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1. Political Sociology: Canadian Perspectives.................................................................................................. 1

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Political Sociology: Canadian Perspectives

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Abstrak: Mahon reviews Political Sociology: Canadian Perspectives edited by Douglas Baer.
Teks lengkap: Political Sociology: Canadian Perspectives, edited by Douglas Baer. Don Mills, Ontario, Canada:
Oxford University Press, 2002. 348 pp. $42.00 paper. ISBN: 0-19-541109-9.
The provision of a good introductory text to political sociology from Canadian perspectives is a useful
contribution, especially given the earlier (and still extant) tendency simply to import texts from elsewhere,
notably the United States. It is important that students are introduced to concepts in ways that engage with their
everyday lives. They also need to be made aware of the theoretical contributions of Canadian scholars to the
field. Baer's edited collection highlights one important characteristic of Canadian political sociology, the relative
strength of the Marxist legacy and the concomitant attention paid to social class, even by non-Marxists; and one
distinctive aspect of Canadian politics and society, the Quebec question. Too little attention is paid to other
aspects of contemporary Canada, however, and in the areas covered, important Canadian contributions are
ignored.
This collection certainly reflects the importance of social class to Canadian political sociology. Not only is a
whole section devoted to politics and social class, but class plays an important role in Baer's own chapter on
ideology, in Julia O'Connor's excellent review of theoretical perspectives on the welfare state and, at least
indirectly, in William Carroll's superb essay on theorizing social movements, which concludes with his own
Gramscian insights. While Gidengil's solid contribution on class voting refers to Janine Brodie and Jane
Jenson's original contribution, it is surprising that the section on "political beliefs and political culture" contains
no reference to the important work being done on "discourse," including work by Canadians.
Baer has also chosen to highlight the Quebec question as a distinctive challenge, or set of challenges, for
Canadian political sociologists. Alan Jeffrey uses the idea of Quebec's secession from Canada to explore
certain theses about the late modern state, while Mary Ellen Turpel directly confronts the tensions between
Quebec and Aboriginal claims to sovereignty. Maurice Pinard, who helped pioneer the study of political behavior
in Canada and Quebec, reflects on the stages of the Quebec independence movement. Claude Denis' chapter
offers the most original contribution: Using an interesting "post-structuralist" approach, he develops the thesis
that the 1988 federal election represented a moment when the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP)
stood poised to make a breakthrough in Quebec. Mistakes by the leadership, not historical inevitability,
determined the outcome.
The Quebec question(s), and the ethnic and linguistic issues it raises, do represent an important area for
Canadian political sociologists. This book does not, however, do justice to the multiethnic, multiracial society
Canada has become. Aboriginal peoples live in all parts of Canada and, in fact, constitute a very significant part
of the population, and of politics, in Western Canada. Turpel's chapter is not enough to do justice to this
important dimension. Immigration has made Canada a multiethnic and multiracial society from the outset. The
recent flow of peoples has only accentuated this aspect and stimulated important scholarly contributions by
Canadians on citizenship, race, and ethnicity. This whole area of Canadian (and international) political sociology
is ignored in this volume.
What of gender? Changes in families, labor markets, and states fueled, in Canada as elsewhere, second and
third waves of feminist politics. The women's movement(s) intersect with struggles around nation (Canadian,
Quebec, Aboriginal) and class (the "working class feminism" described by Heather Jon Maroney). The visibility
enjoyed by feminism in the 1980s, in turn, sparked a made-in-Canada backlash in the form of organizations like
REAL women. All of these developments have been explored by Canadian and Quebec scholars but one will
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not find reference to their work here. Gender figures in this collection only in two, albeit very good, chapters:
O'Connor's, which reviews the international literature on the welfare state, and Norine Verberg's fine chapter on
the politics of housing.
The section on "the state" is especially disappointing. Baer's introduction to the section discusses Marxist and
"power resource" contributions from elsewhere, completely ignoring the earlier literature produced by Canadian
Marxists and socialist-feminists, not to mention more recent work exploring the impact of "neo-liberal"
restructuring and the role played by the state, federal, and provincial, therein. In different ways, Jeffrey and
Turpel raise questions about the continued centrality ascribed to the national/federal level as a site of political
struggle. In the political movements section, Trevor Harrison places the rise of Canada's neoconservative
Reform (now Alliance) party in the longer perspective of Western populism while Edward Bell provides a
historical analysis of left and right in prairie politics. Yet little attention is paid overall to the subnational-provincial
and local-as increasingly important sites of political mobilization. More broadly, the book ignores the powerful
(Canadian and international) literature on "moral regulation" and "governmentality" that argues that the study of
power relations requires a more radical "decentring" of states.
Baer's collection has some very good pieces in it and does provide some insight into contemporary Canadian
politics and Canadian political sociology. There are, however, important substantial and theoretical lacunae.
AuthorAffiliation
RIANNE MAHON
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
rmahon@ccs.carleton.ca
Subjek: Nonfiction; Politics; Sociology; Social classes; Marxism;
Lokasi: Canada
Orang: Baer, Douglas
Judul: Political Sociology: Canadian Perspectives
Pengarang: Mahon, Rianne
Judul publikasi: Contemporary Sociology
Volume: 32
Edisi: 6
Halaman: 757-758
Tahun publikasi: 2003
Tanggal publikasi: Nov 2003
Tahun: 2003
Bagian: Politics, social movements, and the state
Penerbit: American Sociological Association
Tempat publikasi: Washington
Negara publikasi: United States
Subjek publikasi: Bibliographies, Sociology, Sociology--Abstracting, Bibliographies, Statistics
ISSN: 00943061
CODEN: COSOAG

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Jenis sumber: Scholarly Journals

Bahasa publikasi: English
Jenis dokumen: Book Review-Favorable
ID dokumen ProQuest: 233613298
URL Dokumen: http://search.proquest.com/docview/233613298?accountid=25704
Hak cipta: Copyright American Sociological Association Nov 2003
Terakhir diperbarui: 2012-07-24
Basis data: ProQuest Social Science Journals
ProQuest Sociology

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