Reviews/Comptes rendus
Ringing in the Common Love of Good: The
United Farmers of Ontario, 1914–1926
by Kerry A. Badgley. Montreal and Kingston:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000. Pp. xxi,
301. $55.00.
A scholarly and in-depth treatment of the United
Farmers of Ontario (UFO) has been long overdue.
It was the UFO, after all, that mounted the first serious mass-based political challenge to the domination of Liberals and Tories in Ontario politics. The
questions this farm movement asked, and the
changes they demanded, together constituted a real
challenge to the province’s political process. Their
failure, and that of the broader agrarian movement
in Canada in the early twentieth century to achieve
many of the reforms they envisioned is a legacy that
has impoverished democratic politics in this country in the decades since.
Kerry Badgley’s Ringing in the Common Love of
Good is a serious attempt to fill the void that exists
on the phenomenon that was the United Farmers of
Ontario. He begins his work with a brief critique of
much of the existing historiography of the province,
and then challenges some of the theoretical and
empirical work on populist movements in Canada,
while laying out his own sympathies which lie with
an anarchist-inspired interpretation of the populist
upsurge.
Badgley has made his examination of the UFO
more manageable by choosing three Ontario counties, and conducting a detailed examination of the
rise, and demise, of the movement in each. His study
of the UFO begins, therefore, with an historical and
statistical sketch of Lambton, Simcoe, and Lanark
counties. From this grounded empirical analysis at
the county level, Badgley shifts focus in the next
chapter to the emerging agrarian critique of the existing order, focusing on such grievances as rapid
urbanization, conscription, the tariff issue, the practices of big business and the media which farmers
saw as essentially the tools for the big business class,
and the corrupt ways of the “old line” political par-
375
ties. His analysis of documentation generated at the
grass-roots level allows us to see these agrarian folk
as more than fuzzy minded malcontents limited by
their petty bourgeois origins from any clear sighted
vision. Rather, their assessments of Ontario society
often entailed a biting critique of the class basis of
power, a critique that focused on the exploiting role
of the “big interests,” as they referred to big business then, and the ways in which powerful institutions, principally the media, the state, and the
traditional parties acted to perpetuate the power of
the leading capitalists and undermine the possibility of a democratic politics.
Subsequent chapters help us understand why the
demise of the UFO came so quickly. Badgley sees
the failure to embrace real changes to the status of
farm women, despite the efforts of the United Farm
Women of Ontario, together with the inability of the
UFO’s cooperative wing to inspire durable cooperative enterprise in the province, as two important elements in the movement’s decline. His exploration
of these themes is a valuable contribution to a neglected history and shows us, for instance, how government involvement in cooperative enterprise
consistently stressed such capitalist values as efficiency and profit and downplayed other values associated with cooperativism that might have
invigorated it over the longer term. However, it is
Badgley’s exploration of the ultimate failure of the
UFO to overcome the hegemonic discourse of the
old society and its entrenched vested interests — to
challenge the myriad of cultural supports of the old
order, in other words — that offers his best insights
into understanding their decline. Here his discussion would have benefited from a more sustained
comparative analysis with agrarianism in the west,
and with socialist revolutionary movements which
attempted to elaborate counter-hegemonic political
projects, and with some success.
With the UFO, it was not so much their lack of
critique, but more the inability of its elected representatives and the UFO leadership to implement
successful alternatives to established political
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
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376 Reviews/Comptes rendus
practices and to genuinely reform dominant economic arrangements that ultimately sealed their fate.
The book explores some of the possible reasons for
this failure, though more details on the struggles over
policy in the Legislature would have been needed
for definitive conclusions on this point.
The failure of the UFO government of 1919–1923
to deliver on some of the real changes demanded by
their farm constituency proved fatal, and their experience provides some clear lessons, nevertheless,
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
for progressive policymakers should they ever again
have the opportunity to influence provincial politics in a meaningful way. Had the lessons of the UFO
experience, which are at least part of the contribution of this valuable book, been digested by the NDP
six decades later, their tenure in office might have
been embraced more positively than it was.
ANTHONY WINSON, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph
VOL . XXVII , NO . 3 2001
Reviews/Comptes rendus
The Politics of Pragmatism: Women,
Representation and Constitutionalism in
Canada
by Alexandra Dobrowolsky. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xv, 320.
Alexandra Dobrowolsky produces a complex understanding of feminist activism around the constitutional debates of the late 1970s to early 1990s. This
entails an analysis of the Charter of Rights, Meech
Lake, and the Charlottetown Accord as well as intervening commissions. Relying on scholarly works,
archival research and extensive interviews, her contribution is both theoretical and historical. Disputing political scientists and sociologists who
characterize feminist organizations as either social
movements, or interest groups, or “femocrats” (part
of the state apparatus), and typically identify Canadian feminist groups as social movements
Dobrowolsky argues, feminists break “through the
representational confines of parties, interest groups,
and social movements.” The National Action Committee and Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women are two examples of organizations
which acted pragmatically, employing various tactics in numerous settings. As interest groups they
lobbied politicians, as social movements they developed pedagogic projects and as femocrats they
redefined constitutional proposals.
The Canadian Women’s Movement challenges
conventional dichotomies that distinguish feminist
groups: as first and second wave, struggling for
equality and difference, organized around interests
or identities, and working within or against the state.
Dobrowolsky shows feminist groups criss-crossing
between these supposedly separate spheres to establish their diverse goals. She insists on the importance of analyzing feminist ideas, identities
(collective) and interests, as well as understanding
their socio-economic and political contexts. Since
feminist interests are not pre-defined, she says “ideas
and identities affect the women’s movement just as
377
the movement propagates ideas and mobilizes on
issues of identity.” She promises a discursive analysis; however, there is little treatment of the equality
provision or the distinct society clause as sets of
ideas. An exploration of their shifts in meaning —
how they became a focal point in their struggles —
would have been insightful. Rather, she simply treats
these ideas as propagated by political groups emergent in particular socio-economic and political
contexts.
Apart from this shortcoming, Dobrowolsky provides an excellent account of feminist responses to
Canada’s constitutional crises recognizing both the
influence of institutional and policy shifts of the
decade, as well as broader socio-economic changes.
Liberal governments in the 1970s facilitated feminist lobbying and alliance-building, whereas the
Conservative government’s antagonism to “unrepresentative extremists,” the strength of anti-feminist
forces, like Real Women, closed down formal
avenues of influence. The intricate networking, consensus- and alliance-building characteristic of the
Charter days, became increasingly difficult around
the Charlottetown Accord. She attributes this to the
elite-generated policy style of Mulroney, the growing dominance of neoliberal economic strategies, as
well as contingent circumstances. Networking between progressive social movements became awkward as unions, environmental groups, and feminist
politicians supported the Accord and repatriation of
Quebec in principle. Furthermore it became increasingly difficult for feminists to unite under the banner equality, as conflicting needs, interests emerged
between Aboriginal women, French-Canadian
women, and disabled women. Her analysis of policy
shifts over the decade allows for the emergence of general patterns without denying the specificity of historical events, and provides an enriched understanding
of constitutional events from a feminist perspective.
E LAINE S TAVRO , Department of Political Studies,
Trent University
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
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378 Reviews/Comptes rendus
If Only We Knew: Increasing the Public Value
of Social Science Research
by John Willinsky. New York and London:
Routledge, 2000. Pp. ix, 252. $22.95.
In If Only We Knew, John Willinsky suggests that
the public should have access to social science research results on public Web sites. He sees this public knowledge experiment as especially necessary
in light of the withering public sector, “knowbiz”
economies, the public responsibility of social scientists and the goal of deliberative democracy.
In addition to these admirable ideals, the book is
full of interesting tidbits of information. For example, using almost every source imaginable, it traces
a history of how society’s knowledge is “housed”
and understood, including public awareness of risks
and possibilities. The Internet is portrayed as
creating another era of “incunabula” (incunabula are
books produced after the invention of the printing
press which illustrate new standards of presentation
such as title pages, paragraphs, chapters, page numbering, and local languages). In an analogous way,
he suggests that the computer makes technically
possible a number of different types and levels of
footnotes which could facilitate public access to
research.
Despite its great title and occasional insights, I
found this book to be disconcerting. Perhaps the text
would work better online. Its three sections on
knowledge, social science, and politics lack sustained
social, political, contextual, and critical analysis.
Authors and findings with opposite implications and
from different analytic traditions are lumped together, key concepts are not explored, and sustained
arguments are missing. Instead we are thrown comments such as: “Wrap it in technology and they will
fund.” Although Willinsky devotes a full chapter to
“footnotes among fragments,” the book has the annoying practice of putting references only at the end
of each paragraph, creating fragments and silences
within footnotes. This invites sloppy practices of
scholarly citation.
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
In arguing for revitalization of social sciences by
reconnecting it with public interests, Willinsky contrasts his question “Knowledge for whom?” with
Lynd’s question “Knowledge for what?” I wish he
had addressed both questions more specifically and
fully. He does use examples that recognize women,
and he mentions the importance of racial issues, justice, and quality, but his undifferentiated and
unproblematized notion of the “public” implicitly, and
perhaps unwittingly, homogenizes the public as the
white, upper-middle-class American “citizen,” still
dressed in men’s clothing. Willinsky’s faith in abstracted knowledge and his frequent use of American
political examples reminded me of times before the
Canadianization movement in sociology taught us to
appreciate political contexts and recognize American
ethnocentric bias in social science research. I also miss
the insight from feminist scholars with DAWN that
the public will be served only if the needs of the poorest women in the economic south are met. Moreover,
the real difficulties of translating academic writing for
any public and for different publics are not explored.
The author makes the important analytic distinction between his more equalitarian and open focus
on the public at large and other authors who have
argued the public usefulness of research in a more
elitist way, directing their attention at experts or clients. He argues that the goal is not to reduce the
gap between research and policy but to ensure that
the social sciences become more of a source of understanding and knowledge for more of the people.
I agree, but unlike Willinsky, I want to ensure diverse demographic characteristics of these “people.”
The “knowledge for [exactly] whom” question
looms large. We need to understand scholarly knowledge production more fully before abdicating scholarly practices and equating research output with
public consumption in general and abandoning our
commitment to working for social change with
marginalized groups.
As a feminist scholar, I do not have the faith of
Willinsky that our knowledge is unbiased or that the
pluralism that currently exits within the social sciVOL . XXVII , NO . 3 2001
Reviews/Comptes rendus
ences will be treated as a source of our human autonomy rather than as scientific failure. In fact, I
think that the issues relating to power, knowledge,
and science are far more complicated than contained
in Willinsky’s model. I am more inclined to give
new meaning to his title: If Only We Knew, pointing to
promise rather than results of our previous research. I
379
am not sure that social scientists yet know enough to
accomplish a public knowledge project, and yet, perhaps Willinsky is correct to put it on our agenda.
LINDA CHRISTIANSEN-RUFFMAN, Department of Sociology, Saint Mary’s University
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL . XXVII , NO. 3 2001
380 Reviews/Comptes rendus
Transforming Ourselves, Transforming the
World: An Open Conspiracy for Social Change
by Brian K. Murphy. Halifax, NS and New York:
Fernwood Publishing and St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
Pp. xiv.159.
Brian Murphy writes this provocative book out of
years of much thought and experience in non-northern hemispheric countries. In the mid-1960s he
taught literacy in a factory in Canada, then went on
to many other parts of the world, engaging himself
in adult education, poverty, gender, race and class,
and human rights and attempting to stimulate people to be responsible and active participants in
society.
The motivation for the writing may come as a
surprise to readers. After years of development work,
Murphy was about to quit, primarily because he,
along with friends, appeared so inadequate in the
task of social activism and solidarity with poor and
marginal peoples. Then he realized the major barrier to social change was ourselves. We simply do
not possess the will, determination, and faith to confront the world’s greed and violence.
His intention is not to be “scholarly” in the conventional sense. The book is written for activists and
community organizers, and for potential activists
and organizers. The global village will not change
by chance, but by the active, critical choice of millions to transform their lives and the lives of others.
The book is value-led: peace, justice, and dignity
for all human beings. At the end of this first brief
chapter he tells of his encounter in an El Salvadorian
home of four generations of women, who were enduring immense suffering in the civil war. The older
woman chided him in his despondence and gloom
and told him to grasp joy and life. Given the political and economic condition under which these folk
lived, the experience shook him.
He wishes to see a “humanistic radicalism” (Erich
Fromm). He sees inaction as “insane and suicidal.”
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
We are to see beyond our “limit-situations” to “untested feasibilities” (Paulo Friere). Murphy finds
himself in the company of many more than the two
writers mentioned above. He includes: N. Chomsky,
John Pilger, H.L. Mencken, David Malouf, John
Ralston Saul, H. Marcuse, T. Edison, Jacob
Bronowski, G.K. Chesterton, Ivan Illich, Rollo May,
Thomas Kuhn and R.L. Warren. There are brief
quotes from most of these thinkers/writers.
He wishes to reappropriate the word “conspiracy”
from its negative connotation to what is open, public,
and celebratory. This may include subversion of
everything in society — “systems, institutions and
structures” that are exploitative and which erode true
humanity and dignity.
The book carries a solid thread of psychology and
philosophy. He speaks of one internal reality, of the
psychology of inertia, harmony with one’s identity,
creative life, mutuality, and threats to one’s personal
health. All of this is balanced with action. Most of
us engage in only minimal risk. Stress is not distress, but rather the potential for change to occur.
Murphy pushes these boundaries by describing
our society in terms of maintaining order, protecting itself, being controlled by manipulation and
power. He postulates that we seek not truth but humanity, not structure but community, not form but
creativity, not civility but mutuality.
Furthermore, he indicates that “reason and emotion never exist in isolation,” but are “interwoven
manifestations of the subjective and objective fact
of human consciousness.” We are to be “authors of
our own individual and collective future.” We are
cultural creatures and therefore can create the social environment we wish.
The book carries two chapters on education. This
institution endorses stability and security, and thus
the status quo. A “conspiracy” would have as its goal
the social good. Too many hidden assumptions
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undergird our system. Praxis is a key element of
good education. Development education is for development, not about development.
While the book may not fit the conventional expectation of an introductory text for a development
381
course, it is central for anyone who wishes to be
engaged in development work.
JOHN F. PETERS, Professor Emeritus, Department of
Sociology and Anthropology, Wilfrid Laurier
University
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL . XXVII , NO. 3 2001
382 Reviews/Comptes rendus
Urban Planning in a Multicultural Society
edited by Michael A. Burayidi. Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2000. Pp. x, 264. $65.00US.
Urban planning in any community is a complicated
endeavour, more often an art than a science. To be
effective in this post-modern era, planners need a
deft touch. They need to understand urban context,
to read the nuances of their community. Surprisingly,
the need to acknowledge and address difference has
been overlooked — for example, in religion, gender, age, and income. Clearly, one size will not fit
all, yet planners seem to have practised as though
this was the case. Why is this so? Burayidi’s text
provides some answers. Traditionally, planners have
acted as objective proponents of rational, scientific,
planning methods. They developed and implemented
generic, uniform planning processes designed to
minimize opportunities for bias in policy decisions.
These standardized planning processes assumed that
“land use problems could be isolated from socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic concerns” (p. 102).
However, this homogenization of planning has led
to misunderstandings, distrust, and missed opportunities. Burayidi argues that it is time to change
our approach to planning.
Burayidi examines the concept and philosophy
of multiculturalism, and explores trends in urban
cultural communities. The message is clear: urban
planners must understand cultural differences when
planning communities. These differences occur
among, and within, cultural communities. However,
it is important to avoid the temptation of stereotypes;
members of cultural communities are individuals.
He states that it is also important to maintain a bal-
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
ance: how much of the non-dominant cultures are
to be protected and how much is to be changed?
These communities must be engaged in the
decision-making. This requires appropriate forms
and modes of communication, role definition, and
decision-making in planning processes. It also
demands greater flexibility in responses, in the
definition of what constitutes a planning “problem,”
and the means by which problems are resolved.
However, change is a two-way street. Members of
cultural communities may have to change their behaviours and perceptions. One contributor argues
that planners should attempt what anthropologists
do: “they must create political and psychological
conditions for members of the culture to be in their
culture, but also sufficiently outside it to reflect on
it” (p. 119). It also means that planners must “question the meanings of what they encounter” (p. 133).
The text has three sections: Part One (Critical
Perspectives on Planning in a Multicultural Society); Part Two (Planning with Ethnic and Cultural
Communities); and Part Three (Institutional Responses to Planning in a Multicultural Society).
Burayidi is the editor and one of many contributors
to this text. Case studies are used throughout the
text to illustrate key messages. This text is useful
for policy analysts and policymakers operating in urban settings. Burayidi’s work is especially important
and timely for planners who work in Canadian and
American large urban centres, the preferred destination for the majority of these nations’ immigrants.
MARK SEASONS, School of Planning, University of
Waterloo
VOL . XXVII , NO . 3 2001
Reviews/Comptes rendus
The Social Sustainability of Cities: Diversity
and the Management of Change
edited by Mario Polèse and Richard Stren. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2000. Pp. xviii, 334.
The authors define “social sustainability” as “development ... compatible with the harmonious evolution of civil society, fostering an environment
conducive to the compatible cohabitation of culturally and socially diverse groups while at the same
time encouraging social integration, with improvements in the quality of life for all segments of the
population” (pp. 15-16). Their book, produced in
association with UNESCO, concerns “the many and
intricate ways ... local policies affect — or might
affect — social sustainability” (pp. 33-34) in the
contexts of arguments that space matters (with a nod
to Henri Lefebvre) and that “the social sustainability
of cities is affected not only by nationwide aspatial
policies ... but also ... by policy decisions and implementation at the local level, often in sectors which
a priori appear to be relatively banal and prosaic”
(pp. 16-17). The book employs the framework of
“an international comparative approach” (p. 4) based
on case studies of ten cities, in Canada (Montreal
and Toronto), the United States (Miami and Baltimore), Europe (Geneva and Rotterdam), South
America (São Paulo and San Salvador), and in Africa
(Nairobi and Cape Town).
These chapters illustrate that local government
has a key part to play in accomplishing the objective of social sustainability; municipalities may help
foster social integration and equity through, for example (among others), economic-development initiatives, social-housing programs, land-use planning,
infrastructural development, and policing. As the
case studies make clear, however, their ability to do
so is contingent on two constraints: first, the nature
of civic institutions (for example, whether they are
regional or fragmented) and their range of powers;
383
second, whether senior governments — state, provincial, national (and, in the case of Geneva,
transnational arrangements) — create room and
commit resources for cities to promote social
sustainability, particularly in respect to funding essential services and to economic-development and
social-welfare policies.
Polèse’s closing essay notes the “plight of the
American inner city” and observes (contrary to the
claims of promoters of mainly market-dominated
urban development) that “economic progress and
prosperity alone are not sufficient conditions to ensure the social sustainability of cities” (p. 309).
Based on the case studies, he then reaches two general kinds of conclusions about how municipalities
may help generate social sustainability. Some
concern the importance of regional institutions and
policies in governance, social-service delivery and
planning; for example (a conclusion based partly on
the case of Montreal that Canadian urbanists now
take pretty much for granted), one step toward overcoming spatial exclusion involves civic structures
able to disperse social housing across urban areas,
preferably in small projects. A second set of conclusions, concerning urban form and transportation,
and interestingly congruent with ideas of advocates
of environmentally sustainable cities, centres on the
production of more tightly-grained urban fabrics
dependent on urban transit that escape “the socially
divisive effects of the car-oriented suburbs” (p. 314)
and help create equitable access to services and opportunities across cities.
The Social Sustainability of Cities usefully explores a basic dimension of policy-making in the
contemporary urban sphere; as Polèse notes in his
conclusion, accomplishing the objective of social
sustainability will require considerable political will.
JON CAULFIELD, Urban Studies, York University
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
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