Canadian Politics
Session: A15(b) - Shifting Practices and Discourses of Citizenship: Building on Jane Jenson's Contributions (II)
Date: Jun 2, 2016 | Time: 03:15pm to 04:45pm | Location: Social Sciences 64
Chair/Présidente: Mireille Paquet (Concordia University)
Discussant/Commentatrice - 1: Aude-Claire Fourot (Simon Fraser University)
Discussant/Commentatrice - 2: Nora Nagels (Université du Québec à Montréal)
Participants & Authors/Auteurs:
Rianne Mahon (Wilfrid Laurier University ) : Welfare Regime, Citizenship Regime: Which to Choose?
Abstract: This paper will compare Jenson’s concept of citizenship regime to the dominant concept – welfare regimes. I will argue that while the latter has generated some useful typologies for studying social policy, Jenson’s concept offers more insight into the complexities of social politics. At the same time, both concepts could benefit from the incorporation of the politics of scale.
Neil Bradford (University of Western Ontario) : Place Matters and Policy Learning: Redesigning Social Citizenship
Abstract: Over the past decade there has been an explosion of interest across OECD countries in “place based approaches” to public policy and governance arrangements. In turn, an interdisciplinary network of scholars has emerged to explore how “place matters” even in the global age, shaping behavior and outcomes in multiple fields of state and societal interaction ranging from economic innovation and social welfare, to sustainable development and cultural integration. Amid the flurry of governmental interest, applied research, and policy advocacy, several more fundamental questions about the recent “spatial turn” have gone largely unaddressed. The first is historical: why the interest in place based approaches today? The second is comparative: is a common place based approach emerging everywhere? Tackling such big questions is the hallmark of Jane Jenson’s scholarship, indeed the driver of much of the conceptual ingenuity that distinguishes her career. This paper draws on three of Jenson’s core constructs – societal paradigm, universe of political discourse, and social citizenship regime – to explain why place based approaches emerge when they do, and to interpret cross-national variation in their design and delivery. We argue that, first, place based approaches are integral to policy learning at moment of crisis or transition in societal paradigms. Initial challenges in the 1960s to the Keynesian welfare state acquired spatial expression through discovery of ‘pockets of poverty’, and beginning in the 1990s, policy searching ‘after neoliberalism’ has played out most profoundly in localized social investment experiments.
Rachel Laforest (Queen's University), Susan Phillips (Carleton University) : Input and Output legitimacy in Governance Regimes
Abstract: This paper examines how practices of political representation have evolved in Canada since the 1960s. Drawing on Scharpf's distinction between input-oriented and output-oriented legitimacy, it is argued that both types of legitimacy have posed different demands on the participation of voluntary organizations in governance regimes over time. Input-oriented legitimacy derives from the extent to which the organization is representative of a particular constituency, whereas output-oriented legitimacy derives from the contribution that organizations make to government performance, most often around service delivery. The question we pose is to what extent input and output legitimacy can be realized simultaneously within a governance regime. We argue that voice, dissent, protest, civic action, and deliberation tends to be dislodged when attention shifts to the role of voluntary organizations in service provision. The implication is that it narrows down concerns with regard to the voluntary sector to management issues, at the expense of larger more critical issues of democratic governance.
Denis Saint-Martin (Université de Montréal), Maxime Boucher (Université de Montréal) : Citizen inc. : Corporate political rights in the era of neo-liberalism
Abstract: This presentation examines the question of political rights granted to corporations in advanced democracies. Drawing on the concept of citizenship regime popularized by professor Jane Jenson, we argue that all relevant rules and laws regarding lobbying, political financing and (political) connections between corporations and politicians constitute what we call a "corporate citizenship regime" (CCR). Our main assumption is that these pieces of legislation grant political rights - and impose political duties - to corporate organizations. This theoretical framework allows us to compare the political rights conferred to corporate organizations in various democratic countries. By doing so, we observe different models of corporate citizenship in North America and Europe. In liberal countries, like the United States, corporate organizations can make political donations and are free to lobby political institutions. In countries with a more restrictive regime, however, politically active organizations are facing much tougher regulations. In the end, the CCR framework proposes an encompassing theory of corporate political rights that helps us understand how democratic societies manage the relations between organized interests and the state. Finally, our theoretical propositions also stressed the importance of the intellectual legacy of professor Jenson, whose work on citizenship regimes has greatly influenced our understanding of governance in advanced democracies.
Abstract: Multiple panel workshop
More than ever, practices and discourses of citizenship are at the heart of current political debates in Canada and abroad. There are multiple explanations for this long and ongoing interest in citizenship: neoliberal challenges to social and political rights; delegitimation of forms of democratic expression such as protest, civic action and deliberation; perpetuation and recreation of second-class citizens (notably increased suspicion towards naturalized citizens of Muslim faith as well as invisibilization and intrumentalization of women); or nationalist movements in multinational societies, including Indigenous self-determination claims. The consequences of these changes are also crucial insofar as they entail profound choices about the kind of citizens we want to be and the types of democracies in which we want to live.
One Canadian scholar has profoundly influenced our ways of thinking of citizenship: this workshop celebrates her work and many of her contributions to the discipline. Featuring Jane Jenson’s concept of “citizenship regime”, the papers presented in this workshop consider its theoretical and methodological opportunities as well as its limitations.
The papers address the following themes:
- Gendered politics and policy
- Multinational and neo-colonial Canada
- Politics of scale and social policy
- Multilevel governance and representation of interests
Panel 2
The papers address the following themes:
- Politics of scale and social policy
- Multilevel governance and representation of interests
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