Gender-based violence is a prevalent and persistent societal problem in Canada that permeates all spaces, including politics. Yet sexual harassment, sexual assault and/or gender-based violence research is rarely found in mainstream political science in Canada or elsewhere. This article argues that this absence is highly problematic for a discipline that purports to centre itself on understanding power—who has it and who doesn't, and how to access it. It further argues for a normative intersectional and interdisciplinary approach, highlighting promising avenues of research in feminist institutionalism and Indigenous feminism to help achieve elusive solutions to gender-based violence in the future.

This article is about Indigenous territorial title and land rights, and specifically those of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation. In 1983, the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn, residing in the province of Ontario, petitioned the Crown to recognize Algonquin territorial title and rights to 36,000 square kilometres of their natal homelands in the Ottawa River watershed. With negotiations beginning in the early 1990s, an Agreement-in-Principle was developed and ratified in 2016, the penultimate step to the largest modern treaty in Ontario's history. In this article, we examine the argument for moral rights to territory, not in terms of the Canadian or international legal order, nor even through examining the documents and voice of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg, but through the lens of an argument that has been advanced as the basis of the international territorial rights of states. We argue that the justifications for state rights territory—grounded in the considerations that ensue from an analysis of occupancy groups—provides a stronger claim to territorial jurisdiction and title in the case of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation than the competing claim by the Canadian state.

This article puts three discourses about resistance and violence, coming from two distinct settler colonial contexts, in conversation, to highlight a distinctive theory of change associated with contemporary Indigenous movements. The first, from South Africa, can be seen in the writings of Nelson Mandela. It offers a dialectical view of resistance, where the oppressor sets the terms of the confrontation and where violence is allowable in the pursuit of change. The second discourse can be seen in the writings of James Tully and offers a theoretical bridge between the first and the third. It focuses on civic citizenship as a nonviolent engagement with terms of governance. The third can be seen in the writings of Indigenous theorists whose work focuses on resurgence. It offers a disjunctive theory of change that centres transgression and prefigurative practices. The conclusion of the article braids these discourses to discuss how they both converge and diverge.

Cet article a pour point de départ la querelle épistémologique survenue entre Anthony D. Smith et Jon E. Fox et Cynthia Miller-Idriss concernant les différentes approches du champ d’études du nationalisme. Alors que Fox et Miller-Idriss rejettent la pertinence d'une approche sociohistorique dans l’étude ethnographique du nationalisme, Smith considère l'ethnographie comme une pratique descriptiviste dénuée d'intérêt scientifique qui, de surcroit, fait abstraction des recherches sur la nation conduite au cours des dernières décennies. Afin de dénouer cette impasse, nous proposons une démarche méthodologique visant à concilier ces deux approches par l'entremise du concept de lieu de mémoire. À partir d'une étude de cas, la bataille des Éperons d'or et sa résonance dans les pratiques discursives, nous illustrons comment l'historicité du fait national peut s'avérer essentielle pour comprendre le fonctionnement de la nation au quotidien et nous éclairer sur la manière dont les Flamands se construisent en tant que sujets nationaux.

Previous research has shown that the public tends to see some groups as less deserving of social rights. Our focus in this article is whether they are also seen as less entitled to engage in political claims-making. Recent theorists of inclusive nationalism argue that whether minorities are seen as having the right to codetermine the future may depend on whether the majority believes minorities are morally committed to the nation. Drawing on a unique survey experiment, we test this intuition by analyzing how majority perceptions of a minority's commitment to the larger society influence support for claims-making by immigrants and national minorities. We show that immigrants, French-speaking Quebeckers, and Indigenous peoples are judged more harshly about their right to make claims and that this is in part explained by the majority's views that these groups are not, in fact, committed members of the larger political community.

This article examines the Wet'suwet’en people's struggle for territorial control over their traditional homeland from the normative perspective of collective self-determination. I focus on two interlocking philosophical questions that arise in examination of the case: the justification for a group's right to control territory and the justification for the right of political institutions and officials within those institutions to make and enforce law for the occupants of the territory. I argue that, pursuant to the collective self-determination theory of territorial rights, the legitimate representatives of the Wet'suwet’en people must reflect the people's shared will. After describing the traditional governance system of the Wet'suwet’en people, I argue that there is nothing in principle preventing the hereditary chiefs from reflecting the shared will of the Wet'suwet’en people (as I argue electoral democracy is not always necessary for collective self-determination). I illustrate several reasons why hereditary leaders could reflect the shared will of Wet'suwet’en people better than alternative political authorities, while demonstrating that the political authority of any Wet'suwet’en governance system depends upon the actual endorsement of Wet'suwet’en people themselves.

In Canada, the relationship between Indigenous Nations and mining corporations is characterized by asymmetrical power dynamics. To address this situation, several Indigenous Nations who see mining as an opportunity to realize their financial autonomy have developed mechanisms to enhance their capacity to regulate how their traditional territories are exploited. Drawing on collaborative research conducted with the Cree of Eeyou Istchee, we show how these initiatives can allow Indigenous peoples to reconcile mining with ways of life seemingly at odds with extractive development. From local perspectives, the Eeyouch have managed to persuade the developers of the mine operating on their territory to meaningfully engage with Iiyiyiuituwin—the “Eeyou way of life,” fundamentally anchored in respect for and reciprocity with the land. While numerous Indigenous Nations exercise their sovereignty by opposing extractive development, others realize it through building relationship with corporations in ways that sustain their enduring political philosophy.

Dans cet article, je présente le potentiel d'utiliser une approche féministe radicale de l’empowerment comme grille d'analyse dans les études fédérales. Pour ce faire, je développe un cadre analytique qui s'inscrit dans la quatrième vague d’études sur le genre et le fédéralisme qui s'intéresse aux interactions entre oppressions imbriquées et dispositifs fédéraux (institutions, pratiques, discours). J’étudie les processus d’empowerment des personnes agricultrices s’étant mobilisées à la fin de l'année 2020 en Inde contre l'entrée en vigueur de nouvelles lois agricoles. Par ce cas, j'illustre d'abord comment le fédéralisme participe à la fragmentation de groupes marginalisés, tout en soulevant la nécessité d’élaborer des dispositifs fédéraux à partir des réalités, écosystèmes et environnements locaux. Puis, je montre comment une conception féministe radicale de l’empowerment peut modifier les perspectives d'analyse en études fédérales et rendre visibles des structures qui perpétuent les oppressions imbriquées au sein d'une fédération.

Cet article porte sur le débat idéologique que suscite l'interculturalisme dans le champ intellectuel québécois depuis les années 2000. S'il a longtemps servi de point de convergence entre intellectuel.le.s néonationalistes, cherchant à allier pluralisme et nationalisme, l'interculturalisme n'a toutefois pas empêché la recrudescence des appels en faveur du resserrement du contrôle sur les personnes migrantes et les pratiques culturelles minoritaires. Notre thèse est que cette tendance confirme l’éclipse de la tentative de concilier nationalisme et pluralisme au sein de l'interculturalisme québécois. Pour soutenir cette thèse, notre article documente la faiblesse de l'interculturalisme québécois devant les blocs idéologiques formés par le multiculturalisme fédéral, le nationalisme conservateur et la montée des critiques antiracistes et décoloniales au Québec. Face à ces positions rivales, les contradictions de l'interculturalisme quant au privilège de la majorité sur les minorités ont été mises au jour au fil de controverses que l'article examine sur une période de vingt ans.

Under what circumstances do central and local party actors engage in gatekeeping to influence the outcomes of local nomination races? In this article, I develop a theory of gatekeeping in Canadian parties by synthesizing past work on candidate selection with a multi-method field study of New Brunswick provincial nominations (2017–2018). I present evidence in favour of this theory from participant-observation of 25 nominating conventions, 93 elite interviews, and an original dataset of major party nominations for the 2018 New Brunswick election. The theory and evidence show how gatekeeping by central party actors helps explain how nominations can go uncontested, even in competitive and safe seats. The theory also generates several testable claims for future studies of candidate selection in other places, time periods and levels of government in Canada.

This article addresses second-wave feminist interventions in Canadian foreign policy debate with reference to two analytic streams: (1) political science and international relations (IR) perspectives since the late 1990s that stress the formal decisional aims of advocacy and the role of transnational networks in pressuring reluctant governments and (2) sociological approaches that underline movements’ cultural as well as statist dimensions and the significance of their domestic political strategies. Examining engagement by the Voice of Women (VOW) in nuclear weapons debates and National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) in free trade controversies confirms sociological expectations of campaigners’ varied claims and contributions and the importance of their political rootedness in Canada. Consistent with political science and IR arguments, the study finds NAC paid growing attention to international political opportunities in 1990 and following. The conclusion considers implications of the analysis and directions for future research.

One of the leading features of colonialism is the imposition on a given territory and people a framework for what constitutes authority that renders pre-existing governing practices and legal orders unrecognizable as features of legitimate law and governance. Understood in this way, colonialism renders Indigenous law and governing practices invisible. As a result, decolonization requires changing how authority is apprehended and not only how it is distributed. This article compares two frameworks of authority in relation to the conflict on Wet'suwet’en territory: liberal postcolonial statism and relational pluralism. It shows how each framework provides a distinct lens through which to understand the pertinent features of political authority but argues that relational pluralism presents a better account of how to reconceive political authority in the context of real-world conflict.

Perceptions of numbers (numerical estimations of migrant flows) and mental images (beliefs about characteristics and motives of immigrants) have been shown to be important predictors of cross-national immigration attitudes. However, this finding has seldom been verified in Canada. As a result, we know little about how Canadians estimate the amount and type of migrants coming into the country, what drives the generation of these numbers and images, and what the consequences of numerical estimations and mental images of immigration are for public attitudes toward immigration. Using nationally representative cross-sectional survey data from 2019, this article reports that Canadians generally overestimate the number of refugees and asylum-seekers coming into the country but are comparatively less prone to overestimating the overall number of immigrants. Canadians also rely on mental images about the reasons for immigrating to Canada that diverge from the realities of Canada's immigration program. We document how reliance on these numbers and images is driven by the type of media consumed, feelings of threat, and individual-level characteristics of Canadians. In doing so, this article demonstrates that mental images strongly influence Canadians’ attitudes toward immigration; numerical estimates also matter, but less so. Furthermore, perceptions of the number of migrants arriving affect latent preferences toward immigration—such as ethnocentrism, perceptions of “threat,” and border insecurity—while mental images shape both preferences for lowering immigration intake and latent preferences.

This article introduces White identity as an understudied concept in Canadian politics and compares how White settlers’ ingroup attachments and their outgroup attitudes—specifically, White settlers’ anti-Indigenous attitudes—shape Canadian politics. We find that White identity is associated with greater support for government spending on policies that disproportionately benefit White Canadians, such as pensions, whereas Indigenous resentment is associated with greater opposition toward government spending on policies that are often perceived as disproportionately benefiting Indigenous peoples, such as welfare. In Canada outside Quebec, both White identity and anti-Indigenous attitudes are associated with voting Conservative. In Quebec, White identity mobilizes support for the Bloc Québécois, while White settlers’ negative attitudes toward Indigenous peoples are not associated with vote choice.

The Supreme Court's recent invocation of the “constitutional architecture” in the Senate Reform Reference has led a number of scholars to question the status of constitutional conventions in the legal, as opposed to political, constitution. Has the Court, without expressly saying so, transformed at least some conventions into constitutional law? This would be a serious rupture, not only from existing precedent on the justiciability of conventions but also from the traditional understanding of conventions as binding political rules. In light of this recent scholarly debate, an exploration of the profound consequences of entrenching conventions in the legal constitution is warranted, as it implicates the meaning of constitutional conventions, their creation, their relation to law, and their enforcement. Judicial entrenchment of conventions would be a dangerous violation of the separation of powers and would have negative consequences for the functioning of Canada's system of government and for the future of constitutional change.

Recent reforms to the Canadian Senate removed senators from the Liberal Party caucus and changed the appointment process to be more nonpartisan. This article asks: to what extent did the reforms affect legislative oversight in the Senate? By studying the Senate's legislative amendments, I find that the reformed Senate is more willing to amend bills than it was previously. The reforms led to sharp increases in the Senate's amendment rate, the number of amendments moved and the percentage of successful motions in amendment. In interviews, senators revealed that they see oversight differently following the reforms. Senators no longer have opportunities to advise the government in caucus, so they have begun using amendments to exercise oversight. This article concludes that the reforms shifted senators’ understanding of their function of oversight, leading to a higher amendment rate and increased visible scrutiny of government by the Senate.

The COVID-19 pandemic offers a critical opportunity to assess the extent to which Canadians can be considered reliable defenders of democratic norms and institutions. In the face of such a serious threat to their physical and economic well-being, how willing are Canadians to condone the loosening of restraints on the power of the executive? This article addresses this question by drawing on the terror management and threat literatures. Combining a cross-sectional regression analysis with a vignette experiment and a candidate-choice conjoint experiment, it tests two hypotheses: that people experiencing debilitating anxiety about COVID-19 are more likely to favour weakening checks on the executive and that people will be willing to trade off legislative checks for the sake of their preferred lockdown policy. Both hypotheses are confirmed. In the face of an unprecedented health crisis, COVID-related anxiety and a desire for protective policies may trump respect for democratic norms.

As international migration has grown worldwide, the issue of how to assure the political rights of citizens living abroad has attracted much scholarly attention. One concern has been that if vote-buying is widespread in home countries, this practice could be exported to external elections. Although there have been numerous studies focused on electoral participation in external voting, there has been no systematic test of whether vote-buying is occurring across borders. This study aims to address this question by focusing on the 2018 federal elections in Mexico. Our list experiment shows that in our sample, approximately 32 per cent of Mexican immigrants in the United States experienced vote-buying during the electoral campaign. Furthermore, a multivariate analysis shows that the people most susceptible to vote-buying were living in areas where there was a high concentration of Mexican immigrants. The study results point to the importance of cross-border networks, which have been built between countries sending and receiving immigrants, in facilitating vote-buying across borders.

Canada has not escaped trends in most liberal democracies with the rapid growth of agencies created by government to deliver public goods, often justified on elements of their mandate—service delivery, adjudication of disputes, regulatory oversight, among others—benefiting from an arm's-length relationship to the government of the day. Yet Canadian studies of this phenomenon remain mostly absent from the robust comparative literature theorizing and documenting the emergence of widespread “agencification” and its relationship to performance. This article draws on the Government of Canada's Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) microdata from 2017 to test key hypotheses advanced by proponents of agencification, specifically that agencies are more innovative, autonomous and efficient public organizations. We discover that those working in agencies generally report less climate of innovation and less work autonomy than those working in departments, though some types of agencies—namely regulatory and parliamentary ones—defy these trends.

Using a new measure of urbanity for every federal electoral district in Canada from 1896 to the present, this article describes the long-term development of the urban-rural divide in Canadian federal elections. We focus on three questions: (1) when the urban-rural divide has existed in Canada, identifying three main periods—the 1920s, the 1960s and 1993–present—in which the urban-rural cleavage has been especially important in federal elections; (2) where the urban-rural divide has existed, finding that in the postwar period the urban-rural cleavage is a pan-Canadian phenomenon; and (3) how well urbanity predicts district-level election outcomes. We argue that the urban-rural divide is important for understanding election outcomes during several periods of Canadian political development, and never more so than in recent decades. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for research on urban-rural cleavages, Canadian electoral politics and Canadian political development.