2009 John McMenemy Prize

Winner: Debra Elizabeth Thompson

Is Race Political?, Canadian Journal of Political Science 41:3

Excerpt from jury report: Debra Thompson’s outstanding paper “Is Race Political?” (CJPS, 41/3, September 2008,525-547) is the first text about race in political science the Journal has published since Vince Wilson’s Presidential Address in 1993. Thompson argues that this reflects a ‘fundamental disconnect’ between ‘Canadian demographic and social reality, which demonstrates the significance of race, and the disciplinary silence of English-Canadian political science regarding both the conceptualization of race as a political production and the incorporation of race as a compelling explanatory variable in the analysis of political pheomena'(525).

Thompson briefly demonstrates the political nature of race in Canada, and then explores tentative explanations for the scarcity of literature on race in political science compared to the other social sciences. Many English-Canadians still consider race a problem which stops at the Canada-US border, and Thompson concludes that the appearance of race as a descriptor in only 1.6% of articles in three major English-Canadian political science journals is ‘shamefully low’. But her analysis also takes seriously the difficulties identified by earlier English-Canadian scholars in finding ‘space’ for race analysis in our main theoretical frameworks. One problem is the focus of these frameworks on political elites and decision makers, few of whom have been other than white men. Another is the discipline’s historic focus on politics in Canada, with suprisingly little work on the United States.

Thompson’s text also provides suggestions for how the politics of race can be conceptualized to take its place beside familiar themes–e.g. Quebec and Aboriginal nationalisms, multiculturalism. Rejecting colour-blind approaches, because they erase racial minorities by focusing only on elite actors, Thompson argues that the discipline must reconsider its commitment to elite-focused, colour-blind approaches. She argues that the other social sciences have incorporated issues and ideas about race more fully precisely because they focus on mass as well as elite phenomena, and explore global trends. Thompson also suggests that exploring how francophone political scientists in Canada have dealt with racial issues may be fruitful–a suggestion which could link us in a common project. This is a challenging, provocative and useful text.