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A. Compare Ottawa to a capital city of another country;
B. Compare Ontario to another Canadian province or American state;
C. Compare Canada to another country.
The purpose of these assignments is for students to reflect on demonstrate a grasp of the major issues and approaches of political sociology covered in class, and critical thinking with respect to using political sociology to understand and explain substantial differences between capital cities, provinces/regions/states, and/or nation-states. In order to accomplish this, you will need to develop an argument, supported by a thesis statement, examples and evidence, that identifies sociopolitical differences and similarities between the cases. If you are already familiar with a particular location outside, for example Serbia or Singapore, I would encourage you to compare it with one in Canada (or Canada itself). In terms of evidence, you will need to draw on and cite
as a reference at least two sources from the course syllabus, as well as two academic sources that are not on the syllabus. Please construct a bibliography at the end of your essays, using either APA or MLA style. Your bibliography will be included as part of your grade. If you are having trouble finding alternative sources, please try searching the University of Ottawa’s online journal databases (Sociological Abstracts is a good one, under “S”) and sociology or political science journals you may have already come across with keywords that pertain to your particular topic.
Points of comparison Points of comparison should relate somehow to Nash’s notion of cultural politics, or the socially contested process by which some things become political while others do not, and Wiseman’s notion of political culture, in terms of what it consists of (ideologies, policies, practices) and the different pathways (methodologies) sociologists use to study political culture. Beyond these two core concepts, to support your argument you are free to choose from other more specific sociopolitical phenomena (which in all likelihood will interconnect in some direct or indirect way to cultural politics and political culture) covered in class as points of comparison.
A list of possible bases or axes for comparison:
– what issues/events/actors are deeply politicized? (e.g. oil pipelines, trade with China)
– what controversial issues/events/actors are depoliticized?
– how is political power manifested in urban space and the built environment?
– prominent ideologies (conservative, liberal, neoliberal, socialist, etc.)
– hegemonic beliefs (government should be limited, abortion is off the table)
– public policies (health care, industry subsidies, criminal policy, redistribution of wealth)
– rituals and practices (gender composition among political elites, omnibus bills)
– key monuments, political holidays, commemorations (400th year anniversaries)
– sociopolitical history (formative events, crises)
– central institutions, bureaucracies, organizational structure, constitutional rules
– population surveys (census, social statistics, demography)
– political socialization (school curricula, religion, public space, everyday life, unions)
– representations of immigrants and immigration
– “in-groups” and “out-groups”
– identity politics (how are particular ethnocultural identities politicized?)
– national imaginaries (how is the nation conceived?)
– structure & agency (how do political actors exert agency? how are they constrained?)
– modernization and globalization pressures (progress, capitalism, science)
– technology (what technologies are political? hegemonic? how do they exert ‘agency’?)
– cultural resistance to, or backlash against, globalization
– how are local politics made regional? national? global?
– how are global issues/actors nationalized, regionalized and localized?
– borders (who has a relatively easy time moving in and out?)
– how is power distributed among elites and the general population?
– ecological crises (climate change, biodiversity loss, urban sprawl)
– who are the most radical and extreme actors?
– citizenship (rights, obligations, membership, belonging, solidarity)
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