Michael Pelz | University of Toronto (original) (raw)
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Papers by Michael Pelz
Sexual Orientation and Transgender Issues in Organizations, 2016
Canada has one of the best records on gay, lesbian and bisexual rights in the world. It was an ea... more Canada has one of the best records on gay, lesbian and bisexual rights in the world. It was an early adopter of inclusive human rights legislation and one of the first countries to enshrine same-sex marriage in law. Canada’s record on extending rights to transgendered citizens has been slower. Most provinces and territories now have human rights protections, but coverage for medical and psychological services varies widely across the country. Our examination uncovers movement toward the inclusion of gender identify as a separate category in non-discrimination language, but in only a few cases are there provisions to cover medical and surgical procedures not covered by the state, or for paid leave while surgical procedures are taking place. Many unions have identified these issues as important in upcoming rounds of collective bargaining.
many academics labeled these events as together forming the "coloured revolutions" of rapid democ... more many academics labeled these events as together forming the "coloured revolutions" of rapid democratic change. However, in the years following Mikheil Saakashvili's accession to the Presidency, the optimistic hopes for Georgia's speedy path to democratic consolidation have subsided, a product of inhibiting structural constraints and elite intransigence. Georgia's troubled relationship with democracy since 2003 raises many questions about the resurgent usage of revolution as a mechanism to introduce representative government. In addition, why has the concept of democratic revolutions been brought back into the literature after it was summarily dropped in favour of elite-negotiated transitions in the 1970s? Using Georgia as a case-study, this article attempts to clarify what is meant by revolution in the contemporary sense, and its relationship with democracy. It is argued that revolutions have been brought back into democracy literature as a result of the failure of transitology and elite-negotiated transitions to fully account for many of the post-communist transformations, which often witnessed significant degrees of popular mobilization in facilitating regime change. However, as the Georgian case study illustrates, the concept of democratic revolution, and more importantly, the narrative of a democratic revolution having occurred can have many deleterious effects on the process of democratisation by conflating a variety of causal factors materializing as demands for change into a presumed tidy shift towards democracy. This article concludes by arguing that the processes of revolution and democracy need to be decoupled. Revolutionary ruptures only spark movements away from authoritarianism, while democratisation remains a much longer-term, and often-nonlinear process.
Sexual Orientation and Transgender Issues in Organizations, 2016
Canada has one of the best records on gay, lesbian and bisexual rights in the world. It was an ea... more Canada has one of the best records on gay, lesbian and bisexual rights in the world. It was an early adopter of inclusive human rights legislation and one of the first countries to enshrine same-sex marriage in law. Canada’s record on extending rights to transgendered citizens has been slower. Most provinces and territories now have human rights protections, but coverage for medical and psychological services varies widely across the country. Our examination uncovers movement toward the inclusion of gender identify as a separate category in non-discrimination language, but in only a few cases are there provisions to cover medical and surgical procedures not covered by the state, or for paid leave while surgical procedures are taking place. Many unions have identified these issues as important in upcoming rounds of collective bargaining.
many academics labeled these events as together forming the "coloured revolutions" of rapid democ... more many academics labeled these events as together forming the "coloured revolutions" of rapid democratic change. However, in the years following Mikheil Saakashvili's accession to the Presidency, the optimistic hopes for Georgia's speedy path to democratic consolidation have subsided, a product of inhibiting structural constraints and elite intransigence. Georgia's troubled relationship with democracy since 2003 raises many questions about the resurgent usage of revolution as a mechanism to introduce representative government. In addition, why has the concept of democratic revolutions been brought back into the literature after it was summarily dropped in favour of elite-negotiated transitions in the 1970s? Using Georgia as a case-study, this article attempts to clarify what is meant by revolution in the contemporary sense, and its relationship with democracy. It is argued that revolutions have been brought back into democracy literature as a result of the failure of transitology and elite-negotiated transitions to fully account for many of the post-communist transformations, which often witnessed significant degrees of popular mobilization in facilitating regime change. However, as the Georgian case study illustrates, the concept of democratic revolution, and more importantly, the narrative of a democratic revolution having occurred can have many deleterious effects on the process of democratisation by conflating a variety of causal factors materializing as demands for change into a presumed tidy shift towards democracy. This article concludes by arguing that the processes of revolution and democracy need to be decoupled. Revolutionary ruptures only spark movements away from authoritarianism, while democratisation remains a much longer-term, and often-nonlinear process.