Search results

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 Rational Choice -- 2 Game Theory -- 3 Stalemate at Lubicon Lake -- 4 Models of Metrication -- 5 How Many Are Too Many? The Size of Coalitions -- 6 Who's Got the Power? Amending the Canadian Constitution -- 7 The 'Right Stuff: Choosing a Party Leader -- 8 The Staying Power of the Status Quo -- 9 Invasion from the Right: The Reform Party in the 1993 Election -- 10 What Have We Learned? -- Notes -- Index

"Over the last thirty years Canadian policy on aboriginal issues has come to be dominated by an ideology that sees aboriginal peoples as "nations" entitled to specific rights. Indians and Inuit now enjoy legal privileges that include the inherent right to self-government, collective property rights, immunity from taxation, hunting and fishing rights without legal limits, and free housing, education, and medical care. Underpinning these privileges is what Tom Flanagan describes as "aboriginal orthodoxy"--The belief that prior residence in North America is an entitlement to special treatment. Flanagan shows that this orthodoxy enriches a small elite of activists, politicians, administrators, and well-connected entrepreneurs, while bringing further misery to the very people it is supposed to help. Controversial and thought-provoking, First Nations? Second Thoughts dissects the prevailing ideology that determines public policy towards Canada's aboriginal peoples. Flanagan analyzes the developments of the last ten years, showing how a conflict of visions has led to a stalemate in aboriginal policy-making. He concludes that aboriginal success will be achieved not as the result of public policy changes in government but through the actions of the people themselves."--

In February 2013, Tom Flanagan, acclaimed academic, University of Calgary professor, and former advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, made comments surrounding the issue of viewing child pornography that were tweeted from the event he was speaking at and broadcast worldwide. In the time it took to drive from Lethbridge to his home in Calgary, Flanagan's career and reputation were virtually in tatters. Every media outlet made the story front-page news, most of them deriding Flanagan and casting him as a pariah

Campaigns are central to the practice of modern democracy and integral to political participation in the twenty-first century. In Winning Power, Tom Flanagan draws on decades of experience teaching political science and managing political campaigns to inform readers about what goes on behind the scenes. While the goal of political campaigning - using persuasion to build a winning coalition - remains constant, the means of achieving that goal are always changing. Flanagan dissects the effects of recent changes in financial regulation and grassroots fundraising, the advent of the'permanent campaign, 'as well as the increase in negative advertising. He pulls these themes together to show how tactics are employed at specific points in a campaign by providing a firsthand account of his management of the Wildrose Party campaign in Alberta's 2012 provincial election. Lifting the veil of campaign secrecy, he provides a candid account of the successes and mistakes the newly formed party made in an election that nearly toppled the four-decade-long dynasty of Alberta's Progressive Conservatives. Modeling its campaign on the 2006 campaign that brought Stephen Harper to 24 Sussex Drive, Wildrose combined grassroots fundraising, an innovative platform that reached out to its electoral coalition, a carefully scripted leader's tour, as well as negative and positive advertising in the race towards leadership. Success for the party seemed within reach until breakdowns in message discipline in the campaign's final week caused the Wildrose tide to ebb. Citing diverse sources such as game theory, evolutionary psychology, and Aristotelian rhetoric, Flanagan explores the timeless aspects of campaigning and emphasizes new strategies of coalition-building. For future campaigners, Winning Power provides textbook illustrations of what does and doesn't work.

Property rights in general -- The panorama of Indian property rights -- A failed experiment : the Dawes Act -- The legal framework of the Indian Act -- Customary land rights on Canadian Indian reserves -- Certificates of possession and leases : the Indian Act individual property regimes -- The First Nations Land Management Act -- Why markets fail on First Nations lands -- Escaping the Indian Act -- Back to the future: restoring First Nations property-rights systems

Harper's team fought four campaigns in five years: two leadership races and two national elections. Through trial and error - and determination - they learned to combine the Reform Party's strength in grassroots politics with the Progressive Conservative expertise in advertising and media relations, while simultaneously adopting the latest advances in information and communications technology.

In Waiting for the Wave, Tom Flanagan studies the rapid rise of the Reform Party and presents some fascinating insights into the party and its leaders. He corrects two popular misconceptions about Preston Manning: that his political philosophy is directly derived from his religious convictions, and that he is an extreme right-wing conservative. Flanagan examines Manning's strategy of populism (listening to "the common sense of the common people") and illustrates how he used this strategy to "catch waves" of popular discontent to boost support for his party. Having held various positions within the party, Flanagan is able to portray its inner workings, revealing some of the personal ideologies of party members and showing how these conflicted with Manning's strategy of populism

"Over the last thirty years Canadian policy on aboriginal issues has come to be dominated by an ideology that sees aboriginal peoples as "nations" entitled to specific rights. Indians and Inuit now enjoy legal privileges that include the inherent right to self-government, collective property rights, immunity from taxation, hunting and fishing rights without legal limits, and free housing, education, and medical care. Underpinning these privileges is what Tom Flanagan describes as "aboriginal orthodoxy"--The belief that prior residence in North America is an entitlement to special treatment

"This is the first book-length application of game theory to Canadian politics. It uses a series of case studies to illustrate fundamental concepts of game theory such as two-person and n-person games, the Nash equilibrium, zero-sum and variable-sum games, the paradox of voting, the Condorcet winner, the Condorcet extension, the Banzhaf power index, and spatial models of competition. No mathematics more complex than simple algebra is required to follow the exposition." "This book is intended to show what game theory can add to the philosophical, institutional, and behavioural approaches that have dominated previous works on Canadian politics."--Jacket

In this controversial critical analysis of Canada's anti-discrimination policy, the author addresses doubts.

Cover -- Series page -- The Coherence Factor -- Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data -- Dedication -- Contents -- Introduction -- Preface -- Prologue -- Chapter 1: Emotions of the Mind -- Chapter 2: Thinking as a Group -- Chapter 3: Enabling a Conscious Group Mind -- Chapter 4: Institutionalizing Group Minds -- Chapter 5: Epilogue -- About the Authors