Department graduates and faculty honoured with seven nominations for CPSA prizes
April 27, 2011
It has been a very good year for nominations from the Canadian Political Science Association from the Department of Political Science. We received nominations for current faculty, graduated PhDs, and current PhDs in every category except the French-language book prize. The nominations were as follows: Professor Stephen Clarkson is nominated for the Donald Smiley prize […]
Lawrence LeDuc warns that voter turnout could reach new low
April 26, 2011
Election campaigns nowadays are as consumed with the quandary of dwindling voter turnout as they are with party policies, political leadership and candidate blunders. Participation at the ballot box hit an all-time low in the 2008 federal campaign, dipping under 60 per cent for the first time. Despite the advent of vote mobs at university […]
Italy has a responsibility toward refugees, says Randall Hansen in the Globe and Mail
April 16, 2011
It is no surprise that the sudden influx of thousands of North African asylum-seekers into Italy has set off a polarizing immigration debate in Europe. After all, the arrival of fewer than 600 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers in Canada last year prompted such hand-wringing about lax immigration laws that the Harper government proposed a controversial bill […]
Sujit Choudhry's work on "voter dilution" of interest during Federal Election
April 14, 2011
Toronto is the centre of the universe. Let’s just admit it and move on. Except when a federal election rolls around. Then, Toronto and the Toronto region, home to more than one in six people in Canada, seem to just fall off the political map. This year, with some potential swing ridings in play within […]
Can Red Tories be resurrected? asks Carolyn Hughes Tuohy in the National Post
April 4, 2011
In the arid landscape of our current political debate, a once-thriving Canadian perennial struggles to survive: the Red Tory. Political scientist Gad Horowitz first identified the “Tory touch” in Canadian political thought, rooted in the history of English and French colonization and never rejected through Americanstyle revolution. This “organic” conception of society provided a meeting […]
Political Science faculty answer the question, "What does Canada stand for?" in the U of T Magazine
March 30, 2011
Lawrence Cannon’s face said it all. Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs looked glum, his eyes fixed on the dark green marble dais at the front of the United Nations General Assembly hall. The second-round votes for a coveted seat on the UN Security Council had been tallied and the news wasn’t good. Tiny, sun-kissed Portugal […]
We're fighting War Lite, writes Clifford Orwin
March 24, 2011
Humanitarian military interventions such as the one under way in Libya typically face just two main obstacles. The first is, they’re humanitarian. The second is, they’re military interventions. Humanitarianism means never having to say you’re sorry. The wars it generates present themselves as peace by other means. Not politics by other means – Clausewitz’s famous […]
New chair announced for Political Science Department at UTM
March 17, 2011
Professor Edward Schatz has been appointed as Chair, Department of Political Science at UTM for a three year term, effective July 1, 2012. Effective July 1, 2011, Professor Graham White will be Acting Chair for one year while Prof. Schatz is on a research and study leave. Professor Schatz, an expert on the ex-USSR, is […]
Art heals cruelty, says Ramin Jahanbegloo in the Toronto Star
March 14, 2011
They were forbidden to speak to each other, so the women in Iran’s Evin prison used Morse code to communicate. They knocked on walls and held mirrors through the barred windows to catch the sun and send messages of solidarity to their imprisoned sisters.
Clifford Orwin reviews Human Dignity by George Kateb in the Globe and Mail
March 13, 2011
Human dignity: All froth about it, but few discuss it with precision and nuance. That’s what Princeton political philosopher George Kateb sets out to do in this powerful and ambitious book. He provides a sterling example of one of the most challenging of genres, the philosophic essay. He writes not just for other scholars but […]