(Some Preliminary Findings) (original) (raw)
Review of "Making Political Choices: Canada and the United States"
Psephologists are highly familiar with the sociological, social-psychological and rational choice explanations for elector behaviour known as the Columbia school, Michigan school and Rochester school studies. However, these were developed when television was still an emerging medium. Today's political leaders reach us not only in our living rooms, but also at work and while in transit, often with a celebrity treatment that emphasizes personalities. The relationship between media and electors' political knowledge, combined with variances in partisan flexibility, indicates that a new model of voter choice may be overdue. The broad purpose of Making Political Choices is to assess the extent to which American and Canadian electors are influenced by their intuitive sense of whether a political product is in line with their own values.
The Limits of Political Jurisprudence in Canada and the United States
2007
provided crucial guidance for this project. In their own work and teaching, each is a model of intellectual honesty and dedication to scholarship. I thank them for the support they have shown me, and I will continue in my attempts to live up to their example. I would also like to thank the teachers at the University of Toronto-in particular, Richard Day and Clifford Orwin-who first aroused my interest in political science, as well as those at Cornell University-in particular, Nancy Hirschman, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Bensel, and Geoff Waite-who helped guide my education in Ithaca. My largest intellectual debt is owed to my committee chair, Jeremy Rabkin, who provided unflagging encouragement and unfailing patience in overseeing this project. Any virtues that this dissertation exhibits can find their roots in his skilled teaching and guidance; as for its faults, I claim full responsibility. Most of all, I would like to thank my wife, Margaret Kohn, for the kindness and love she has shown me as I have worked on my Ph.D. I would also like to thank Noah and Zachary Hurl-Kohn, who (I hope) are looking forward to spending more time with their father. To Zach, I wish you the best of luck as you continue to work on your own, rather mysterious dissertation. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
Canada is beginning to slowly embrace an ethic of Indigenous-Settler biculturalism. One model of change is afforded by the development of biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, where recent Indigenous Māori mobilization has created a unique model in the western settler world. This article explores what Canada might learn from the Kiwi experience, focusing on the key identity marker Pākehā, an internalized and contingent settler identity, using Indigenous vocabulary, and reliant on a relationship with Indigenous peoples. This article gauges Pākehā's utility in promoting biculturalism, noting both its progressive qualities and problems in its deployment, including continued inequality, political alienation, and structural discrimination. While Canada has no Pākehā analogue, terms such as settler are being operationalized to develop a larger agenda for reconciliation along the lines recommended by the TRC. However, such terms function best when channeled towards achieving positive concrete goals, rather than acting as rhetorical screens for continued inaction.
Canadian Journal of Political Science, 2005
The Liberal party of Canada is one of the four most successful parties in contemporary democracies. It has won a plurality of the vote in 15 of the 19 elections held since 1945 and it has formed the government for 44 of the last 60 years. It belongs to a small club of very successful parties, together with the Liberal Democratic party in Japan, the Irish Fianna Fail and the Swedish Social Democrats, the three other parties on the planet that have systematically won democratic elections and formed the government since the end of the Second World War. My task is to account for the success of the Liberal party in Canadian politics. I analyze the elections held since 1965, the starting point of the Canadian Election Studies ~CES!. The period covered is 40 years and it includes 12 elections and 11 Canadian Election Studies ~there was no CES in 1972!.
Canada and the Liberal Government: One Year After
This paper is written with an aim to understanding the work that has been done by the Liberal government in the past fifteen months and possible issues likely to develop in the coming months, especially with respect to their larger neighbour to the south.
1 Résumé. En faisant correspondre les décisions sur 230 enjeux de politiques publiques avec les résultats de sondages nationaux sur ces mêmes enjeux, cet article cherche à quantifier le degré de consistance entre l'opinion publique et la politique gouvernementale entre 1994 et 2001. Les calculs révèlent que seulement 49 pour cent des décisions du gouvernement de Jean Chrétien sont allées dans le même sens que l'opinion publique, en nette diminution par rapport aux 69 pour cent observés pendant la période Mulroney (1985-1993). La baisse de consistance depuis 1994 est principalement attribuable à la divergence entre une opinion publique de plus en plus favorable au changement et idéologiquement orientée à droite et la politique du gouvernement de Jean Chrétien sensiblement plus résistante au changement et idéologiquement plus à gauche que celle de son prédécesseur. Le public a tendance à ignorer le manque de corrélation entre l'opinion et les politique gouvernementales parce que les enjeux en question sont relativement peu importants. Par contre, il semble que la corrélation entre l'opinion et les politiques soit beaucoup plus forte dans un petit nombre d'enjeux importants que le public reconnaît, créant ainsi l'apparence d'un gouvernement attentif aux souhaits de l'opinion publique canadienne.