This paper attempts to explain the appeal direct democratic instruments hold for contemporary right-populist parties by drawing on recent experience in Canada. Our thesis is that a particular approach to direct democracy - which we label `plebiscitarianism' - complements right-populist parties' broader ideological commitment to a scaling back of the welfare state, and of public life more generally. Starting with a theoretical approximation of plebiscitarianism, we trace this complementarity with reference to the democratic ideas and practices of right-populists in Canada, both historically and in the present context.
This paper investigates the possibility of community under modern conditions of "worldlessness," displacement, and disburdenment, conditions recently materialized in, and accelerated by, digital information and communication technologies. The paper engineers an encounter between two literatures: the body of philosophical writing that locates the phenomenon of worldlessness in the progress of modern technology generally; and the growing social science literature examining the character and dynamics of digitallymediated community practices and forms. The paper begins with a theoretical exegesis of aspects of the work of three thinkers-Harold Innis, Hannah Arendt, and Albert Borgmann-who have made thoughtful contributions to our understand of the technological phenomenon gathered here as worldlessness. It then proceeds to reflect upon recent empirical accounts of digitally-mediated community, in light of the philosophical questions raised by these thinkers. The paper concludes by arguing that digital technology, as it is elaborated in the context of contemporary liberal capitalism, provides a material setting in which community is likely to thrive only in a particular, truncated form: as an infrastructure of convenience for instrumental communication between networked individuals.
health sciences, history THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW utpjournals.press/chr Offering a comprehensive analysis on the events that have shaped Canada, CHR publishes articles that examine Canadian history from both a multicultural and multidisciplinary perspective.
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