G07 - Critical Institutionalism: Bringing Critical Social Theory into the Study of Institutions II
Date: Jun 2 | Time: 03:15pm to 04:45pm | Location:
Chair/Président/Présidente : Dennis Pilon (York University)
Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Bryan Evans (Ryerson University)
Session Abstract: Over the past three decades, historical institutionalism has redefined how scholars explore the intersection of politics and institutions in a host of ways, utilizing a host of methods. But theoretically and ontologically, historical institutionalists have remained rather cautious, drawing heavily on positivist and pluralist approaches dominant in fields like political science. This panel will feature a variety of papers that utilize critical social theory and an approach to social science rooted in critical realist or interpretivist ontologies to explore the politics of institutions, the institutionalization of politics, and institutions as a site of political struggle. The different contributions will highlight how inequalities in social power affect and sometimes determine how and when politics and institutions intersect as well as shed light on just how such political struggle over, within, and against institutions actually plays out. Contributions to this panel will both advance ‘critical institutionalism’ as a distinct approach to studying institutions as well as provide concrete examples of the variety of ways it can be carried out in concrete terms, both theoretically and methodologically. Panel I takes up these issues more theoretically and methodologically. Panel II pursues them through specific empirical investigations.
The Capitalist Prison: Labour and Prison System Formation in Canada: Jordan House (York University)
Abstract: The concept of a “prison-industrial complex” (PIC) has become mainstream but all too often it is reduced to a description of profiteering by private prison operators and the exploitation of prisoner labour by private industry. More robust conceptions of the PIC note how profit-making is intertwined with imprisonment—from the design and financing of prison construction, to maintenance, staffing, training, and services – though they suggest that such interests can still (and should) be disentangled from the more ‘authentic’ public interest function of the prison. In reality, in capitalist societies, prisons are capitalist institutions, subject to market logic and discipline, and involved in the production and reproduction of capitalist social and economic relations. This is especially clear in the ways that prisoner labour has been controlled, directed, disciplined or “warehoused” in the various prison labour schemes that have existed throughout Canadian history. While the mainstream view generally understands changes in prison industry to reflect a humanizing process in Canadian corrections or movement towards “evidence-based” correctional policy, these understandings neglect the broader social, economic, and political trends and struggles—both inside Canadian prisons and in society as a whole—which are fundamental in the shaping and implementation of correctional policy. This paper will explore forms of private involvement in prison industries over time, and will contend that prison industry, at a given moment in history, is a telling indicator of the balance of broader class forces in society.
Understanding the Emergence of Participatory Democracy through a Critical Institutionalist Approach: Laura Pin (University of Guelph)
Abstract: Critical institutionalist scholarship has recently emerged in the disciplines of geography (Cleaver, 1999; Jones, 2015), and political science (Pilon, 2015) in response to mainstream accounts of institutions that de-emphasize social power relations. In contrast, critical institutionalism understands institutions as produced through social struggles, and animated by the (re)production of social power relations.
By incorporating elements of historical institutionalism and critical social theory, critical institutionalism can deepen understanding of participatory democratic interventions in contemporary political institutions. Using the case study of participatory budgeting in Chicago, this paper uses a critical institutionalist approach to demonstrate how social struggles over the form and character of municipal government created a context where participatory budgeting became the solution to an institutional democratic problem. Specifically, in an environment marked by race and class-based inequity, a strong mayor system combined with regulatory shifts in patronage politics necessitated the development of new participatory democratic initiatives like participatory budgeting. In turn, the process of participatory budgeting provided residents with a necessary stake in local decision-making. Attention to the interplay of social and institutional dynamics, renders intelligible an intensive and expensive investment in participatory democratic infrastructure, often driven by municipal elites, as a technique for mitigating conflict without necessarily challenging underlying power relations.
Bringing Democracy Down to Scale: Nick Vlahos (Independent Researcher)
Abstract: Comparative democratization scholars tend to either highlight the broad sociological factors that influence the emergence and stabilization of economic regimes, like Iverson and Soskice in Democracy and Prosperity, or the more contextual political and institutional manoeuvring that lead to democratic concessions that either remain in place or fall apart, as in Ziblatt’s Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy. But such work focuses attention primarily on the national level of the state, with little concern for the impact of different levels or scales of political activity. Drawing from political geography, this paper will explore 20th century struggles over democracy in the United Kingdom to examine how different scales - not just the national - have contributed to their democratization process. Attention will be paid particularly to how the intersection of economic and political struggles has operated in a multi-scalar fashion, forcing political operatives to create simultaneous and interactive political campaigns.
How Should One Assess the Former Conservative Government’s (2006-2015) Approach to (Im)migration Policy, Policy-making Processes and their Significance for Democracy in Canada?: John Carlaw (York University)
Abstract: How should one assess the former Conservative government’s (2006-2015) approach to (im)migration policy, policy-making processes and their significance for democracy in Canada? The Conservatives’ time in office marked a remarkable shift of unchecked authority to cabinet ministers, particularly the Immigration Minister, giving them powers to design and redesign important aspects of the immigration system with few restraints over oversight. Through omnibus budget bills the government also granted significant additional powers to the Human Resources Minister to govern the temporary foreign worker program (TFWP) and facilitate increased employer access to such workers as the program was vastly expanded. Money devoted to the program facilitated access by employers to those constructed as “foreign” workers rather than to enforcing labour rights. Many of those workers have no or unlikely paths to Canadian citizenship and frequently face abuse due to their unfree status in Canada. Considering local and global relations of inequality and employing the work of Poultantzas characterizing the state as a social relation this paper examines the Conservantives’ authoritarian populist approach to the governance of citizenship and (im)migration with a particular focus on the diminishment of democratic processes and social relations accompanying the expansion of the temporary foreign worker program during their time in office. This case demonstrates the need to foreground the reality of Canada as a settler colonial state with entrenched hierarchies of race, class, gender and ethnicity and how such hierarchies were further exacerbated through the Conservatives’ approach to institutions and policy making while in office.