Rachel McLay studies polarization in politics, with a focus on the state of politics and the public sphere in Atlantic Canada.
“While addressing ‘big questions’ about democracy, social movements and the political challenges facing the public today, I consider what these global problems mean for Atlantic Canadians.”
In 2013, then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged Canadians not to “commit sociology” to better understand the roots of terrorism, the social conditions that nurture extremism and drive people to commit violent acts. He failed to understand that nobody makes choices in a vacuum. They are necessarily affected by myriad social and political forces that shape […]
A runaway trolley is barreling down the tracks towards five people. You are standing next to a lever. Pulling this lever will cause the trolley to switch tracks before it hits the five people, saving them from certain death. But it will divert the trolley towards one person on the other set of tracks. If […]
On September 20th, the Liberals held on to their minority government, winning votes from—*checks notes*—less than 15% of the Canadian population (or about 1 in 5 eligible voters). Although the Conservatives got more votes, the Liberals hold 33% more seats in parliament. They also hold more than six times the number of NDP seats, despite […]
This article was written with Dr. Howard Ramos, Western University, and Dr. Karen Foster, Dalhousie University. It was published online and in SaltWire newspapers on September 8, 2021. Too often, politicians present the public with a false choice between economic stability and environmental protection. Stoking fears of job losses and income insecurity, they wield the […]
On August 9, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report, telling us again what should already be quite clear: human actions have caused irreversible changes to our global climate, and many of those changes have already begun causing widespread harm, destruction, and death. In other words, it is too late to prevent […]
In Canada, much of our national pride comes from the ways that we are unlike the United States. Canadians, for example, overwhelmingly disapproved of Donald Trump—and it is hard to imagine that even this country’s most shameless elected officials would stoke open insurrection, such as occurred in Washington, D.C., in January. In American politics, the […]
I decided that I wanted to study political sociology on November 8th, 2016—the night of the U.S. presidential election. I wanted to understand everything: what was happening, how we’d arrived at that moment, and, most importantly, how to move forward from it. I’m not an American citizen, but, like many others, I could see new […]
April was the cruelest month in Nova Scotia this year, as the third wave of COVID-19 violently crashed on our shores. Last month, I argued that governments’ decisions have been the driving force keeping Atlantic Canada relatively safe during the pandemic—not simply good luck, nor a “collective ethic” that is unique to this region. At […]
This article was originally published in The Conversation. While vaccines have brought the end of the COVID-19 pandemic into view, most of Canada is still battling a brutal third wave of infections and deaths. Meanwhile, Atlantic Canada’s COVID-19 response has been a world-famous success story, often attributed to its coastal geography and relatively low population […]
Who could have predicted that, in 2021, GameStop—a chain of brick-and-mortar video game stores—would make headlines for its soaring stock prices? Or that the self-described degenerates on the investing subreddit r/WallStreetBets would initiate a wave of direct action that many have compared to Occupy Wall Street? The GameStop wave crested at the end of January, […]
