Anglo-American Democracies Research Articles

The Development of the Urban-Rural Cleavage in Anglo-American Democracies.

We provide a mixed-methods, comparative analysis of the development of the urban-rural electoral cleavage in Canada, Great Britain, and the United States from the early 20th century to the present. Using aggregate election results, electoral district boundary files, and electoral district population measures, we construct a new comparable dataset of district election results and urbanity for the lower house of the legislature in each country. We use this dataset to measure the importance of the urban-rural divide for election outcomes across countries and time. We find that the cleavage has widened over time in each country, each arrived at its current urban-rural divide via a distinct developmental trajectory, which we interpret with reference to secondary literature. We conclude by discussing the significance of our findings for theories of both the causes and consequences of urban-rural divides and discuss the implications of our work for the comparative study of urban-rural cleavages.

COVID-19 amongst western democracies: A welfare state analysis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in more than 282 million cases and almost 5.5 million deaths (WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard, 2022). Its impact, however, has not been uniform. This analysis examines differences in COVID-19 cases and mortality rates amongst different welfare states within the first three waves of the pandemic using repeated measures Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA). Liberal states fared much better on the number of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and excess deaths than the Conservative/Corporatist welfare democracies. Social Democratic countries, in turn, did not fare any better than their Conservative/Corporatist counterparts once potential confounding economic and political variables were accounted for: countries’ economic status, healthcare spending, availability of medical personnel, hospital beds, pandemic-related income support and debt relief, electoral events, and left-power mobilization. The pandemic-related welfare responses after the first wave were similar across all three types of western democracies, but the differences in pandemic outcomes remained. The somewhat better outlook of the Liberal states could be attributed to the so-called social democratization of the Anglo-American democracies, but also to the fact that neoliberalism could have flattened the previous differences between the welfare states typologies and could have brought states closer to each other, ideologically speaking, in terms of welfare provision.

Online coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak in Anglo-American democracies: internet news coverage and pandemic politics in the USA, Canada, and New Zealand

ABSTRACT We examine how internet media outlets in key Anglo-American democracies differed under a similar external shock: the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. COVID-19 posed a special challenge to democracy, juxtaposing it with alternative forms of government, which may be better positioned to deal with such a crisis. The online media, as the watchdog of democracy, played a key role. As the pandemic started to spread worldwide, three democracies – the USA, Canada, and New Zealand – were of particular interest. The USA had the highest number of cases and deaths, considerably more than its neighbor to the north. NZ was the democracy that most effectively dealt with the pandemic. We comprehensively study the coverage of the outbreak on the internet website of a newspaper of record in each. Data were harvested for the universe of 27,089 articles published online between mid-February and early May on the websites of the New York Times, New Zealand Herald, and the Globe and Mail. Natural learning processing and dependency parsing are the methods used to analyze the data. We find meaningful differences between the outlets in timing, structure, and content. Compared with their US counterpart, the online watchdogs of democracy in Canada and NZ – where COVID-19 politics were far more effective – barked louder, clearer and 2 weeks earlier.

Boomers and Generation Z on campus: Expectations, goals, and experiences.

Compared to the other Anglo-American democracies, when they start job searches, Canadian post-secondary graduates likely confront more competition from similarly educated youth, and experience a relatively high unemployment rate. In addition, should they find work, there is no guarantee for graduates that it will be in their area of specialization. There is an added possibility that employment will be precarious. By comparison, in the mid-sixties, labour market conditions were more accommodating to university graduates. Are these different labour market conditions consistent with students' expectations, goals, and campus experiences prior to graduation? An answer to this question was found through a comparison of those entering Glendon College, York University, in 1963, and in 2013. The examination was based on surveys students completed in 1963, 1967, 2013, and 2017. Data from these sources was. supplemented by information obtained through interviews with students, archival materials, and by analyzing the contents of the student newspaper. Overall, the expectations of Glendon students in the 1960s, and 50 years later, were in keeping with respective favourable and unfavorable labour market conditions. For students' experiences this was not the case. Despite considerable changes in the labour market, the way in which students experienced their time on campus was comparable in the two eras.

The Personalization of Politics in Anglo-American Democracies

In American politics, few argue with the idea that leaders matter: in the 2020 American election, the media closely tracked the performance and activities of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, for example, suggesting to us that who they are matters. Voters indicate on their ballot which presidential candidate they prefer, marking an x next to the person’s name, giving further credence to the idea that the individual matters in the process. Contemporary Anglo-Westminster-style democracies have many things in common with the United States, but operate with completely different political systems, and without a direct vote for a specific party leader. What is the relationship between voters and party leaders in these contexts? Do party leaders matter the same way in these countries? Has this relationship changed over time? Are we really seeing the personalization of parliamentary elections, as some scholars have suggested? The personalization literature provides us with mixed evidence of the increasing importance of leaders, and part of the reason for that maybe linked to the lack of comparable data. This paper assesses the role of leaders in the United States as well as four parliamentary democracies (Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia) over time. Combining data from the election studies of these five countries from the 1960 s to the present, the analyses presented here suggest that leaders are not increasingly important to voters over time, but that leaders have always been important to election outcomes. What has changed over time, however, is the way partisans see the leaders of other parties. Partisans are increasingly polarized in their views of opposing party leaders, and this has the potential to change the impact of leaders in the electoral process.

Reconceptualizing the Watchdog: Comparing Media Coverage of COVID-19 Response in Democracy

What is the role of the watchdog of democracy in the Information Age? We augment a theory that focuses on accountability as the key element of watchdog journalism and propose an innovative framework concentrating on structure, content and timing of media coverage. Methodologically, we introduce artificial intelligence analyses and data mining to a comparative field largely dominated by econometrics and case studies. We investigate the variance between media coverage in Anglo-American democracies during the first months of the COVID-19 crisis, by comparing the USA, Canada and New Zealand. All 27,089 articles published in the New Zealand Herald, The Globe and Mail and the New York Times from February-May 2020 were harvested. AI analyses suggest meaningful differences in structure (networks of COVID-19 articles), content (politicized coverage) and timing. Compared with their US counterpart, the watchdogs of democracy in Canada and NZ barked louder, clearer and 2 weeks earlier.

Introducing Social Study as a Subject and Educational Discourses about Korean History during the Syllabus Period (1945~1955) - With Sa Kong-hwan and Son Jin-tae as the central figure -

해방 직후 한국 사회에서는 일제의 잔재를 청산하고 민족정신을 앙양해야 하는 과제가 부과되었으나 미군정은 냉전체제에 따라 사회주의의 전파를 억제하고 미국식 민주주의를 이식하는 것이 우선적이었다. 이러한 미군정의 목적에 달성하기 위하여 미군정은 학교 교육에서 미군정의 목적과 한국민의 요구를 수용한 교과목으로서 지리, 공민과 함께 역사과를 묶은 사회생활과를 도입하였다. 사회생활과의 도입에 앞장 선 인물은 오천석, 사공환 등이었으며, 사공환은 실무를 담당한 것으로 보인다. 그에 따르면 국사교과는 흥국적 사명을 가진 것으로서 정신적 측면과 물질적 측면 모두에서 민족의 생활·문화 창조와 국민의 사상 선도에 기여해야 한다는 것에 그 의의가 있었다. 정부 수립 이후에는 민족 聖祖로서의 단군, 혈통 중심의 민족 개념과 사상통일, 민주주의의 원리로서의 ‘홍익인간’과 ‘화백제도’, 개인보다는 전체를 강조하였던 안호상 문교부장관의 민주주의 민족교육(민주적 민족교육)론은 대한민국의 교육론으로 자리잡았으며, 손진태와 사공환 등 국사교육 담당자들은 이에 적극 협력하였다. 문교부 편수국장과 차관을 역임한 손진태는 신민족주의를 주창하면서 영미적 민주주의와 소련의 사회주의를 배척하는 한편 양자의 장점을 취하고 단점을 버려 우리 민족에 적절하고 유리한 민주주의적 민족주의, 즉 신민족주의를 채택해야 한다고 주장하였다. 그는 자신의 주장이 안호상의 민주주의 민족교육론과 일맥상통한다고 생각하였으나 안호상의 민주주의 민족교육론은 국가주의적 성격을 갖는 것으로 그의 주장과는 결이 다른 것이었다. 이에 그와 안호상 문교부 장관 사이에는 의견의 충돌이 생겼으며, 이에 그는 문교부 차관직을 사임하였던 것으로 보인다. 결론적으로 보면 교수요목기 한국사 교육은 미군정이 도입한 사회생활과의 틀에서 이루어졌으며, 정부 수립 이후 신민족주의에 입각하여 한국사 교육을 실시하고자 하였던 손진태 등의 노력은 무산되고, 안호상의 민주주의 민족교육론에 입각한 국가주의적 성격의 교육이 실시되었음을 알 수 있었다. 즉 국사과목이 이승만 정권의 정치적 목적에 이용되었음을 의미하는 것으로도 이해될 수 있다는 점에서 이후 한국사 교육이 정치권에 의해 그 교육 내용과 성격이 좌우될 수 있는 단초를 제공하였다고 할 수 있다는 점에 역사적 의미를 부여할 수 있을 것이다.After Korea s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, Korea sought to clean up the remnants of Japanese colonial rule and promote national spirit, but the U.S. military government prioritized curbing the spread of socialism and transplanting American-style democracy under the Cold War regime. Accordingly, the U.S. military government introduced a social study course that combines history with geography and the publicadministration as a subject that accommodates the purpose of the U.S. military administration and the needs of the Korean people in school education. Those who spearheaded the introduction of social study course were Oh Cheon-seok and Sa Kong-hwan, who are believed to have been in charge of actual affairs. According to him, it was meaningful that the history should contribute to the creation of the people s life and culture, both mentally and materially, and to the direction of the people s thoughts. Education Minister Ahn Ho-sang s argument for democratic national education has become an educational theory of the Republic of Korea. “Democratic national education”(Democratic Education for the ethnic group) emphasized the Dangun as the ancestor of the people, the concept of a bloodline-oriented people and the unification of ideas, the Hongik man and the HwabaekJedo as the principle of democracy, and the whole rather than the individual. Son Jin-tae and Sa Kong-hwan, who are in charge of national history education, actively cooperated withAhn’s view. Son Jin-tae, who served as the head of the ministry of a bureau and vice minister, advocated neo-nationalism while rejecting Anglo-American democracy and Soviet socialism, and taking advantage of both and abandoning shortcomings to adopt democratic nationalism that is appropriate and advantageous to our people. He thought his argument was in line with Ahn Ho-sang s theory of democratic national education, but Ahn’s theory of democratic national education differed in that it had a nationalistic character. This led to a clash of opinions between him and Ahn, which is why Son Jin-tae resigned as vice minister of education. In conclusion, the education of Korean history during the Syllabus Period was conducted in the framework of the social study course introduced by the U.S. military government. The efforts of SohnJin-tae and others to provide education on Korean history based on neo-nationalism after the establishment of the government were thwarted, and the education of nationalistic character based on the theory of democratic national educationofAhn could be understood to mean that the subject of national history was used for the political purposes of Lee Syng-man s administration.

Teaching controversial issues in a fragile democracy: defusing deliberation in Israeli primary classrooms

Teaching through controversial, politically charged issues is promoted in Anglo-American democracies as a key means for cultivating active citizenry and democratic values. However, the challenges of discussing controversial issues in the classroom may differ in younger, deeply divided democracies that lack common ground and institutional stability. In this study we ask, what approaches to the teaching of controversial issues do Israeli teachers adopt while enacting a curricular unit concerning Israel’s founding fathers? The data were collected in an ethnographic study in two primary schools during the 2012–2013 school year. We use linguistic ethnographic methods to analyse the curricular materials and their enactment in four video-recorded lessons in three classrooms. We argue that while the curriculum addresses deeply controversial content, it is designed to inculcate a shared national ethos and therefore avoids controversy. In practice, teachers and students engaged with controversial issues, but in ways that defused their volatility. We highlight two heretofore undocumented approaches to controversial issues: (1) sidestepping controversy by stripping it of real world complexities, and (2) scholasticizing the discussion by focusing on literacy practices. Finally, we discuss the rationales for using these two approaches to defuse controversy in the classroom, and their limitations.

Is Western Democracy Backsliding? Diagnosing the Risks

The predominantly sunny end-of-history optimism about democratic progress, evident in the late-1980s and early-1990s following the fall of the Berlin Wall, has turned rapidly into a more pessimistic zeitgeist. What helps us to understand whether we have reached an inflection point—and whether even long-established European and American democracies are in danger of backsliding? This essay draws on Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan’s Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation which theorizes that consolidation occurs when three conditions are met: Culturally, the overwhelming majority of people believe that democracy is the best form of government, so that any further reforms reflect these values and principles. Constitutionally, all the major actors and organs of the state reflect democratic norms and practices. Behaviorally, no significant groups actively seek to overthrow the regime or secede from the state. Evidence throws new light on the contemporary state of each of Linz and Stepan’s conditions in Western democracies. Culturally the data suggests that, when compared with their parents and grandparents, Millennials in Anglo-American democracies express weaker support for democratic values, but this is not a consistent pattern across Western democracies and post-industrial societies. It is also a life-cycle rather than a generational effect. Constitutionally, trends from estimates by Freedom House and related indicators provide no evidence that the quality of institutions protecting political rights and civil liberties deteriorated across Western democracies from 1972 to end-2016. Most losses occurred under hybrid regimes. Behaviorally, the most serious contemporary threats to Western liberal democracies arise from twin forces that each, in different ways, seek to undermine the regime: sporadic and random terrorist attacks on domestic soil, which damage feelings of security, and the rise of populist-authoritarian forces, which feed parasitically upon these fears.

Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies. By Jonathan Swarts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. 312p. $70.00

Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies. By Jonathan Swarts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. 312p. $70.00

Can We Change How Political Science Thinks? “Gender Mainstreaming” in a Resistant Discipline

AbstractThis paper argues that, despite significant increases in the number of women professors and the growth of feminist political science, transformative change hasn't occurred in how conventional political scientists think about politics. “Transformativechange” requires the successful mainstreaming of gender-focused knowledge and the use of “gender” as a category of analysis in studies of politics. The article first explores the insights of leading feminist political scientists in the five Anglo-American democracies, about why gender mainstreaming has not succeeded to date. It establishes the extent of the failure and explores its causes, including the discipline's fragmented structure, polarized culture and a number of theoretical and methodological incompatibilities between mainstream and feminist political science. Finally, several promising strategies for achieving transformative change are explored.

Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies

Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies

Guns in the Anglo-American democracies: explaining an American exception

This article looks to the founding fragment analytical tradition in search of an explanation for America's unique relationship with guns, reviewing key aspects of gun control policy and gun-related culture in the USA and four other Anglo-American societies: Australia, Canada, England, and New Zealand. The discussion that follows argues that only contributors to the fragment tradition that identify considerable differentiation between the USA and Canada can plausibly explain the former's relationship with guns. Finally, the conclusion argues that it was the American Revolution's amplification of the effects of ideological fragmentation from Europe that best explains the American gun exception.

Grant N. Havers. Leo Strauss and Anglo-American Democracy: A Conservative Critique. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University, 2013. Pp. xi+245. $37.00.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewGrant N. Havers. Leo Strauss and Anglo-American Democracy: A Conservative Critique. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University, 2013. Pp. xi+245. $37.00.Larry ArnhartLarry ArnhartNorthern Illinois University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Political Thought Volume 4, Number 3Summer 2015 Published in association with the American Political Thought organized section of the American Political Science Association and the Jack Miller Center Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/682033 Views: 19Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Book Review: Comparative Politics: Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies

Book Review: Comparative Politics: Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies

Varieties of Neoliberalism in the Anglo-American World

Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies. By Jonathan Swarts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. 293 pp., $70 hardback (ISBN-13: 978-1-4426-4646-9). The global financial crisis opened up an incredible amount of intellectual space to write about neoliberalism and to actually see those writings come out in print—in fact, it created a real hunger for explanations about what went wrong with the world. Such an opportunity, however, has meant that it can often be difficult, as an author, to be heard above the baying of other critics, let alone hope to influence debates about what exactly neoliberalism is, how it is manifested, who is driving it, and so on. While Constructing Neoliberalism does not offer a new understanding of neoliberalism per se—nor does it necessarily seek to do so (pp. 3–4)—it does represent a useful contribution to current academic debates through a close examination of the neoliberal transformations of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Consequently, it is worth reading by anyone interested in a detailed analysis of the transformations of these countries. It would be difficult to do justice to current debates on neoliberalism here, considering the space available. Suffice to say, Swarts’ book fits into existing work on the importance of ideas, discourses, and epistemological communities in our understanding of neoliberalism, although not from a Foucauldian perspective. He is very much concerned with “the social construction of political and economic change,” emphasizing that neoliberalism is “an ideational and discursive construction—what I shall call a ‘political-economic imaginary’” (p. 5). He explicitly draws on constructivist literature to make his case, meaning that Constructing Neoliberalism draws on and follows Mark Blyth's (2002) Great Transformations in its focus on “neoliberal” ideas and their constitutive influence (p. 12). Yet, …

Grant N. Havers, Leo Strauss and Anglo-American Democracy: A Conservative Critique

Grant Havers's Leo Straus and Anglo-American Democracy: A Conservative Critique seriously misrepresents Strauss's thought, largely as a result of Havers's determination to use the history of political philosophy for partisan purposes of his own, unlike Strauss's determined and meticulous effort to learn fromthe greatest philosophic writers both ancient and modern.ᅟ

Book Review: General: Young People and Politics: Political Engagement in the Anglo-American Democracies

Book Review: General: Young People and Politics: Political Engagement in the Anglo-American Democracies

Varieties of Populism: Literature Review and Research Agenda

In recent years, populism has attracted considerable interest from social scientists and political commentators. Yet the term ‘populism’ remains both widely used and widely contested. It has been defined based on political, economic, social, and discursive features and analyzed from myriad theoretical perspectives and a variety of methodological approaches. This literature review surveys different academic approaches to the study of populism. It aims at promoting the theoretical understanding of the concept and opening new methodological pathways for the study of populist politics. The timeframe of the research we survey spans from the late 19th century to the present day, and its geographical focus ranges from Eastern Europe and Latin America to the Anglo-American democracies. A comprehensive discussion of the research on the topic is timely and warranted, considering the role of populist politics in contemporary democracies.

Leo Strauss and Anglo-American democracy: a conservative critique

Leo Strauss has been simultaneously condemned by the Left as an extreme opponent of liberal democracy and celebrated by the Right as a defender of Western civilization. Rejecting both of these portrayals, Grant N. Havers shifts the debate beyond the conventional parameters of our age. In Leo Strauss and Anglo-American Democracy, Havers interprets Leo Strauss' political philosophy from a conservative standpoint, depicting Strauss as a Cold War liberal with a strong secular bias who believed Anglo-American democracy was the one true universal regime that could be embraced and practiced by all human beings regardless of time, place, or creed.