Providing Intergenerational Goods: Implementation of National Park System Plans in Canada and the United States

The provision of inter generational goods is a challenging task for democratic governments in that benefits arrive in the future but costs are borne in the present. Public agencies usually are assigned responsibility for providing such goods, but implementation of their long‐term plans often is constrained by the short‐term focus of other political actors. This argument is illustrated through a comparison of Canadian and American efforts to expand national park systems according to scientific criteria. Efforts in both nations have been constrained, albeit by different sets of institutional actors. The strong federal structure in Canada has enabled subnational actors to slow and compromise agency expansion plans. American agency efforts have been constrained by the acts of individual politicians at the federal level, particularly members of Congress