forodwaith asked why Canada is more liberal, socially, than the US, and I'm also mulling that over. I think we're secretly in love with lawyers, since 99% of our politicians seem to have been practicing lawyers at one point in their career.
Can the comparative/international political scientist chime in? I'm not sure I'd agree with the lawyers argument - that would suggest, since your rate of lawyers-in-politics is higher than the US (only about 2/3 here), that change in Canada should be SLOWER than in the United States.
On the other hand, Canadian social policy is more liberal than American all the way back through the interwar years. I'm going to attribute at least part of the difference to the nature of the federal units in the two countries. US units are generally quite similar - they don't often differ too markedly on most social, economic, cultural etc. criteria. Canada, on the other hand, is QUITE different. The presence of Quebec, whose industrial/economic and cultural profile is a lot different than the others, and the federal/parliamentary nature of the political system (which encourages compromise/collaboration across multiple province-based parties to form governments), creates an environment where social benefits can be used as goodies to buy cooperation. It keeps rather wealth Quebec in the federation, and satisfies the needs of other groups. [I'm having serious recollections of the health care system being largely the result of a compromise between a Quebec-based party and another major party. NO CLUE what source I'm pulling from though - Huber and Stephens 2001?]
There's also the prominent fact that in the post-war period, most of the issues that divide US conservatives and liberals (particularly the highly salient foreign policy/'role in the world' ones that define the conservatives) are largely absent from Canadian politics. One of the advantages of not being the neighborhood gorilla, I suppose. Without the extensive defense policy commitments, more funds are available for social policy. Once these policies are in place, they create a constituency in favor of their continuation. With basic bread and butter issues securely removed from the political field because of this (while they're still major issues in the US), Canadians were able to shift their interests to additional questions which tend to flow logically from the policies provided. (i.e., is abortion a 'health care service'?) The general result of moving the bread-and-butter, basic-subsistence-level questions out of political discourse is that the elements which define conservative and liberal - role of the state in the economy, public (vs private) provision of social services, etc. - are no longer as prominent and discussion shifts to other things.
Anyway.... 'Tis enough impromptu lecture for today. :-) I'm curious to know the take of other Canadians though - are my largely-institutional arguments out of touch with practical Canadian politics?
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branchandroot
Canada vs US on liberalism
Date: 2004-11-06 10:07 am (UTC)Can the comparative/international political scientist chime in? I'm not sure I'd agree with the lawyers argument - that would suggest, since your rate of lawyers-in-politics is higher than the US (only about 2/3 here), that change in Canada should be SLOWER than in the United States.
On the other hand, Canadian social policy is more liberal than American all the way back through the interwar years. I'm going to attribute at least part of the difference to the nature of the federal units in the two countries. US units are generally quite similar - they don't often differ too markedly on most social, economic, cultural etc. criteria. Canada, on the other hand, is QUITE different. The presence of Quebec, whose industrial/economic and cultural profile is a lot different than the others, and the federal/parliamentary nature of the political system (which encourages compromise/collaboration across multiple province-based parties to form governments), creates an environment where social benefits can be used as goodies to buy cooperation. It keeps rather wealth Quebec in the federation, and satisfies the needs of other groups. [I'm having serious recollections of the health care system being largely the result of a compromise between a Quebec-based party and another major party. NO CLUE what source I'm pulling from though - Huber and Stephens 2001?]
There's also the prominent fact that in the post-war period, most of the issues that divide US conservatives and liberals (particularly the highly salient foreign policy/'role in the world' ones that define the conservatives) are largely absent from Canadian politics. One of the advantages of not being the neighborhood gorilla, I suppose. Without the extensive defense policy commitments, more funds are available for social policy. Once these policies are in place, they create a constituency in favor of their continuation. With basic bread and butter issues securely removed from the political field because of this (while they're still major issues in the US), Canadians were able to shift their interests to additional questions which tend to flow logically from the policies provided. (i.e., is abortion a 'health care service'?) The general result of moving the bread-and-butter, basic-subsistence-level questions out of political discourse is that the elements which define conservative and liberal - role of the state in the economy, public (vs private) provision of social services, etc. - are no longer as prominent and discussion shifts to other things.
Anyway.... 'Tis enough impromptu lecture for today. :-) I'm curious to know the take of other Canadians though - are my largely-institutional arguments out of touch with practical Canadian politics?