In recent decades, Canada and other democracies have experienced a significant rise in migrant settlement. This has sparked much interest among scholars and policy makers in the forces that encourage or impede the political incorporation of newcomers. In this research note, we consider a factor that has received relatively little scrutiny, the impact of immigrants’ attention to native-country politics on willingness to participate in residential-country elections and affiliate with a political party in that country. We examine this through an original survey of Americans in Canada conducted during the 2020 US election cycle. A randomized experiment demonstrates that directing the attention of American emigrants to US campaigns can lower interest in Canadian elections and weaken attachments to a Canadian political party, particularly for those who are less integrated into Canadian society. These findings point to a potential tension between political engagement as an emigrant versus as an immigrant.

Public debates structure election cycles, feature in news media, and are privileged as a form of academic exchange. Yet, public debate is poorly understood from the perspective of political theory. While theorists often talk about “public debate,” they usually mean diffuse discussion on a topic in the public sphere. This article considers how literal public debates—multisided, publicly accessible and publicly oriented performances of reason-giving—may be normatively distinct from other forms of rhetoric. Drawing on the “constructivist turn” in the scholarship on representation and the philosophy of Gadamer, I offer a hermeneutical approach for assessing public debates. I argue that public debates do not merely provide a platform for opinions to be broadcast, they also purport to provide a representative spectrum of opinions. In so doing, they help to construct the borders of the public sphere itself. I conclude by considering the significance of protest to public debate.

Ending gender-based violence was a central promise of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's self-declared feminist government. Executive speeches about gender-based violence provide clues about what types of feminist ideas undergird the 42nd Parliament. Was carceral feminism advanced, by focusing on punishment? Or neoliberalized feminist ideas, by focusing on the market? Or social justice feminist ideas, by focusing on systemic change? Applying the concept of governance feminism and using Bacchi's WPR approach, this article investigates how gender-based violence is problematized in English- and French-language House of Commons debates in the 42nd Parliament by the cabinet. The speeches problematize gender-based violence as preventable and caused by systemic issues, but this transformational discourse is undermined by a focus on strengthening carceral responses and limiting human potential to economic productivity. Feminist ideas about gender-based violence were adopted, relying on carceral and neoliberalized feminist ideas. The Trudeau Liberals’ campaign for change was discursively undermined.

Across the globe, women are underrepresented in elected politics. The study's case countries of Australia (ranked 33), Canada (61) and the United States (66) rank poorly for women's political representation. Drawing on role strain and gender-mainstreaming theories and applying large-scale survey experiments, we examine public opinion on non-quota mechanisms to bolster women's political participation. The experimental design manipulates the politician's gender and level of government (federal/local) before asking about non-quota supports to help the politician. We find public support for policies aimed at lessening work–family role strain is higher for a woman politician; these include a pay raise, childcare subsidies and housework allowances. This support is amplified among women who are presented with a woman politician in our experiment, providing evidence of a gender-affinity effect. The study's findings contribute to scholarship on gender equality and point to gender-mainstreaming mechanisms to help mitigate the gender gap in politics.

Our knowledge of the institutional features of local government in Canadian cities is surprisingly fragmentary. The academic literature has long identified dominant tendencies in Canadian local institutions, but systematic empirical data has been missing. In this article, we address this gap in knowledge in two ways. We introduce the Canadian Municipal Attributes Portal (CMAP), a new open-access database that contains information on dozens of institutional features of local government for nearly 100 of the most populous municipalities in Canada. We then propose a new multidimensional index of authority concentration, which is designed to capture variation in the local structure of decision-making authority in a systematic and nuanced manner. We apply this index to a systematic pan-Canadian subsample of 65 CMAP municipalities. The result is a rich portrait of institutional variety, one that both corroborates and substantially extends our current understanding of the shape of municipal institutions in Canadian cities.

This article investigates how superpower rivalry affects public perceptions of international organization (IO) legitimacy in the hegemon. We argue that the representation of a superpower rival state at an IO in the form of its key decision maker's nationality can dampen the IO's perceived legitimacy within the rival power. We test this argument using a survey experiment in the United States under President Trump, where we manipulate the nationality of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judge who casts a tie-breaking vote against the United States. Our results show that when the judge is Chinese, there is a strong and robust dampening of Americans’ perceptions of the ICJ's legitimacy, with no comparable effect arising when the judge is from other countries, including Russia. Replication of the experiment in the United States under President Biden offers external validity for our findings, which may have important implications for the future of the liberal international order.

In terms of party systems, Canada's system is an outlier. In our present work, we develop Richard Johnston's account of Canada's polarized pluralism in three ways. First, we link the literature on party systems to social identity theory. Second, we make an empirical contribution by directly testing Johnston's claim that intergroup affect plays a central role in shaping the dynamics of the party system. Using Canadian Election Study data from seven elections, we offer strong empirical support for the theory of polarized pluralism. Congruent with existing research, we find that the most important feature summarizing group-based affect in Canadian politics corresponds with the ideological left/right divide, but we also find that feelings toward groups on a second, uncorrelated axis (feelings toward Quebec and minority groups) shape vote choice. Yet our results show that fault lines in the polarized pluralist structure of the Canadian party system are emerging.

Alors que la lutte contre la corruption est généralement considérée comme une responsabilité de la Justice ou des agences anticorruptions, des recherches montrent que les institutions supérieures de contrôle des finances publiques (ISC) peuvent aussi jouer un rôle essentiel. Cependant, ce rôle n'est pas toujours clairement défini et pourrait diverger selon les contextes. L'objectif de cet article est de mieux cerner le rôle des ISC dans la lutte contre la corruption du point de vue des acteurs directement concernés, soit les membres des ISC. Treize entretiens, réalisés avec des vérificateurs au Québec et des magistrats en France et au Sénégal, démontrent une contribution effective de ces institutions dans le combat contre la corruption, bien qu'elles n'en aient pas le mandat explicite.

Comme l'illustrent Bélanger et Nadeau (2009), l'axe identitaire traditionnel au Québec apparait de moins en moins prédominant sur la scène politique québécoise. Cette situation impose l'adoption d'une stratégie différente de la part des divers partis dits souverainistes. Comment se sont articulées ces tentatives de repositionnement au sein du Bloc québécois? Afin d'explorer cette question, nous avons amassé plus de 7500 communiqués de presse diffusés par le parti entre 2002 et 2021. À l'aide de méthodes d'analyse automatisées et une approche de Latent Semantic Scaling développée par Watanabe (2020), nous illustrons et discutons de la prédominance de l'enjeu souverainiste à travers cette période, ainsi que le ton du parti quant à cet enjeu. Les résultats indiquent que les élections et les résultats de celles-ci jouent un rôle crucial dans la stratégie communicationnelle du Bloc québécois à l’égard de la souveraineté. De façon plus générale, nous observons certaines fluctuations importantes de l'attention accordée à cet enjeu et des variations importantes quant au cadrage de cet enjeu autour des élections. Cette note de recherche apporte un éclairage méthodologique nouveau quant aux théories entourant le réalignement politique en cours au Québec et la saillance qu'occupe le clivage de la souveraineté.

This article critically engages with the Canadian framing of settler colonial/decolonial politics in terms of guilt and innocence. I argue that centring innocence, even as something to be snatched away from settlers, as with the theorization of settler moves to innocence, can corrupt the practice of moral responsibility. Furthermore, I argue that the desire for and expectation of innocence, in the face of structural injustices such as settler colonialism, are illusionary and that complicity is widespread. In contrast, I follow Iris Marion Young's focus on political responsibility, but I argue that public collective actions need not be as centred as she suggests. Given the nature of settler colonialism and of coloniality, I argue for the acknowledgment of the political significance of daily individual acts and for the cultivation of dispositions that disrupt unjust structures, such as a disposition to transgress.

This presidential address on Canada and the study of territorial politics makes four main arguments. The first is that territory is a central component of politics, especially of Canadian politics, and that it should remain a focal point of specialists of Canadian and comparative politics. The second is that territory matters in contemporary politics because it serves as grounding for political communities, their claims, and their politics. The third is that not “identifying” parts of Canadian politics as “territorial politics” risks overlooking the importance of territory in the theorizing of federalism, nationalism and regionalism. The fourth is that, through the case of Canada, political scientists have made significant contributions to the study of comparative territorial politics.

S'intéressant au débat public québécois concernant l'affaire du mot en « n », survenue en 2020 à l'Université d'Ottawa, cet article vise à déterminer comment les discours de déni du racisme produits par les membres des groupes dominants se maintiennent au sein de l'espace public, malgré les critiques anti-racistes produites par les membres des groupes dominés. En combinant la théorie critique de la race, la théorie de l'injustice et l'ignorance épistémiques et la théorie des actes de discours, cet article propose une analyse critique du discours médiatique québécois sur l'affaire du mot en « n ». Il retrace ainsi les positions dénonçant l'utilisation du mot en « n » comme une insulte raciale et une manifestation du racisme systémique et celles justifiant la nécessité de protéger la liberté universitaire et la liberté d'expression face à une culture de l'annulation menaçant de les censurer. L'analyse du cas québécois révèle que le déni public du racisme reproduit des injustices herméneutiques à l’égard des critiques anti-racistes, particulièrement celles formulées par les communautés noires, et cela à travers un nouveau mécanisme linguistique que je nomme les « déviations illocutoires ».

What determines how Members of Parliament (MPs) and their staff frame their communications with all constituents in their electoral district? Prior research has suggested that constituency operations are one of the last bastions of freedom that MPs have from the full grasp of party discipline in Canada. If this remains true, MP communications with their constituents should reflect the MPs’ background or the constituency context and not their political partisanship. We collected a sample of published newsletters (“householders”) that Canadian MPs’ offices sent to all households in their electoral districts during the COVID-19 pandemic. We supplement our analysis with original insights about householders from a selection of MPs and their staff. Our results suggest that in a system of strict party discipline, the most important predictor of what MPs include in their constituent communications is indeed partisanship. The results inform our understanding of democratic representation, centralized co-ordination and political communication, and the pervasiveness of partisan messaging in Canada.

This article provides an empirical overview of federal lobbying in Canada, examining lobbying contacts by field and sector from 2011 to 2022. We track shifts in lobbying representation over this period, including across Harper Conservative and Trudeau Liberal administrations. The study reveals the dominance of business interests in lobbying in Canada and a high level of lobbying concentration. By sector, export-oriented industries with high environmental and climatic impacts—namely, agriculture, fossil fuel and manufacturing industries—predominate. With the transition to Trudeau, we find a significant increase in overall rates of lobbying and a modest increase in the ratio of public interest representation. Overall, the lobbying industry is characterized by greater access but unequal voice.

Several scholars have noted that many types of news coverage (including political news) are increasingly characterized by an “infotainment” style—defined roughly as the communication of politically relevant information using styles and formats more commonly associated with entertainment-oriented programming. Despite this growing trend and the many findings surrounding its impact on politics and political discourse, very little research has been done on the nature and dynamics of infotainment within the Canadian context. In response, this article seeks to measure and evaluate the scope and nature of infotainment in Canadian political news coverage by (1) outlining a comprehensive conceptual definition of (and rigorous method of studying) infotainment and (2) sharing the results of our mixed-methods discourse analysis of infotainment characteristics within 969 hard news articles published in Canadian English-language newspapers that covered the 2019 Canadian federal election. Our findings demonstrate that there was a substantial presence of infotainment characteristics in this coverage. We discuss the detailed nature of these characteristics and the relationship between the presence of infotainment characteristics and those of the quintessentially “Golden Age” reporting style (often viewed as infotainment's polar opposite), while outlining a variety of broader implications and further research questions raised by these findings.

Prime ministers in parliamentary systems confront a challenging agency problem in leading cabinets toward cross-government priorities: ministers tend to prioritize departmental interests and may lack incentives and/or information enabling co-ordinated effort. In Canada, a novel mechanism for both increasing incentives and information provision has been developed in recent decades: the mandate letter. These letters are issued by Canadian prime ministers to their ministers, reinforcing government priorities, each minister's responsibilities, and specific policy expectations. This article examines mandate letters as mechanisms inducing interministerial policy co-ordination, focusing on the 2015–2021 period, under Justin Trudeau, as the first Canadian prime minister to release these letters publicly. Using topic modelling and social network analysis, I find that Trudeau has increasingly sought to strengthen ministerial co-ordination and ministers’ focus on crosscutting policy priorities. This case study contributes to our understanding of intraexecutive co-ordination and the agency problem in cabinet government.

This article offers a re-evaluation of Louis Riel's political, philosophical and religious writings by reconstructing these writings along utopian lines. In so doing, it supplements the existing literature on Riel's writings that tends to see Riel as either a prophetic figure or a practical man of action, but rarely, if ever, both. In its reconstruction of Riel's utopian vision, this article focuses on three aspects of his writings. First, it addresses his critical conception of Métis self-government before Confederation. Second, it examines his proposals for the overthrow of what he perceived as Anglo-Canadian tyranny in the North-West. Third, it considers his visions of an ideal—that is, utopian—society in the North-West. The article concludes by examining the implications of this reading of Riel's utopian vision for his legacy in Canadian political science.

Indigenous peoples continue to challenge Canadian colonial policies through nonroutine acts of resistance. Sustained scholarly attention on the frequency and characteristics of Indigenous resistance has dropped precipitously, with the time span of this scholarship typically ending by the early 2000s. Research on more recent acts of resistance is directed to small-n case studies. This research note examines Indigenous resistance in Canada between 2010 and 2020 as reported by news articles from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to identify key characteristics of salient Indigenous resistance: What issue areas were the subject of resistance movements? Which Indigenous communities or groups contributed to acts of resistance? What strategies were employed? The research note's findings suggest that salient acts of resistance rarely result in immediate policy change from the state; instead, resistance has transformative potential to develop Indigenous governance that departs from settler-colonial state processes.

À la lumière de récents développements en politique québécoise, le présent article jette un regard critique sur deux éléments controversés entourant la légitimité du référendum sur la souveraineté du Québec de 1995, soit (1) le rejet de bulletins de vote le jour du scrutin et (2) l'effet du rallye pour l'unité canadienne tenu le 27 octobre 1995. Cette analyse mobilise des données historiques agrégées d’Élections Québec ainsi que des données individuelles de sondage collectées par Canadian Facts Limited en octobre 1995 (n = 930). Les résultats ne révèlent aucun prédicteur attitudinal du rejet de bulletins de vote à travers les circonscriptions québécoises. Des analyses suggèrent cependant l'existence d'un impact statistiquement significatif du rassemblement du love-in qui pourrait avoir profité à la cause fédéraliste à quelques jours du vote, particulièrement à l'extérieur de l’île de Montréal. Cette recherche vise à contribuer au débat public sur la transparence des processus démocratiques en contexte référendaire.