Login
Create Account
Canadian Store (CAD)
You are currently shopping in our Canadian store. For orders outside of Canada, please switch to our international store. International and US orders are billed in US dollars.
 |
Constant StruggleHistories of Canadian Democratization |
eBook Available
A provocative collection of essays that reshapes our common understanding of Canada’s history with democracy.
Most Canadians assume they live under some form of democracy. Yet confusion about the meaning of the word and the limits of the people’s power obscures a deeper understanding. Constant Struggle looks for the democratic impulse in Canada’s past to deconstruct how the country became a democracy, if in fact it ever did.
This volume asks what limits and contradictions have framed the nation’s democratization process, examining how democracy has been understood by those who have advocated for or resisted it and exploring key historical realities that have shaped it. Scholars from a range of disciplines tackle this elusive concept, suggesting that instead of looking for a simple narrative, we must be alert to the slower, untidier, and incomplete processes of democratization in Canada. Constant Struggle offers a renewed, sometimes unsettling depiction, stretching from studies of early Indigenous societies, through colonial North America and Confederation, into the twentieth century. Contributors reassess democracy in light of settler colonialism and white supremacy, investigate connections between capitalism and democracy, consider alternative conceptions of democracy from Canada’s past, and highlight the various ways in which the democratic ideal has been mobilized to advance particular visions of Canadian society.
Demonstrating that Canada’s democratization process has not always been one that empowered the people, Constant Struggle questions traditional views of the relationship between democracy and liberalism in Canada and around the world.
This volume asks what limits and contradictions have framed the nation’s democratization process, examining how democracy has been understood by those who have advocated for or resisted it and exploring key historical realities that have shaped it. Scholars from a range of disciplines tackle this elusive concept, suggesting that instead of looking for a simple narrative, we must be alert to the slower, untidier, and incomplete processes of democratization in Canada. Constant Struggle offers a renewed, sometimes unsettling depiction, stretching from studies of early Indigenous societies, through colonial North America and Confederation, into the twentieth century. Contributors reassess democracy in light of settler colonialism and white supremacy, investigate connections between capitalism and democracy, consider alternative conceptions of democracy from Canada’s past, and highlight the various ways in which the democratic ideal has been mobilized to advance particular visions of Canadian society.
Demonstrating that Canada’s democratization process has not always been one that empowered the people, Constant Struggle questions traditional views of the relationship between democracy and liberalism in Canada and around the world.
Details
Part of the Rethinking Canada in the World (number 9 in series)
504 Pages, 6 x 9
1 photo, 2 tables
ISBN 9780228008675
October 2021
Formats: Paperback, Cloth, eBook
"Constant Struggle is a major contribution to the history of democracy and political thought in Canada. It should be read by all those within and outside Canada who are concerned about the future of democracy." Eric Sager, University of Victoria and author of Inequality in Canada: The History and Politics of an Idea
"Constant Struggle is a challenging and innovative collection that comes out swinging: it will give thoughtful readers things to chew on!" Brian Young, McGill University and author of Patrician Families and the Making of Quebec: The Taschereaus and McCords
"Constant Struggle is a challenging and innovative collection that comes out swinging: it will give thoughtful readers things to chew on!" Brian Young, McGill University and author of Patrician Families and the Making of Quebec: The Taschereaus and McCords
Julien Mauduit is a SSHRC postdoctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins University.
Jennifer Tunnicliffe is assistant professor of history at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Jennifer Tunnicliffe is assistant professor of history at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Questioning Canadian Democracy 3
Julien Mauduit and Jennifer Tunnicliffe
PART ONE | OPENINGS
1 The Search for Canadian Democracy: Transnational Insights into Democratization 33
Dennis Pilon
2 First Nations, Colonialism, and the Issue of Equality from the Ancien Régime to Contemporary Democracy 58
Denys Delâge and Jean-Philippe Warren
PART TWO | DEMOCRATIC LIMITS AND PARADOXES, 1820S-60S
3 Democracy in a Settler State? Settler Colonialism and the Development of Canada, 1820-67 87
Angela Tozer
4 “A Terrible Engine in the Hands of the Provincial Administration”: The Corporate Franchise State and Joint-Stock Democracy in the Last of the Atlantic Revolutions 116
Albert Schrauwers
5 Incorporating Contributory Democracy: Self-Taxation and Self-Government in Upper Canada 148
Jeffrey L. McNairn
6 Conceptualizing Democratic Conservatism in 1850s Canada 172
E.A. Heaman
7 A Tendency towards Mobocracy? The Democratic Realities of Nineteenth-Century British North America 203
Colin Grittner
PART THREE | STRUGGLES AROUND “LIBERAL DEMOCRACY,” 1940S-90S
8 Human Rights Activists’ Struggles to Forge a More Egalitarian Democracy in Canada in the 1940s and 1950s 235
Ruth A. Frager and Carmela Patrias
9 “Will Freedom Survive?”: Reconstruction, Self-Disciplined Democracy, and the Stirring of a New Right in Canada, 1943-54 264
Will Langford
10 The Real World of Democracy? C.B. Macpherson’s Critique of the Cold War Reification of “Liberal Democracy,” 1965 297
Ian McKay
11 Recognition as Regulation: Liberal Democracy and Sexual Citizenship in Canada 319
Leonard Halladay
PART FOUR | HISTORY AND BEYOND
12 Community and Expertise in Canadian Democracy since 1920 355
Shirley Tillotson
13 Reckoning with the Realities of History: The Politics of White Supremacy and the Expansion of Settler Democracy in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 390
Henry Yu
Bibliography 423
Index 483
Introduction: Questioning Canadian Democracy 3
Julien Mauduit and Jennifer Tunnicliffe
PART ONE | OPENINGS
1 The Search for Canadian Democracy: Transnational Insights into Democratization 33
Dennis Pilon
2 First Nations, Colonialism, and the Issue of Equality from the Ancien Régime to Contemporary Democracy 58
Denys Delâge and Jean-Philippe Warren
PART TWO | DEMOCRATIC LIMITS AND PARADOXES, 1820S-60S
3 Democracy in a Settler State? Settler Colonialism and the Development of Canada, 1820-67 87
Angela Tozer
4 “A Terrible Engine in the Hands of the Provincial Administration”: The Corporate Franchise State and Joint-Stock Democracy in the Last of the Atlantic Revolutions 116
Albert Schrauwers
5 Incorporating Contributory Democracy: Self-Taxation and Self-Government in Upper Canada 148
Jeffrey L. McNairn
6 Conceptualizing Democratic Conservatism in 1850s Canada 172
E.A. Heaman
7 A Tendency towards Mobocracy? The Democratic Realities of Nineteenth-Century British North America 203
Colin Grittner
PART THREE | STRUGGLES AROUND “LIBERAL DEMOCRACY,” 1940S-90S
8 Human Rights Activists’ Struggles to Forge a More Egalitarian Democracy in Canada in the 1940s and 1950s 235
Ruth A. Frager and Carmela Patrias
9 “Will Freedom Survive?”: Reconstruction, Self-Disciplined Democracy, and the Stirring of a New Right in Canada, 1943-54 264
Will Langford
10 The Real World of Democracy? C.B. Macpherson’s Critique of the Cold War Reification of “Liberal Democracy,” 1965 297
Ian McKay
11 Recognition as Regulation: Liberal Democracy and Sexual Citizenship in Canada 319
Leonard Halladay
PART FOUR | HISTORY AND BEYOND
12 Community and Expertise in Canadian Democracy since 1920 355
Shirley Tillotson
13 Reckoning with the Realities of History: The Politics of White Supremacy and the Expansion of Settler Democracy in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 390
Henry Yu
Bibliography 423
Index 483
