Jim Farney is Professor and Regina Director at JSGS. Prior to this, he served as the head of the U of R Department of Politics and International Studies. With a PhD from the University of Toronto and an MA and BA from the University of Saskatchewan, he has published and taught on themes such as political parties, education policy, Canadian politics, and institutional change. He’s author of Social Conservatism and Party Politics in Canada and the United States, co-editor of Conservatism in Canada and Open Federalism Revisited, as well as a number of scholarly articles on Canadian political development, provincial politics, political parties, and education policy.

His most recent book (with Clark Banack) is Faith, Rights, and Choice: The Politics of Religious Schools in Canada, which received an honourable mention for the Seymour Martin Lipset Book Award of the American Political Science Association 2023. A co-investigator in the SSHRC funded Comparative Education Policy Network, he is currently PI on a SSHRC Insight grant investigating the fiscal, governance, and public opinion impacts of school/parental choice.