295 research outputs found
Games of Jurisdiction: How Local Governance Realities Challenge the âCreatures of the Provinceâ Doctrine
The question of local democracy has been revived politically and legally in Ontario in the wake of the provincial governmentâs sudden interference in the 2018 Toronto municipal election. This article contributes to the discussions on the legal status of local governments in a way that sheds light on the Ontario governmentâs relation with the City of Toronto, but that is not Toronto-specific or even specific to municipal corporations, which are only one of the many forms of actually existing local government bodies. This is done in three parts. The first is an argument in favour of bracketing black-letter constitutional law in order to develop a fine-grained understanding of the multiple games of jurisdiction that have been played and continue to be played throughout Canada, often with unpredictable results. Second, a look at the history of local government in Ontario, with particular attention to a neglected provincial commission on âmunicipal institutions,â leads to a concluding section offering some reflections on how black-letter Canadian law, especially in Ontario, has shaped what political scientists call âpractices of citizenship,â not always in a democratic direction
Pragmatist and Non-pragmatist Knowledge Practices in American Law
For anyone interested in documenting and analyzing knowledge practices, legal arenas prove to be fruitful sites, for at least two reasons. 1) First, questions of evidence and of authority are often explicitly contested, with the contestations often forming part of a courtâs public record and/or going on in the public setting of the courtroom. Thus, unlike science studies scholars, who must gain access to social interactions that are not mentioned in scientific papers and that do not take place in public view, legal studies scholars have vast amounts of material â affidavits, trial transcripts, etcâ that can readily be analyzed, and we have automatic access to at least some of the struggles about what counts as evidence and who counts as an authority waged in legal settings.
Secondly, legal arenas, particularly in common-law jurisdictions, are characterized by the simultaneous coexistence of radically heterogeneous and uncoordinated epistemologies. That civil lawsuits are adjudicated using a different standard of proof than criminal cases is known to most people, and certainly to every law student. But it is less well known that this is only one of a large number of epistemological heterogeneities that can be documented even staying in a single courtroom or confining oneself to one type of case. Those of us who are beginning to borrow and adapt some tools from Science and Technology Studies for use in analyzing legal processes may be able to return the favour by highlighting the jurisdictional and other devices that allow âlawâ to retain its legitimacy despite the fact that conflicting modes of reasoning and very different standards of proof coexist happily, in a state that a scientific mind would describe as epistemological anarchy. This is not to say that other fields are necessarily unified or somehow coordinated; but it is my suspicion that legal arenas exhibit a particularly cavalier stance toward existing epistemological heterogeneity
Pragmatist and Non-pragmatist Knowledge Practices in American Law
For anyone interested in documenting and analyzing knowledge practices, legal arenas prove to be fruitful sites, for at least two reasons. 1) First, questions of evidence and of authority are often explicitly contested, with the contestations often forming part of a courtâs public record and/or going on in the public setting of the courtroom. Thus, unlike science studies scholars, who must gain access to social interactions that are not mentioned in scientific papers and that do not take place in public view, legal studies scholars have vast amounts of material â affidavits, trial transcripts, etcâ that can readily be analyzed, and we have automatic access to at least some of the struggles about what counts as evidence and who counts as an authority waged in legal settings.
Secondly, legal arenas, particularly in common-law jurisdictions, are characterized by the simultaneous coexistence of radically heterogeneous and uncoordinated epistemologies. That civil lawsuits are adjudicated using a different standard of proof than criminal cases is known to most people, and certainly to every law student. But it is less well known that this is only one of a large number of epistemological heterogeneities that can be documented even staying in a single courtroom or confining oneself to one type of case. Those of us who are beginning to borrow and adapt some tools from Science and Technology Studies for use in analyzing legal processes may be able to return the favour by highlighting the jurisdictional and other devices that allow âlawâ to retain its legitimacy despite the fact that conflicting modes of reasoning and very different standards of proof coexist happily, in a state that a scientific mind would describe as epistemological anarchy. This is not to say that other fields are necessarily unified or somehow coordinated; but it is my suspicion that legal arenas exhibit a particularly cavalier stance toward existing epistemological heterogeneity
Experience and Truthtelling
This is a Foucault-inspired, postmodern study of ethical subjectivity. Technologies of life, personal truths and relations between truth telling and intoxication are highlighted in drug autobiographies and in materials from a study of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here other notions of the self are at play than the concept of the unified, autonomous, authentic self. These materials also offer an understanding of addiction as a dysfunction or disorganisation of temporality in everyday life
Some Remarks on the Rise and Fall of Discourse Analysis
The debate that might have developed in Canadian historiography, about how new
tools from social semiotics and cultural studies could be deployed both by socialist
historians and by those asking newer, less class-based questions, never did happen.
Instead, what appeared in print was invective. The impression was created that to be
theoretical was to be anti-labour history and anti-Marxist, and young progressive
historians tended to conclude that, if they wanted to ask the âoldâ questions about
class power, womenâs oppression, and imperialism or racism, there was no need to
read any theory. The potential for a number of overlapping debates on key methodological
issues was thus wasted. The new social history gave us a number of new
tools to do research, but the sophistication in research methods was generally
employed to explore some rather simple (if important) research questions. The basic
question driving socialist feminist inquiries as well as Marxist ones was: whose
interests are served? The author explains her conclusion that it may be more productive
to put inquiries into interests temporarily on hold, and experiment with
questions that focus on effects.Le dĂ©bat qui pourrait sâĂȘtre dĂ©veloppĂ© dans lâhistoriographie canadienne, quant Ă
la façon dont les nouveaux outils de la sémiotique sociale et des études culturelles
pourraient servir aux historiens socialistes et Ă ceux qui posent des questions plus
nouvelles, moins fondĂ©es sur les classes, nâa jamais eu lieu. PlutĂŽt, ce qui a Ă©tĂ© Ă©crit
Ă©tait injurieux. On a crĂ©Ă© lâimpression que le fait dâĂȘtre thĂ©orique revenait Ă
sâopposer Ă lâhistoire de la vie ouvriĂšre et au marxisme, et les jeunes historiens progressistes
ont eu tendance Ă conclure que sâils voulaient poser les « vieilles » questions
sur le pouvoir des classes, lâoppression des femmes et lâimpĂ©rialisme ou le
racisme, rien ne servait de lire la thĂ©orie. Lâon a donc gĂąchĂ© la chance de tenir un
certain nombre de débats chevauchants sur des questions méthodologiques clés. La
nouvelle histoire sociale nous a donnĂ© un certain nombre dâoutils nouveaux pour
faire de la recherche, mais la sophistication des méthodes de recherche a généralement
servi Ă explorer des questions de recherche plutĂŽt simples (bien quâimportantes).
La question de base guidant les études féministes socialistes tout comme les
Ă©tudes marxistes Ă©tait : quels intĂ©rĂȘts sert-on? Lâauteure explique sa conclusion
quâil est peut-ĂȘtre plus productif de mettre les Ă©tudes sur les intĂ©rĂȘts en veilleuse et
de faire lâessai de questions axĂ©es sur les effets
Freedom of the City: Canadian Cities and the Quest for Governmental Status
Until recently, Canadian cities were limited to the legal powers explicitly prescribed by provinces (the U.S.-based Dillon\u27s Rule). Despite much talk about a new deal for cities, recent changes to municipal legislation do little to empower municipalities to define and govern local problems, although courts appear somewhat willing to expand the scope of cities\u27 authority. Through two case studies involving the City of Toronto, we demonstrate that even after the overhaul of provincial municipal acts, cities still lack the necessary legal tools and the legal flexibility to respond to pressing urban needs
Where The Sidewalk Ends: The Governance Of Waterfront Toronto\u27s Sidewalk Labs Deal
In May 2020 Sidewalk Labs, the Google-affiliated âurban innovationâ company, announced that it was abandoning its ambition to build a âsmart cityâ on Torontoâs waterfront and thus ending its three-year relationship with Waterfront Toronto. This is thus a good time to look back and examine the whole process, with a view to drawing lessons both for the future of Canadian smart city projects and the future of public sector agencies with appointed boards. This article leaves to one side the gadgets and sensors that drew much attention to the proposed project, and instead focuses on the governance aspects, especially the role of the public âpartnerâ in the contemplated public-private partnership. We find that the multi-government agency, Waterfront Toronto, had transparency and accountability deficiencies, and failed to consistently defend the public interest from the beginning (the Request for Proposals issued in May of 2017). Because the public partner in the proposed âdealâ was not, as is usually the case in smart city projects, a municipal corporation, our research allows us to address an important question in administrative law, namely: what powers should administrative bodies outside of government have in crafting smart city policies
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