Contact information
Email: h2whiteside@uwaterloo.ca
Areas of Specialization
- Political economy
- Public policy
Heather Whiteside is a political economist with expertise in Canadian and international political economy, economic geography, and public policy, demonstrated through over 50 scholarly books, journal articles, and book chapters on a wide range of interdisciplinary topics such as public-private partnerships, public ownership, privatization, land and settler-capitalist property relations, austerity, financialization and fiscal studies, and state capitalism. She serves on editorial/advisory boards for the scholarly journals Alternate Routes, EPA: Economy and Space, Finance and Space, Studies in Political Economy, and Urban Studies. Whiteside has held several major SSHRC grants over the past 10 years, with subjects ranging from austerity (2016-20) to state owned enterprises (2021-25), colonial royal charter companies (2020-24), and, most recently, the Canada Lands Company (2024-27).
Selected awards
- 2022: Recipient of the 2022 Rik Davidson/Studies in Political Economy Book Prize (‘Best book in political economy by a Canadian,’ 2020-2021) for Capitalist Political Economy (Routledge, 2020).
- 2021: University of ݮƵ President’s Excellence in Research Award.
- 2020: Hill Times’ “List of 100 Best Books in 2020” for Canadian Political Economy (University of Toronto Press, 2020)
- 2020: University of ݮƵ Arts Award for Excellence in Research.
- 2017: University of ݮƵ Outstanding Performance Award.
- 2016: Shortlisted for the 2016 Rik Davidson/Studies in Political Economy Book Prize (‘Best book in political economy by a Canadian in 2014/2015’) for Purchase for Profit (University of Toronto Press, 2015).
Selected publications
- Whiteside, H. 2025. Proprietary Settler Colonialism and the Making of North America. Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing.
- Whiteside, H., and McBride, S., eds. 2025. The Canadian State. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
- Whiteside, H., McBride, S., and Evans, B. 2021. Varieties of Austerity. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
- Whiteside, H., ed. 2020. Canadian Political Economy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Whiteside, H. 2020. Capitalist Political Economy: Thinkers and Theories. London: Routledge.
- Whiteside, H. 2016. About Canada: Public-Private Partnerships. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
- Whiteside, H. 2015. Purchase for Profit: public-private partnerships and Canada’s public health care system. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- McBride, S. and Whiteside, H. 2011. Private Affluence, Public Austerity: economic crisis and democratic malaise in Canada. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
Current projects
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Capitalist property relations, land title, and settler colonialism
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State owned enterprises (Canada Infrastructure Bank, Canada Lands Company, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation)
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Theories of the capitalist state, the Canadian state
Courses taught
- PSCI 231 - Government and Business
- PSCI 300 - Theories of Political Economy
- PSCI 428 - State and Economic Life
- PS 699 - Public-Private Partnerships
- PSCI 690 - Theories of Political Economy (in development)
- PSCI 601 - Research and Writing in Political Science