Setting the agenda: Quebec’s bizarre election

As McCombs and Shaw wrote 42 years ago, “[i]n choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about a given issue, but also how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position” (1972).

This was certainly true here in Quebec on Monday, when the Parti Québecois (PQ) party was unceremoniously booted from power in grand fashion. Reduced to just 30 of Quebec’s 125 seats, the PQ’s casualties included a slew of ministers and even the party leader, who fell in a riding held by the party for two decades. Despite polls that hinted at a possible loss for the party, no one seems to have anticipated the magnitude of the PQ’s collapse.

I won’t delve too deeply into provincial history, but the PQ was founded in 1967 with the sole purpose of promoting Quebec’s separation from Canada. As the cause’s popularity waned, the PQ worked to reframe itself as a left-wing party that would stand up for Quebec within Canada for the time being, and only pursue independence when they judged the time right. That strategy — paired with a proposed France-style “secular charter” banning religious clothing in public institutions — brought them a great deal of support in rural Quebec, where uneven riding distribution — some would say gerrymandering (Allison, 2014) — has given thinly populated rural ridings disproportionate clout in the provincial legislature. As late as mid-March, the PQ’s victory seemed imminent.

Enter Pierre-Karl Péleadeau, the media mogul I’d mentioned earlier on this blog, who entered the race as a star PQ candidate and seems to have lost the election almost all on his own. There are a couple of reasons for this — plenty of Quebecers despise him for launching a two-year lockout of a newspaper’s staff, for example — but the biggest reason seems to be that in his first speech as a candidate, he proclaimed his support for an independent Quebec.

This should hardly seem strange for a PQ candidate — independence is, after all, the party’s raison d’être — but the opposition parties seized on his comments to warn of an impending separation if the PQ won power. For the three weeks leading up to the vote, Quebec’s English- and French-language news media seemed to report on little else, turning the election into a referendum on Quebec sovereignty. Pro-independence media outlets proclaimed it was time to cut ties with Canada. The federalist (pro-Canada) media fretted over the damage that separation could do. With one blundering speech, the agenda for the entire provincial election was set by one man — wiping health care, the economy, higher education, and even (to some extent) the ban on religious clothing off the issue table. It was all over radio, TV, newspapers and the Internet.

That in itself might not have been a crippling blow, but as the PQ leader backtracked from Péladeau’s comments for fear of alienating voters, big segments of the PQ’s small hardcore separatist base flocked to independence-minded fringe parties, who pulled in some 10% of the vote. Plenty of other former PQ supporters switched to the CAQ party, dismayed by Péladeau’s discussion of independence. Incredibly, the PQ lost both pro-independence AND anti-independence votes.

The result: between March 17 and the April 8 election, the PQ plummeted in the polls, hurtling from majority government territory (Grenier, 2014) to a momentous, historic defeat — all because of one man, one toxic issue, and the incessant way Quebec’s media covered both. Immediately afterwards, the media proclaimed that Quebecers had rejected sovereignty once and for all (Perreaux, 2014; Coyne, 2014), despite the fact that the election was won and lost on an issue that all the major party leaders essentially agreed on.

All this to say, Quebec is a truly strange place. : )

 

References

Allison, S. (2014, April 2). Sam Allison: Quebec’s gerrymandered riding map. National Post. (Retrieved from: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/04/02/sam-allison-quebecs-gerrymandered-riding-map/)

Coyne, A. (2014, April 7). Andrew Coyne: Quebecers not only just said no to separation, but yes to the 1982 Constitution. National Post. (Retrieved from: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/04/07/andrew-coyne-quebecers-not-only-just-said-no-to-separation-but-yes-to-the-1982-constitution/)

Grenier, E. (2014, March 17). Liberals gain among francophones, but PQ still in majority territory. Threehundredeight.com. (Retrieved from: http://www.threehundredeight.com/2014/03/liberals-gain-among-francophones-but-pq.html)

Lévesque, R. (1976). For an Independent Quebec. Foreign Affairs, 54, 734. (Retrieved from: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/26074/rene-levesque/for-an-independent-quebec)

McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The agenda-setting function of mass media. Public opinion quarterly, 36(2), 176-187. (Retrieved from: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~amgutsch/Mccombs.pdf)

Perreaux, L. (2014, April 7). Solid Liberal majority means respite from national-unity debate. Globe and Mail. (Retrieved from: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/elections/solid-liberal-majority-means-respite-from-national-unity-debate/article17870091/)

Fraser’s Critique of Habermas’s Public Sphere and the Quebec Election

As I read through Nancy Fraser’s Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy, and processed her criticisms of Jurgen Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, I was reminded of the results of the Quebec Election this week. The outright rejection of the Charter of Values by the electorate is a firm example of how Habermas’s theory of the bourgeois public sphere worked well and how Fraser’s concept of a ‘weak public’ was distorted for political purposes.

Nancy Fraser’s primary criticism of Habermas’s theory of the bourgeois public sphere is that it is concept that cannot work as it is ignores those that are marginalized and oppressed, and therefore social and/or political changes work to benefit a few and not for the whole. “The public sphere, in short, is not the state; it is rather the informally mobilized body of nongovernmental discursive opinion that can serve as a counterweight to the state.” (Fraser, p. 75) She argues that Habermas’s concept of the bourgeois public sphere is one where social inequality is never addressed, as it is categorized as ‘private’ by a dominant masculine ideology. (Fraser, p. 77)

Is there a firm definition of a people that are marginalized and oppressed? The Parti Quebecois argued the Charter of Values protects the Quebec culture as they are a minority with a much larger and anglicized North America. (Janus, 2014) The Charter calls for the removal of all wearable religious symbols (burkas, large crucifixes, kippas, kirpans, etc….) if you are a public sector employee within the province. The argument was put forward that by secularizing the province, the Quebecois, the French language and women are protected. (Janus, 2014)

The ‘weak publics’ as Fraser calls it (Fraser, p. 75) is a primary reason why the PQ and the Charter of Values legislation did not succeed this past week. To me, Fraser’s ‘weak publics’ is defined as those that band together with an outcome that is only opinion forming and has no impact on the legislative process. (Fraser, p. 75). If this is the case, this ‘weak public’ did indeed band together in opposition to the Charter, and did affect legislation – by stopping its introduction. This opposition was composed of a number of a diverse of socio-economic and political interests that converged together to defeat this legislation that claimed to protect secularism and women’s rights. (Janus, 2014). Fraser’s concept of participatory parity (Fraser, p. 75) of balanced socio-economic interests, factored little in the rejection of the party and the legislation.
Fraser argues the foundation of Habermas’s bourgeois public sphere is when “private persons deliberated about public matters,” (Fraser, p. 70) and as such is guided directly and indirectly by economic and social conditions within a capitalist society. In the case of the Quebec election, the “private persons deliberating about public matters” corralled around a repressive legislation that would institutionalize discriminatory hiring practices based upon religious affiliation.

I would argue that Habermas’s theory was correct in that there was a deliberation within the bourgeois public sphere and it concluded that the marginalized and oppressed individuals were not the Quebecois, but the various religious and cultural minorities with the province. Economic status was not a driving factor. I believe the bourgeois public sphere worked when it determined who in fact was the ‘minority’ in this case.

Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text, 25/26, 56-80 Retrieved from: http://moodle233.msvu.ca/m23/course/view.php?id=1581.

Janus, A. (2014). Quebec Needs To Pass Values Charter Minister Says As Hearings Begin. CTV News. Retrieved from: http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/quebec-needs-to-pass-values-charter-minister-says-as-hearings-begin-1.1638268#ixzz2yPLHUFLG

Entrenching Intransigence: How Canadian Politics Is Changing

What is really interesting about “Ideology, attitude change, and deliberation in small face-to-face groups” written by John Gastil, Laura Black and Kara Moscovitz (Gastil et. al 2008) is that the number of studies they referenced throughout the article sounded more like Canadian-based studies and not American-based studies. This is not to sound like I am being sanctimonious about the differences in political cultures between the counties, but to highlight an observation that Stephen Harper’s government is changing how Canadians filter information through ideology.

“After deliberating in small groups, liberal and conservative participants are likely to move apart from one another attitudinally, with the former more strongly endorsing liberal beliefs and more clearly rejecting conservative ones, and vice-versa.” (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 26).

Although the article is an exploration of how to redesign small group qualitative projects in order to best retrieve data that identifies commonalities (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 27) by recognizing personalities and the democratic deliberation process (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 26-27), I had an epiphany related to the Conservative Party. I believe the party must engage is a similar exercise when they are segmenting potential wedge issues that could motivate voters to support them.

Gastil’s paper examines a process whereby qualitative researchers use a multi-faceted method of identifying political issues that could identify areas of potential compromises between “liberals”, “moderates” and “conservatives.” (Gastil et. al, 2008). Through a combined pre and post deliberation and debating session score, as well as an observational and self-rated scoring weighting system (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 34), this method could potentially make the political public sphere more productive and less divisive. Using a primarily “Liberal-supported” issue as an area to study (in this example – responding to decriminalization/treatment programs for substance abuse) (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 34), this method tests policy proposals that could seek a potential compromise. Of the three proposed options of “decriminalize”, “Just say no” and “implement/increase the drug war”, liberals, moderates and conservatives found common ground where deliberation could achieve some room for agreement with the “Just say no” campaign. (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 34) However, if you were a Conservative political researcher, you wouldn’t be interested in looking at the areas where both Liberals and Conservatives (with the moderates showing no significant change after a deliberation) agreed, you would go to the option that showed disagreement, ‘decriminalization,’ (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 34) to use as a wedge issue that could shake loose some Liberal supporters.

If they haven’t done this already, the Conservatives could use this process to identify proposed and potential policy issues that their opponents are currently considering – including decriminalization of marijuana, supporting the European trade agreement, pharmacare, a carbon tax and community-based rehabilitative sentencing for white collar or non-violent crimes. It could also be used for the Conservatives to develop policy that solidifies their support by developing legislation or policy proposals that reinforce their voting base, or in this case – entrench their base into an ideological, immovable wall that could not be shaken lose if their opponents realize they could do the same thing.

Gastil, J., Black, L., & Moscovitz, K. (2008). Ideology, attitude change, and deliberation in small face-to-face groups. Political Communication, 25(1), 23 – 46. Retrieved from: http://moodle233.msvu.ca/m23/course/view.php?id=1581

Training jedi rhetoricians to fight the dark side

(Apologies in advance — I probably had more fun with this than I should have. 🙂 )

In reading through Burke (1974), and especially his quoting of observations on rhetoric by one of history’s true monsters, I couldn’t help but notice that many of those same observations could just as easily be applied to politicians in today’s western democracies. Here the reference is to “Marxists,” but many of the following attributes could just as easily be applied to any number of politicians — and certainly the ones in every televised debate I’ve ever seen.

“First they counted on the ignorance of their adversary  [or their audience]; then, when there was no way out, they themselves pretended stupidity [or ignorance]. If all this was of no avail, they refused to understand or they changed the subject when driven into a corner; they brought up truisms, but they immediately transferred their acceptance to quite different subjects, and, if attacked again, they gave way and pretended to know nothing exactly. Wherever one attacked one of these prophets, one’s hands seized slimy jelly; it slipped through one’s fingers only to collect again in the next moment. (p. 197)

Burke (1974) concludes that “the dialecticians of the class struggle, in their skill at blasting his muddled speculations, put him into a state of uncertainty that was finally ‘solved’ with rage,” with devastating consequences. But my (admittedly unscholarly) feeling is that knee-jerk anger is not only an undesirable reaction to maddening rhetoric, but an unnecessary one that can generally be avoided with an understanding of the rhetorician’s tools and techniques. When an illusionist’s “magic” is explained to the audience, the mystique falls away; similarly, when dissected and understood, the rhetorician’s alchemy is exposed for the parlor trick that it is.

Given, then, the great influence and inflammatory power that are commanded by skilled “dark-side” rhetoricians even today, I wonder if, when our schools teach social studies and parliamentary procedure to tomorrow’s citizenry, they should really be teaching the ability to identify, understand and employ rhetoric as citizens. The goal would be to diminish our leaders’ persuasive power by teaching the everyman to wield and parry our politicians’ most effective weapon.

Aristotle would certainly have agreed on the need for an educated citizenry, armed with a knowledge of dangers and applications of rhetoric. Heath (2000) quotes him as insisting that:

Because there has been implanted in us the power to persuade each other and to make clear to each other whatever we desire, not only have we escaped the life of wild beasts, but we have come together and founded cities and made laws and invented arts; and, generally speaking there is no institution devised by man that the power of speech has not helped us to establish. For this it is which has laid down laws concerning things just and unjust, and things honourable and base; and if it were not for these ordinances we should not be able to live with one another. It is by this also that we confute the bad and extol the good. (p. 77)

Arming the public with rhetorical weapons would help to level the playing field, but of course, it would remain far from level. A savvy politician backed by great social and cultural capital, as Bourdieu might say, will always hold a great advantage over even the most rhetorically skilled populace. And the landscape is complicated further by the fact that the differences between “good” and “bad” rhetoric are not always readily apparent — unlike the red and blue lightsabers in the Star Wars movies, real-life arguments aren’t colour-coded to tell us who the bad guys are. In fact, the most skilled “bad” rhetoricians are also the best at concealing their use of logical leaps and fallacies, and as Plato charged of the “sophists” of his day, at “making the weaker argument the stronger” (McLarty 2005). Nonetheless, if  the jedi public are to win the day, we must first educate ourselves in both the “dark” and “light” (or “manipulative” and “invitational”) sides of rhetoric.

References

Bourdieu, P. (2011). The forms of capital. In I. Szeman & T. Kaposy (Eds.), Cultural theory: An anthology (pp. 81-93). Madden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell

Burke, K. (1974). Rhetoric of Hitler’s “Battle.” (pp. 191 – 220). In The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action. University of California Press.

Heath, R. L. (2000). A rhetorical perspective on the values of public relations: Crossroads and pathways toward concurrence. Journal of Public Relations Research, 12(1), 69-91.

McLarty, C. (2005). ‘Mathematical Platonism’ Versus Gathering the Dead: What Socrates teaches Glaucon. Philosophia Mathematica, 13(2).

How the West Wing turned into a House of Cards (or How I Found Myself in the Middle)

Are you left or right? Liberal or conservative? Democrat or republican?

I check “none of the above”. I guess that makes me a moderate. I have strong beliefs and convictions – but they can fall on both sides. So I’m standing in the middle. And I thought this was ok. Until I watched “Deceiving Image: The Science of Manipulation” and read the assigned piece by Gastil, Black & Moscovitz.

According to what I heard and read, I am not actually standing in the middle because standing implies some sort of firmness, some power, that I have an actual stance. But no, I guess I am actually teetering, swaying, with no ideology or frames to grab on to.

Zaller’s reason-accept-sample model of public opinion says that politically knowledgeable individuals who are left (liberal) or right (conservative) can effectively filter out messages contrary to their ideology. However, according to Gastil, Black & Moscovitz (2008), moderates (like me) and “persons lacking political expertise fail to apply such filters and develop views representative of the larger media diet they consume” (p. 25).

Is Zaller saying, because I am a moderate, that I can be tipped either way depending on what I watch on television this morning (The Daily Show, thanks PVR) or what magazine I read at lunch (Maclean’s) or what I will hear on the radio on my drive home tonight (NewsTalk 1010)?

At first that made me sad, even a tad embarrassed. But, hold on here. I’d like to think that I have some level of political expertise, or at the very least, knowledge. I’m not a weak puppet that depending which way the wind blows can be pushed to one side or another.

At one time, I would’ve identified myself as being on the far left. And even today, if I was forced to shift to one side, that’s the way I’d go. So, why then, do I find myself stuck in the middle – with you perhaps?

Put simply, politicians have let me down. I don’t believe what they say. I don’t believe THEY believe what they say. And since I have distrust for both sides, I’ve planted myself in the middle (firmly I might add) and I won’t budge until they win back that trust – until I have hope again. And therein you can see the problem political parties are facing on both sides of our border.

Funnily enough, my shift in political stance is reflected in how politics has been playing out on television over the last decade or so.

“The West Wing arrived in 1999 as a televised fantasy of what we wished our government could be. House of Cards arrived in 2013 as a nightmare of what we fear our government has become.” (Sternbergh, 2014)

Remember Obama’s campaign to be elected the 44^th President of the United States in 2009?

I’m not American, but I felt that hope and I trusted it and I thought it was indicative of where politics was going here in Canada too. I call it the “West Wing” effect.

But then came Ontario’s gas plant and Ornge air ambulance scandals. And our Canadian senators and Stephen Harper and Rob Ford and so on and so on and so on.

I grew cynical of politicians and their “House of Cards”. I questioned every statement, every promise.

I don’t know what it will take to move me from the middle. Can that trust, that hope, ever be reignited? I don’t know. But what I do know (apologies to both Zaller and Jon Stewart), it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than the “message of the day”.

            

References:

Gastil J., Black L., & Moscovitz, K. (2008). Ideology, attitude change, and deliberation in small face-to-face groups. Political Communication, 25(1), 23 – 46

Sternbergh, Adam (2014). The Post-Hope Politics of ‘House of Cards’. The New York Times. Retrieved Feb. 25, 2014 from www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/magazine/the-post-hope-politics-of-house-of-cards.html?_r=0

Video: Deceiving Image: The Science of Manipulation (http://fora.tv/2007/11/07/Deceiving_Image_The_Science_of_Manipulation)