Politics and Policies in a Networked World: A Perspective from Canada
Vincent Mosco
April 21
12.30-3 PM
Basement Rm 1 SJMC
Canada has been a model for national governments and international bodies looking for
guidance on how to regulate informational and cultural flows across borders. This is
primarily because Canadian governments have been making policy to maintain national
control over these flows in the face of American political, economic, and cultural power
for over eighty years. There is considerable debate about the success of these policies and
how transferable they are to different environments. Nevertheless, in spite of massive and
largely one-way flows from the United States, Canada’s political culture is arguably more
distant from that of the United States than at any time since the end of World War II. For
example, Canada refused to join the U.S.-led coalition in the war in Iraq and refused to
join the U.S. ballistic missile defense system; it has abolished capital punishment; it is in
the process of legalizing marriage among same sex couples; it provides universallyaccessible public health care; it offers low cost public higher education and has almost no
private colleges or universities; and it supports fiscal policies that continue to run annual
surpluses. Given its proximity to a country with ten times the population, massive
networked resources, and with whom it shares a dominant language and the longest
undefended border in the world, Canada would appear to be a likely target for political
and cultural convergence. This does not appear to be the case. Why? What is the
significance for debates about politics and policies in a networked world?