Neoliberalism, Class and Culture: The 2008 Federal Elections in Canada and the United States
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18740/S4GW2XKeywords:
class identity, cultural and economic dimensions of class, electoral politics, federal electionAbstract
In the 2008 federal elections in Canada and The United States, conservative parties used class rhetoric in an attempt to draw votes from the working class. They did so by defining class along narrowly cultural lines, so excluding economic concerns. This research note examines the cases of ‘Ordinary Canadians Don’t Care About The Arts’ and ‘Joe the Plumber’ to show how conservative parties in Canada and the United States are redefining class as a purely cultural variable. Although the rhetoric was not entirely successful, the cases are instructive about the ways that the understandings and importance of class as an economic relation is suppressed by pro-capitalist parties in political elections.
Downloads
Published
2012-12-06
Issue
Section
Research Notes
License
Copyright: Authors who publish in the Journal agree to the following terms: 1)Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal the right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in the Journal; and, 2)Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the Journal's published version of the work (eg post to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the Journal.
