1020 Polisci Concepts (Semester 2)

From Catherine (she's a godsend)

What are social movements?

Distinct social processes where actors engage in collective action; involve conflict, informal networks, shared identity, and aim to create social change

Are social movements organizations?

No, they are networks that may include organizations

Do social movements have members?

No, they have participants

Protests in 2020s vs 2010s

2020s protests have not reached the same scale or ability to overthrow governments as 2010s protests

Hegemony

Leadership or dominance of one social group over others

Horizontal social movements

Movements with no central leadership

2010s protests

Horizontal, spontaneous, mobilized masses but lacked clear goals leading to power vacuums

Resource mobilization

More resources increase likelihood of movement success

Political opportunity

Success depends on having the opportunity to use resources

Symbolic challenge

Building a new collective identity (e.g., “us vs them”)

Direct action

Non-state sanctioned actions to challenge power, often used when institutions fail

Dialectic of repression

Cycles of state violence and protest that intensify each other

Tyranny of structurelessness

Lack of structure prevents long-term success despite large participation

Post-2010s movements

Mass decentralized protests based on populist demands

Pharmakon

Something that acts as a remedy, poison, and scapegoat

World Report on Disability

Attributes struggles of disabled people to functional limitations instead of systemic barriers

DALY count

Measures disability through loss of productivity

Asocial-social disability

Frames disability as individual health limitation

Mainstream view on disability

Sees disabled people as limited rather than addressing societal barriers

Medical model of disability

Focuses on impairment; can stigmatize and empower medical authority

Social model of disability

Focuses on removing barriers and recognizing social causes of disability

1970s disability shift

From charity to activism and inclusion

When did Canadians with psychiatric disabilities get the vote?

1993

Critical model of disability

Disability is fluid; emphasizes care and critiques norms

Intersectional feminist theory

Oppression shaped by gender, race, class, sexuality intersections

Sodomy

Criminalized homosexual sex historically

Old boys club

Exclusion of women from politics and decision-making

Sexual contract

Women’s rights tied to marriage; reinforces patriarchy

How is the private sphere political?

Power exists in relationships, state regulation, and social reproduction

1969 Criminal Law Amendment Act

Legalized private same-sex acts between consenting adults

1981 bathhouse raids

Police raids leading to protests and arrests (Operation Soap)

Sexual citizenship

Rights and recognition based on sexual identity

Social reproduction

Women sustaining families and enabling workforce reproduction

Types of citizenship rights

Civil, political, social

Hyster

Greek root for uterus used to justify women’s exclusion

LGBTQ+ movement timeline

1960s resistance, 70s protests, 80s AIDS crisis, 90s legal cases, 2000s marriage legalization

Fruit machine

Tool used in Cold War to identify LGBTQ people

Why sexual orientation not in Charter?

HIV/AIDS crisis reduced mobilization

Stonewall riots

Catalyst for modern LGBTQ+ movement

Critiques of gay marriage

Reinforces traditional norms and institutions

Wartime Elections Act

Gave voting rights to female relatives of soldiers

Marriage and power

Reinforces structural power inequalities

Racism and social movements

Structural issue requiring systemic change

Emergence of BLM

Response to police violence using protests and social media

Great social transformation

Increased diversity leading to backlash

Institutional racism

Systems that disadvantage certain groups

Cultural racism

Claims cultural incompatibility

Race in Canada (1906)

Identified English and French as dominant races

Racial contract

System that assigns inferior status to nonwhite groups

Racism as a system

Power structure distributing inequality

Racelessness

Ignores systemic racism through liberal equality claims

Racism as ideology

Maintained through power structures

Examples of racial contract

Land dispossession, slavery, labor exploitation

Black Power/Red Power

Highlighted limits of equality under systemic racism

Black feminism

Intersection of race, gender, class oppression

BLM online growth

Social media origins, Ferguson protests, focus on justice

Long-term Black crisis

Linked to neoliberalism, policing, and inequality

BLM factors

Trauma, injustice, organizations, networks

UNDRIP

UN declaration on Indigenous rights (2007)

Free prior informed consent

Concern over Indigenous veto power

Global colonial capitalism

Exploitation of Indigenous land and resources

White Paper (1969)

Proposed eliminating Indigenous legal distinctions

Land claim agreements

Limited self-governance, often reducing land rights

Idle No More

Movement against environmental and Indigenous policy changes

Yintah

Resistance to pipeline expansion

Indigenous sovereignty movements

Protect land and self-governance

Indian Act

Imposed colonial governance on Indigenous peoples

League of Indians

Early Indigenous political organization

Response to White Paper

Red Paper defending Indigenous rights

Constitution Express

Movement securing Indigenous rights recognition

Oka Crisis

Conflict over land leading to policy change

Resurgence

Rejecting state control

Grounded normativity

Practicing values in everyday life

Pierre Trudeau nationalism

Civic nationalism, anti-ethnic nationalism

Selective endorsement

States adopt policies but modify them for control