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Temporalities Of Revolution: On The Representation Of History And Collective Action, Nicholas D. Tostowaryk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis opens with a discussion of Rosa Luxemburg’s notion of “spontaneity,” which departs from a consideration of Luxemburg’s scientific socialism, the inevitability of capitalist collapse, and her assertion of socialism as the objective response to the contradictions of capitalism. For Luxemburg, then, spontaneity refers to the way in which proletarian consciousness forms in response to these conditions. The second chapter argues that Luxemburg’s notion of spontaneity represents what Walter Benjamin would call an historical articulation of the past, which is an articulation of the present and its struggles in terms of their historicity. I develop this argument through a …

C-Dem Researchers Meeting Notes, November 10, 2019, Consortium On Electoral Democracy

Meeting Notes

No abstract provided.

Terrorism And Its Legal Aftermath: The Limits On Freedom Of Expression In Canada’S Anti-Terrorism Act & National Security Act, Percy Sherwood

FIMS Publications

This analysis aims to demonstrate how s. 83.221 in Bill C-51 is likely to violate freedom of expression guaranteed under the Charter. The first section employs the two-step Irwin Toy analysis to show that the speech offense infringes upon s. 2(b) of the Charter. The second section uses the Oakes test to determine whether the breach of freedom of expression is a reasonable limit. On whether the speech offense can be justified under s. 1 of the Charter as a reasonable limit, the legislation fails at the third and fourth step of the Oakes test. Section three of this paper …

The Politics Of Where: The Federal Government And Canada's Urbanization, 1867-2017, Charles D. Crenna

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation responds to a single overarching research question: what is the nature and extent of the federal government’s influence on urbanization in Canada, both on its systems of cities and on their internal structure? Lessons learned regarding the federal role in Canada’s urbanization remain relevant and applicable to emerging conditions. They offer a sound, streetwise foundation for future urban policy development, based on understanding the vital politics of where.

Large, complex systems of cities are both self-organizing and responsive to strategic guidance by the federal government. Politically-difficult choices among competing urban locations can be made both by hiding …

The Rohingya Muslims’ Crisis In The Rakhine State Of Myanmar: ‘Recognition As Toleration’ And ‘Religious Toleration’, Md. Ishrat Ibne Ismail, Md. Ishrat Ibne Ismail

Western Research Forum

Title:

The Rohingya Muslims’ Crisis in the Rakhine State of Myanmar: ‘Recognition as Toleration’ and ‘Religious Toleration’

Abstract:

The inhuman annihilation of the Rohingya people from the Rakhine state by the Myanmar military and the Buddhist majority, which is supported by the Myanmar government as they watched the massacre silently, could be considered as genocide. Ashley Kinseth claims: “in terms of rate of escalation, this is the greatest mass exodus - and has the makings to become the most significant humanitarian catastrophe - since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when over 800,000 Hutus and moderate Tutsis were slaughtered.” The main reason …

The Fear And Biopolitical Control Of The ‘Terrorist Other’, Percy Percy Sherwood

Western Research Forum

“I think Islam hates us,” Donald Trump said as a presidential candidate in a CNN interview in March 2016, conflating the religion with ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ Trump’s statement exemplifies the prevailing fabricated enemy and resulting Islamophobia in the context of the ‘global war on terror.’ Since 9/11, powerful actors are using abstractions, ideologies, and narratives—that are usually defined along racial lines—to conjure up a fear so permeable that it serves to legitimize massive levels of violence in the name of self-righteousness. How do the racist abstractions, ideologies, and narratives that are associated with Islam and Muslims produce fear and insecurity …

A Geology Of The General Intellect, Dillon Douglas

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We can no longer be certain whether the central terms and conceptual matrix that the Italian Autonomist Marxist tradition richly develops and draws on--the common, the general intellect, immaterial labour, psychopolitics, cognitariat--are able to survive unscathed the theoretical problems that the epoch of the Anthropocene poses. In an attempt to push this conceptual matrix to its political and ontological limits, I expose a series of “ecological deficits” at the core of Autonomist thought and make the argument that semiocapitalism is a geological operator just as much it is a cognitive, financial or linguistic one. …

C-Dem Partners Meeting Minutes May 29, 2019, Consortium On Electoral Democracy

Meeting Notes

No abstract provided.

Frontiers Of Care, Thomas E. Randall

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Care ethics is a feminist normative theory that emphasizes the moral significance of our relational interdependency in the provision and receipt of care. On this view, ethical action is situated and evaluated as it emerges through caring relations. However, an oft-cited criticism of care ethics is that its normative frontiers cannot be extended to the wider concerns of justice that lie beyond our relational limits. In this dissertation, I outline and defend an interpretation of care ethics that shows how the values of care identified within our personal relations can be abstracted to show that we do have certain obligations …

Sustainability In The Suburbs? Oakville’S Sustainable Development Journey, Kristopher Kowalchuk

2019 Undergraduate Awards

This paper is meant to serve as an entry point into the topic of Canadian suburban sustainability initiatives. The goal is to assess whether Canadian suburbs can strive to be more than just local growth machines set on consuming greenspace for the sake of ever-more development. Oakville, Ontario, a city located within one of the most rapidly expanding suburban populations in North America, is looked at specifically to determine whether city officials can promote economic growth while simultaneously taking into consideration ecological impacts. Oakville’s sustainable development journey is measured and evaluated using Clarence Stone’s regime analysis. This research has found …

Personality, Politics, And Religion, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Individual differences in personality, religiosity, and political dispositions often are explained in conjunction with one another. Though the religious and political may share common themes of meaning-making, group identity, and societal organization, personality also influences these orientations. Specifically, the Big Five traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability) and authoritarianism demonstrate consistent relationships with religious/ political beliefs and behaviors. Personality is often thought of as the first mover to develop with an individual before exposure to the other two domains, leading to a conceptual influence model of: personality → religiosity → politics. Using longitudinal studies and genetically informed samples, however, …

'Finding Peace In A World Where You Mean Nothing': The Implications Of 'One Rwanda' On Rwandan Lgbti And Twa Minorities, Christopher Anthony

2019 Undergraduate Awards

In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, the Rwandan government was faced with a herculean task of restoring peace, stability and unity to a divided, traumatized state. Led by President Kagame, the government instituted a comprehensive national unity and reconciliation policy to bring together divided “ethnic” groups, Hutu perpetrators and Tutsi survivors, and create one Rwandan identity. From an outsider’s perspective, this policy was a monumental success and an example for other post-conflict states on how to create peace. However, is our jubilation towards Rwanda’s “success” premature? Are we looking at post-genocide Rwanda through rose-coloured lenses? Utilizing …

Bangladesh’S Unlikely Attainment Of The 4th Millennium Development Goal, Marisa E.N. Coulton

2019 Undergraduate Awards

This study centers on the 2015 “Millennium Development Goals,” (MDGs) a historic United Nations initiative aimed at bridging many of the world’s inequalities. Since its conclusion, the success of the project has been hotly debated, as progress at the international level was markedly uneven. In order to ensure the success of future initiatives, it is necessary to determine why these goals failed so decisively in some contexts but succeeded in others. Given the innumerable nations involved in the project, the scope of the essay was narrowed to focus on a single country and MDG goal. This study centers on the …

Digital Segregation: Gender, Occupation, And Access To Politics, Amanda Friesen, Ryan Burge, Kylee Britzman

Political Science Publications

In the United States, women often show less interest in politics, and under some conditions, perform worse than men on political knowledge tests. In an age where education levels have reached parity, we suggest one of the explanations for gender differences in political engagement might be due to selection of occupation. Past research has shown women and men segregate into different occupations due to early gender socialization, differences in interest, and structural barriers. It is possible that due to these segregation effects, women in traditional female occupations (e.g., education, health care, service work) may have less access to personal Internet …

Generational Change? The Effects Of Family, Age, And Time On Moral Foundations, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

One way to uncover the persistent role of religion across generations is to look past traditional understandings of religious belief and denominational belonging and examine the presence of bedrock principles that could influence political beliefs in families. The Moral Foundations framework was developed for this purpose – to describe human behavior and attitudes in the moral realm without relying upon country, culture, or time specific labels. In an original and rare three-generation dataset, college students, their parents, and their grandparents were asked about political attitudes and preferences for the Moral Foundations of Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. The Foundations …