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    Canadian Political Science Association
    2020 Annual Conference Programme

    Confronting Political Divides
    Hosted at Western University
    Tuesday, June 2 to Thursday, June 4, 2020
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    Presidential Address:
    Barbara Arneil, CPSA President

    Origins:
    Colonies and Statistics

    Location:
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 05:00pm to 06:00pm
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    KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
    Ayelet Shachar
    The Shifting Border:
    Legal Cartographies of Migration
    and Mobility

    Location:
    June 04, 2020 | 01:30 to 03:00 pm
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    Keynote Speaker: Marc Hetherington
    Why Modern Elections
    Feel Like a Matter of
    Life and Death

    Location:
    Wednesday, June 3, 2020 | 03:45pm to 05:15pm
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    Plenary Panel
    Indigenous Politics and
    the Problem of Canadian
    Political Science

    Location: Arts & Humanities Building - AHB 1R40
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 10:30am to 12:00pm

Political Theory



H05(b) - Sentiment and the Public Spirit

Date: Jun 2 | Time: 01:30pm to 03:00pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : David Tabachnick (Nippissing University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Geoffrey Sigalet (Stanford University)

A Sentimental Journey through China and Scotland: Affect and Political Education in Mencius, Smith, and Hume: Lincoln Rathnam (Duke Kunshan University)
Abstract: Over the last decade, contemporary political theorists have devoted renewed attention to the significance of the emotions for political life (Frazier 2010, Kingston 2011, Krause 2008, Nussbaum 2013). We are bound together as citizens, such studies indicate, in ways that are as much a product of shared affective responses as shared endorsement of abstract principles. While these works all make important contributions to our understanding of the foundations of political community, their interpretations of the political salience of the emotions have been shaped primarily by Western political texts and experiences. In this paper, I contend that an adequate understanding of these issues must address questions of a comparative and cross-cultural nature. I attempt to substantiate this claim through a comparative investigation of one of the most widely discussed problems of practical politics, the question of how one can encourage citizens to behave in a public-spirited manner when doing so seems to come at a personal cost. I begin by arguing that this problem was a central concern for Confucians in Warring States era China, notably Mencius, and the moral sentimentalists of eighteenth century Scotland, notably Adam Smith and David Hume. Both groups of thinkers regard social and political institutions as tools for channeling and developing our basic affective capacities in ways that encourage stability and human flourishing. I then proceed to examine a crucial difference between these two traditions, namely their understandings of the family as a site of moral education.


Getting over ‘Left Melancholy’: Loralea Michaelis (Mount Allison University)
Abstract: Not available


Public Happiness and the Festival of Democracy: Independence Referendums, the Carnival of Speech and Arendt's Riddle of Foundation: Catherine Frost (McMaster University)
Abstract: The method in this paper is to look at Scotland’s 2014 referendum as a moment in founding politics that reveals both the role of "public happiness" in moments of beginning, and also the inability to reduce these moments to the kind of "clarity" celebrated in emerging international law on secession. The Scottish government took a measured approach to the independence question, carefully adhering to stablished domestic and international practices in building its case for independence, (although the decision to omit any declaration of independence was out of step with the rest of its strategy). Although the 2014 "indyref" was defeated, a number of developments make it an important case for study. First, failed foundings have special potential for revealing the dynamics of the process. Second, the massive engagement of the Scottish voting public in the process was hailed as a "festival of democracy." And third, the result, came on the heels of a process that reflected deep confusion over the status of Scotland with regard to the EU in light of a forthcoming Brexit vote, as well as a last-ditch offer from Westminster that effectively negated any clarity to the referendum question. Together these show that ambiguity, carnival and riddle are better ways to characterize the process of beginning than the orderly model of law to which the Scottish government.


Reconciliatory Guilt: Resources, Roles, Remembrances: Samuel Piccolo (University of Notre Dame)
Abstract: This paper will examine the role of guilt in theories of reconciliation. Some theorists, such as Andrew Schaap, question the value of feelings of guilt, arguing that such feelings are pointless displays of self-serving emotion. In this framework, expectations of guilt risk scapegoating and papering over broader issues that must be addressed by reconciliatory processes. By contrast, other theories—particularly religious ones—contend that guilt feelings are essential to true reconciliation. I argue that this contention stems from an emphasis on confession and the possibility for redemption. I then use this distinction to assess the way guilt is treated in the TRCs of Canada and South Africa, with the South African case marked by a more overt religious presence.




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