perspective. Unique to this brief and accessible text is a comprehensive theoretical framework that helps students evaluate policy areas surveyed in the book, while also pointing them toward future study.

This new edition opens with a discussion of power, political institutions, and identity. It goes on to explore group and social movement activity across a range of institutions including the House of Commons, the bureaucracy, and the courts as well as mobilization through social media and the electoral system. Throughout, Smith systematically integrates consideration of the role of gender, racialization, and indigeneity in contemporary Canadian group and movement politics.