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The New Canada: Fomenting Fear at Home and Abroad
- Analysis
- February 4, 2012
Why base policy on facts and evidence when you can exploit fear instead? It doesn’t take a psychologist to know that fear is a much more powerful motivator than boring old rational argument. Political scientists have long studied the use of fear-based appeals as techniques that “entrepreneurial” politicians may use to mobilize support. The Harper
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Something Borrowed, Nothing Gained: John Baird’s Big Ideas in Foreign Policy
- Analysis
- February 3, 2012
“Canada is what I like to call a ‘smart power’,” Foreign Minister John Baird declared in a major speech in Israel last week. That’s reassuring, although as a means of distinguishing our foreign policy it is likely to prove elusive. What country would proudly proclaim the opposite? Every state hopes to exercise power in smart
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Observations on Russian Politics from a Moscow Bookstore
- Analysis
- January 31, 2012
While waiting for the Moscow archives to deliver up their secrets last week, I popped into the Russian capital’s largest bookstore, Biblio Globus, to check out the history section—and while there, I took a very quick look at the politics books on most prominent display. This is, given its cursory nature, far from being a
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Let’s Look in the Right Place for Proof of Citizen Allegiance
- Analysis
- January 27, 2012
Sometimes magical thinking pops up in the most unexpected places—like the recently-revived complaints about dual citizenship that have arisen around the candidacy of Thomas Mulcair (a dual citizen of Canada and France) for the NDP leadership. On Mulcair’s account, he chose to acquire French citizenship by marriage in order to go through airport customs with
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