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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

CPSA/CAPPA section on Public Administration



K07 - Workshop 10: Democracy and Divides: Where Does Canada Stand?

Date: Jun 2 | Time: 03:15pm to 04:45pm | Location:

Does Canada have a Geography of Discontent? Implications for Public Administration: Tamara Krawchenko (University of Victoria)
Abstract: Andrés Rodríguez-Pose’s 2018 article “The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it)” argues that agglomeration economies together with the forces of globalisation are heightening regional inequalities across many countries and that this phenomenon is at the root of increasing political and economic instability. In effect, that there is a growing “geography of discontent” across many states which public polices and public administration today are ill-equipped to address. Much of the analysis of this phenomenon has focused on European nations and the United States. But to what extent does Canada experience a “geography of discontent”? In exploring this question, this paper will examine Canada’s inter- and intra-regional disparities in social and economic outcomes at a sub regional territory (OECD TL3 typology) alongside an analysis of industrial composition and populist voting patterns. This sub-regional multi indicator analysis will be used to examine the applicability of the “geography of discontent” thesis to the Canadian case – and will draw out its implications for public policy and administration.


Public Servants and Democracy in Canada: Brendon Boyd (MacEwan University), Karine Levasseur (University of Manitoba), Andrea Rounce (University of Manitoba), Jared Wesley (University of Alberta)
Abstract: Canada’s Westminster system of government requires public servants to be politically neutral, to avoid undue political influence when administering government programs and services and to serve governments with different political views. Public service impartiality is critical to the quality of governance in democratic systems and has been linked to citizen support of government, democratic stability and even personal subjective happiness. Yet, societal shifts – such as globalization; continued developments in information and communication technologies; political and management trends towards leaner government, deregulation and privatization; and the emergence of intractable issues such as climate change, pandemics and global terrorism – have changed public expectations of the public service and led to declining trust in government institutions. What then is the role of the public servant in Canada today? Our research team has completed its initial study of how public servants view themselves. This initial phase of our study was done in partnership with IPAC whereby the online survey was distributed to all IPAC members. With almost 600 completed surveys, we will present the results to a joint CAPPA/CPSA panel. Our analysis centres upon: - core values of respondents; - the state of democracy in Canada and the role of public servants within it; - beliefs about how elected officials should make decisions; - attitudes towards accountability; and, - views whether public servants should continue to be anonymous or more public facing officials.


What Makes Electoral Candidates Devote Attention to Indigenous issues? Empirical Analysis of Social Media Use by Candidates During the 2019 Federal Electoral Campaign in Canada: Jean-François Savard (École nationale d'administration publique), Mathieu Landriault (University of Ottawa)
Abstract: Social media represented a tool to open up and democratize conversations on public policy issues. The influence of traditional institutions and power-holders on these platforms has been qualified as enduring and persistent. Hence, it is imperative to provide empirical studies documenting how traditional power-holders are using these instruments. Tracking these political messages can help us understand who and why political actors devote time to specific public policy issues, such as Indigenous issues. It also allows us to analyze how they portray and describe these issues. For the purpose of this communication, we will present how party candidates in Canada have described and represented Indigenous issues. The evidence collected comes from more than 1200 Twitter accounts of candidates who ran in the 2019 Canadian federal elections. Party affiliation, constituents’ interests, and the number of Indigenous voters per riding will be considered as possible explanatory variables driving political communication on Indigenous issues.


The Poverties of Global Liberal Democracy: Andrea Migone (Ryerson University), Lori Turnbull (Dalhousie University)
Abstract: In this paper we address the internal tensions that global liberal democracy presents between its strict framing, built around a triplet of democratic arrangements, free markets and liberal philosophy, and the concept of highly fluid and innovative individual behavior that underpins global flows. We argue that this combination has generated three ‘poverties’: a poverty of time, a poverty of security and a poverty of information, which affect broad sections of society and pose critical questions about the future of democratic institutions.




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