Political Science

While many scholars have studied collective action with a strong social media component led by marginalized groups, few have unpacked how this form of political engagement captures the attention of established political elites and, in some cases, influences the mainstream political narrative and policy outcomes. Fewer have focused on the political impact of social media-intensive Indigenous protest movements. This article addresses these gaps in the academic literature. It does so by examining the online and offline impact of the Indigenous-led Idle No More movement at the federal level in Canada. To evaluate the movement’s effects on the public political narrative on Indigenous-related issues, this article reviews the content of the House of Commons Question Period before and after the emergence of the movement in December 2012. To measure Idle No More’s impact on policy outcomes, this article compares federal budgets and the volume of policy proposals pertaining to Indigenous Affa...

On June 9 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered its judgment in Chaoulli v. Quebec. At issue was the validity of section 15 of the Quebec Health Insurance Act and section 11 of the Hospital Insurance Act, which prohibited private insurers from covering publicly-funded services. In a four to three decision, the Court held that sections 15 and 11 violated Québec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms (1976) (the “Québec Charter”). Three justices, including Chief Justice McLachlin, went even further and held that the law violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) (the “Charter”). According to the Chief Justice, “*a+ccess to a waiting list is not access to health care... [Therefore,] prohibiting health insurance that would permit ordinary Canadians to access health care, in circumstances where the government is failing to deliver health care in a reasonable manner, thereby increasing the risk of complications and death, interferes with life and security of the pers...

Social media have been playing a growingly important role in grassroots protest over the last five years. While many scholars have explored dynamics of political cyberprotest (e.g., the ongoing transnational Occupy movement, the 2012 Quebec student strike, the student-led protest movement in Chile between 2011 and 2013), few have studied sub-dynamics relating to ethno-cultural minorities' uses of social media to gain visibility, mobilize support, and engage in political and civil action. We fill part of this gap in the academic literature by investigating uses of Twitter for political engagement in the context of the Canada-based Idle No More movement (INM). This ongoing protest initiative, which emerged in December 2012, seeks to mobilize Indigenous Peoples in Canada and internationally as well as their non-Indigenous allies. It does so by bringing attention to their culture, struggles, and identities as well as advocating for changes in policy areas relating to the environment, governance, and socioeconomic matters. Our study explores to what extent references to aspects of Indigenous identities and culture shaped INM-related tweeting and, by extension, activism during the summer of 2013. We conducted a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 1650 #IdleNoMore tweets shared by supporters of this movement between 3 July 2013 and 2 August 2013. Our study demonstrates that unlike other social media-intensive movements where economic and political concerns were the primary drivers of political and civil engagement, aspects of Indigenous culture influenced information flows and mobilization among #IdleNoMore tweeters.

This article asks whether Quebec has lost relevance in the constitutional politics of language. It proposes a doctrinal analysis of the Supreme Court's Charter jurisprudence, with an emphasis on the most recent body of case law, and an assessment of its political consequences in the area of language policy in Quebec. The article argues that constitutional review has increasingly protected individual rights over Quebec's collective right to maintain its language and culture. This can be explained by the move towards an implacable parallel constitutionalism and a redefinition of official minority linguistic rights in the jurisprudence, as well as by the exhaustion of Quebec's legislative counterattacks to court rulings. The article concludes that Quebec is no longer driving concepts of Canadian citizenship. Undifferentiated rather than multinational citizenship appears to be the direction in which Charter language jurisprudence is taking Canada.

This article looks at failed attempts at granting aboriginal communities sovereignty, from an institutional perspective. The author suggests that such failures are due to a combination of factors: the legal status of the First Nations; the federal fiscal and political system; and, the aboriginal communities’ own lack of legitimacy and independence.

This article examines how the Liberal and New Democratic Accord was framed through and by national television news during the first week of December 2008. Using new institutionalism theory, this article argues that politicians must negotiate with journalists to present their framing of issues. While journalists may repeat and even balance competing frames, they also interpret politics strategically, and this is what dominates coverage. Based on a frame analysis, the study examines the national television coverage of the proposed coalition government. The analysis finds that TV news presented the preferred frames of the government and the coalition in similar proportion. However, the coverage spent significantly more time assessing performance and strategy and was highly critical of the strategy and performance of the key political players.

For decades, there have been growing calls to address systemic Indigenous racism in Canadian police institutions. However, progress in this area has remained troublingly slow as recent movements have had little impact on institutional reform. Indigenous Peoples are left disproportionately victimized and overrepresented in the criminal justice system due to discriminatory policing practices. In recent years calls for institutional reforms have been amplified with the completion of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls as well as countless other scathing reports from oversight bodies into racism within municipal police services. Given this newfound urgency, municipal police services have begun to explore new ways to reconcile their relationship with Indigenous Peoples. Although, there is no standard approach to guide this new challenge of institutional decolonization within policing.
This paper explores how institutional approaches contribute to the maintenance and reduction of systemic racism within police agencies. Using comparative case studies on the institutional approaches of the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service and the Thunder Bay Police Service, this paper attempts to outline a standard through which municipal police services can more effectively address systemic racism and reconcile their relationships with Indigenous Peoples. The approach used by the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service demonstrates that municipal police services would benefit from incorporating community-based and Indigenous perspectives and approaches to reduce systemic racism and move toward institutional decolonization.

Background The rapid spread of COVID-19 renewed the focus on how health systems across the globe are financed, especially during public health emergencies. Development assistance is an important source of health financing in many low-income countries, yet little is known about how much of this funding was disbursed for COVID-19. We aimed to put development assistance for health for COVID-19 in the context of broader trends in global health financing, and to estimate total health spending from 1995 to 2050 and development assistance for COVID-19 in 2020. Methods We estimated domestic health spending and development assistance for health to generate total health-sector spending estimates for 204 countries and territories. We leveraged data from the WHO Global Health Expenditure Database to produce estimates of domestic health spending. To generate estimates for development assistance for health, we relied on project-level disbursement data from the major international development agencies' online databases and annual financial statements and reports for information on income sources. To adjust our estimates for 2020 to include disbursements related to COVID-19, we extracted project data on commitments and disbursements from a broader set of databases (because not all of the data sources used to estimate the historical series extend to 2020), including the UN Office of Humanitarian Assistance Financial Tracking Service and the International Aid Transparency Initiative. We reported all the historic and future spending estimates in inflation-adjusted 2020 US$, 2020 US$ per capita, purchasing-power parity-adjusted US$ per capita, and as a proportion of gross domestic product. We used various models to generate future health spending to 2050. Findings In 2019, health spending globally reached $8•8 trillion (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 8•7-8•8) or $1132 (1119-1143) per person. Spending on health varied within and across income groups and geographical regions. Of this total, $40•4 billion (0•5%, 95% UI 0•5-0•5) was development assistance for health provided to low-income and middle-income countries, which made up 24•6% (UI 24•0-25•1) of total spending in low-income countries. We estimate that $54•8 billion in development assistance for health was disbursed in 2020. Of this, $13•7 billion was targeted toward the COVID-19 health response. $12•3 billion was newly committed and $1•4 billion was repurposed from existing health projects. $3•1 billion (22•4%) of the funds focused on country-level coordination and $2•4 billion (17•9%) was for supply chain and logistics. Only $714•4 million (7•7%) of COVID-19 development assistance for health went to Latin America, despite this region reporting 34•3% of total recorded COVID-19 deaths in low-income or middle-income countries in 2020. Spending on health is expected to rise to $1519 (1448-1591) per person in 2050, although spending across countries is expected to remain varied. Interpretation Global health spending is expected to continue to grow, but remain unequally distributed between countries. We estimate that development organisations substantially increased the amount of development assistance for health provided in 2020. Continued efforts are needed to raise sufficient resources to mitigate the pandemic for the most vulnerable, and to help curtail the pandemic for all. Funding Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Though China in no small way has contributed to solving the plight of Africa, academics and professionals alike have debated the economic, political and strategic consequence of China’s engagement in Africa. Mostly, the discussions has centered on whether China-Africa relations benefit both sides or only the most powerful, China. Contributing to the debate, this paper assesses the economic, political and strategic consequence of Chinese involvement in Africa by evaluating the pros and cons of the Sino-Ghana relations. It argues that whilst China’s engagement in Ghana and by extension Africa, benefits both sides, it has also hindered the development of the economies of Africa. It concludes that the Sino-Africa relations in its current form are more skewed towards China than Africa.