Brian Bow has won the $35,000 Donner Prize this year for his book The Politics of Linkage: Power, Interdependence and Ideas in Canada-US Relations.

The prize, established in 1998, rewards excellence and innovation in public policy thinking, writing and research in Canada.

Bow is an associate professor of political science at Dalhousie University in Halifax and co-editor of An Independent Foreign Policy for Canada? Challenges and Choices for the Future. He is also the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C..

The Politics of Linkage traces the history of Canada-U.S. relations and post-war diplomatic culture, and was praised by the Donner jury for the quality of its research.

"This book is of great importance not only for a better understanding of the exceptional history of Canada-United-States relationships but also to see the need to adapt Canadian negotiations strategies to the new and more complex context," the jury said in announcing the award Wednesday.

The other three titles on the short list each receives $5,000:

• Who Owns the Arctic?: Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North by Michael Byers.
• A Thousand Dreams: Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and the Fight for Its Future by Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd & Lori Culbert.
• Branding Canada: Projecting Canada's Soft Power through Public Diplomacy by Evan H. Potter.