The state of research on Canada's parliament

• Published in: Canadian Parliamentary Review 2010-09, Vol.33 (3), p.49
• Main Author: Sutherland, Sharon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Forecasts and trends; Parliamentary government; Parliaments; Political science research; Scholarly publishing; Studies; University research
• ISSN: 0229-2548

Lhe historical list from 2000 to 2007 is however searchable. A first search was conducted to identify all Chairs in the SSHRC s lists awarded to applicants under the disciplinary identifier, "political science," yielding 35 CRCs. Lhese were topical, making it difficult to find a fit with the categories in use here. Next, searches were conducted on the various multidisciplinary categories, using a variety of keywords such as "Canada," "government," and "institutions." Lhis approach led to the identification of another 14 CRC awards (to persons other than political scientists), but the project descriptions emerging from the multidisciplinary categories second group was even less classifiable under our broader headings. One award was perhaps marginally relevant, and only that member of the interdisciplinary group had publications in political science outlets that we could find. Lhe CHFSS' web site's search engine was used to review the titles supported. Lhe search term "Cabinet," found two grants in the 1990s. "House of Commons" turned up two grants in the 1960s and 1970s, and a single title in each of the 1990s and 2000s. Lhe "Senate" has one contemporary title, in 2003. One book on Canadian Ministers, written in 1970, was found. "Parliament" turns up nothing on the workings of the institution. The authors believe that academic disciplines work as a particular kind of network (a "scale free network") where actors will tend to attach themselves to a few high-activity nodes in the network. Preferential early attachment allows academics in a network to benefit from each other's early connections and thinking.8 Thus group members rise together in citations and the concomitant local and national rewards. But networks break fields and disciplines into chewable chunks. The authors cite [Andrew Abbott] as the source of expertise on the downside of abandoning disciplinary fields for "problem-based interdisciplinarity." Networking on problems leads to good citation counts, but also to "fads or politically salient topics and other trends that cool off before the normal life-cycle of the career of a tenured professor runs its course." 9It was earlier noted that many of the awards to political scientists under the CRC program in political science were difficult to place into categories, apart from the ubiquitous "comparative" descriptor.