La COVID-19 a provoqué la crise mondiale la plus importante et la plus globale du 21e siècle. Pour certains, les répercussions ont été rapides et dramatiques, la pandémie poussant des dizaines de millions de personnes dans la pauvreté et générant une insécurité alimentaire extrême. Pour d’autres, les transformations bouillonnent encore sous la surface et des questions demeurent quant à savoir si les changements de société induits par la COVID-19 perdureront dans la période post-pandémique....

Medicare is the third rail of Canadian politics. Touch it and you die. Every politician knows this truism, which is why no one wants to debate it. Privately, many of them understand that the health care system, which costs about $200 billion a year in public and private money, cannot continue as it is-increasingly ill-adapted to an aging population with public costs growing faster than government revenues. In Chronic Condition, Jeffrey Simpson meets health care head on and explores the onl...

***A NEW YORKER, ESQUIRE, HISTORY TODAY AND THE CONVERSATION BOOK OF THE YEAR*‘The best case I've read for putting an upper limit on the accumulation of wealth’** Richard Wilkinson'One of the most talked-about books to the moment … Limitarianism floats the heretical idea that fixing society isn’t just about saving the poorest from destitution, but about putting a cap on how much the richest are able to own' Sp...

Weak or failed states - where no government is in control - are the source of many of the world's most serious problems, from poverty, AIDS and drugs to terrorism. What can be done to help? The problem of weak states and the need for state-building has existed for many years, but it has been urgent since September 11 and Afghanistan and Iraq.The formation of proper public institutions, such as an honest police force, uncorrupted courts, functioning schools and medical services and ...

The 2020 General Election results have raised expectations that Singapore will transition to a more competitive democracy. But this is far from preordained. Nor is there a clear societal consensus that the city-state needs this amid a pandemic and its deepest economic crisis since independence.For now, the People’s Action Party still controls all the levers of power. With the opposition still not ready to step up as an alternative government-in-waiting, Lee Kuan Yew’s prognosis sti...

Designed specifically for introductory globalization courses, Introducing Globalization helps students to develop informed opinions about globalization, inviting them to become participants rather than just passive learners.Identifies and explores the major economic, political and social ties that comprise contemporary global interdependencyExamines a broad sweep of topics, from the rise of transnational corporations and global commodity chains, to global h...

A groundbreaking new historical analysis of how global capitalism and advanced democracies mutually support each otherIt is a widespread view that democracy and the advanced nation-state are in crisis, weakened by globalization and undermined by global capitalism, in turn explaining rising inequality and mounting populism. This book, written by two of the world’s leading political economists, argues this view is wrong: advanced democracies are resilient, and their ...

How do we make sense of the social problems that continue to plague Canadian society? Our understanding of issues such as poverty, racism, violence, homophobia, crime and pollution stems from our view of how society is structured. From the dominant neoliberal perspective, social problems arise from individuals making poor choices. From a critical perspective, however, these social troubles are caused by structural social inequalities. Disparities in economic, social and political power — t...

An urgent and deeply resonant case for the power of workplace democracy to restore balance between economy and society.What happens to a society—and a planet—when capitalism outgrows democracy? The tensions between democracy and capitalism are longstanding, and they have been laid bare by the social effects of COVID-19. The narrative of “essential workers” has provided thin cover for the fact that society’s lowest paid and least empowered continue to work risky job...

Across the world we are witnessing daily the lethal effects of a rapid and scary hardening of borders, ignited and justified by manufactured fear and scarcity. In such conditions, highly exploitative ideas of “managed migration” are presented as reasonable and just.And temporary worker programs, championed by countries like Canada and the US, are presented as an acceptable response to both acute labour shortages and ugly nationalist feelings. For this, all workers pay the price in ...

With rapid globalization, the world is more deeply interconnected than ever before. While this has its advantages, it also brings with it systemic risks that are only just being identified and understood. Rapid urbanization, together with technological leaps, such as the Internet, mean that we are now physically and virtually closer than ever in humanity's history. We face a number of international challenges - climate change, finance, pandemics, cyber security, and migration - which spill...

Many Canadians believe that immigrants steal jobs away from qualified Canadians, abuse the healthcare system and refuse to participate in Canadian culture. In About Canada: Immigration, Gogia and Slade challenge these myths with a thorough investigation of the realities of immigrating to Canada. Examining historical immigration policies, the authors note that these policies were always fundamentally racist, favouring whites, unless hard labourers were needed. Although current policies are ...