Political Behaviour/Sociology

F12 - Civil Society, Education, and Power / Société civile, éducation et pouvoir

Date: Jun 4 | Time: 12:00pm to 01:30pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Hailey-Ann Walker (Carleton University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Kenny Ie (University of British Columbia)

Voluntary Silence: Civil Society and Policy Engagement in Canadian Federal Elections: John Cameron (Dalhousie University), Lauchlan Munro (University of Ottawa)
Abstract: This paper explores public policy engagement by civil society organizations (CSOs) during federal elections in Canada. In theory, elections represent an important opportunity for CSOs to engage Canadians in public policy debates. However, very few CSOs do this. Our paper seeks to explain why. The Elections Act requires that third parties that spend more than $500 to promote a public policy position during a federal election must register with Elections Canada and report their spending. Data from the last 8 federal elections (2000-2021) show that few CSOs have ever registered and that most reported spending very small amounts. CSOs that normally engage in public policy advocacy go silent during elections. Using Elections Canada data on third party registrations as a starting point, this paper is based on interviews with CSO leaders from various sectors about decisions to register during the 2015, 2019 and 2021 federal elections and ongoing research about decisions to register in the next federal election. The complexity of the Elections Act is an important constraint for some CSOs but two other factors are more important: 1) concerns to appear non-partisan to politicians and voters, and 2) the difficulties and high costs of being heard during elections campaigns. The paper also reflects on the implications for democracy of CSO policy engagement during elections in relation to contemporary debates about how to ensure a level playing field for political parties and candidates in Canadian elections (including the current challenge to Ontario’s election law at the Supreme Court of Canada).

The Fluidity of Belonging and Exclusion: Counterpublics in the Public education sphere: Noorin Nazari (University of Ottawa)
Abstract: This article argues that the notion that, in authoritarian contexts, the ruling authority attains ideological indoctrination and social control through public education undermines the resilience, resistance, inherent dynamism, and shifting nature of the multiple counterpublics within public education institutions. I demonstrate how public education and the public sphere overlap and share social figures and assets. Together, they produce counterpublics that resist and overthrow authoritative regimes from within public education institutions, only to become authoritative powers themselves and suppress the subsequent counterpublics that form against them in the shared space of public education and the public sphere. This article contributes to understanding state-society relations in an educational context by illustrating that belonging and exclusion in authoritarian regimes are fluid conceptually and empirically. Methodologically, I employ historiography (Gale, 2001; Brezinka, 1992) and the historiography of education (Goodman & Martin, 2004; Brezinka, 1992), as well as a positional approach to elite studies (Lunding, Ellergaard & Larsen, 2020), which emphasize the significance of multiple subject matters, plural publics, the connection between public issues and private troubles, and public personas. Conceptually, I employ the public sphere framework (Habermas, 1984; 1989) and its critiques concerning counterpublics (Fraser, 1990; 1992; Warner, 2002) and civil society (Cohen & Arato, 1992), both in general and in Islamic societies (Eickelman & Salvatore, 2002; Willemse & Bergh, 2016). Empirically, I provide a historical analysis of public education in Afghanistan, using sources from international and Afghan authors.

Analyzing the Complex Interrelation Between Curriculum, Community, and Conflict: Noorin Nazari (University of Ottawa)
Abstract: The conventional analysis of the interplay between curriculum, community, and conflict often fails to capture the complexity of these elements, as it assumes a linear relationship among them. This article argues that the contexts in which states produce curricula, communities consume curricula, and conflicts reproduce curriculum texts that lack defined boundaries. Each of these elements gains meaning through diverse texts and contexts that are neither fixed nor coherent, resulting in conditions of forged unity marked by incoherent, negotiated, and impermanent texts. Focusing on the curriculum, community, and conflict context in Afghanistan during the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan rule (2001-2021), this paper finds that education in Afghanistan was significantly influenced by factors beyond the scope of governmental political influence, curriculum objectives, community commitment to education, and conflict conditions. The study employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1996; Wodak & Meyer, 2001), incorporating its three dimensions: text, discourse practice (i.e., text production, distribution, and consumption cycle), and social practice (i.e., context). Analytical devices include representational systems (Hall, 1997) and articulation (Hall, 1988; 1985). Primary texts comprise three five-year National Education Strategic Plans (2006-2010; 2010-2014; and 2017-2021), two National Curriculum Frameworks (2003 and 2011), and the Education Law of Afghanistan (2008). Secondary texts include official documents, reports from national and international non-governmental organizations, and scholarly resources.

Political Culture Meets Public Opinion: The Case of Alberta: Jared Wesley (University of Alberta)
Abstract: Political scientists typically treat political culture as an aggregation of public opinion over time. But what happens when individual attitudes conflict with age-old conceptions of how politics "should be" conducted in a given community? Alberta provides a prime case study in this disjunction. Based on five years of survey and focus group data, the Common Ground initiative has been investigating the difference between who Albertans are as individuals and who they see themselves to be as a community. The results reveal a provincial population that is decidedly more moderate (and even progressive) than its wild-west (conservative) political culture suggests. This paper examines the roots of this misalignment, its consequences on politics in the province, and its implications for studying the intersection of political culture and public opinion.