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Click Here to Download the PDF File NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. ® UMI Conflict -^Consensus -> Convention The Depoliticization of Canada's Economic Discourse By: Marc-Andre Pigeon Academic Advisor: Dwayne Winseck Carleton University August 22, 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-47486-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-47486-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada ABSTRACT My thesis addresses the following question: how did the idea of balanced budgets and inflation targeting become conventional views so powerful that they has seeped into our popular culture as comedy, been touted as a cornerstone of our national identity and earned Canada a global reputation for fiscal probity and monetary acumen that others are keen to emulate? The answer, I argue, is that the conventions were constructed, slowly but doggedly, over a thirty year period beginning in the troubled economic times of the 1970s. We can profitably understand this process by investigating three overlapping communicative circuits or spheres of ideas and knowledge construction that built and now police these conventions, namely: (1) convention construction in and by the federal bureaucracy by means of increasingly strategic communication practices that originated in the early 1980s at the Department of Finance; (2) convention construction by the media through content that was shaped by the media's fiscally conservative and inflation- averse agenda but driven largely by the federal government's policy agenda; (3) convention construction by the polling industry through practices that buttressed the case for fiscal restraint (monetary issues were generally not subject to polling). I call the actors in these of these spheres of convention construction the "elite." From the 1970s until the early 1990s, there were significant fissures amongst this elite, with many still harboring what would now be regarded as illicit Keynesian or "embedded liberalism" views about the proper function and salutary effects of an activist state using fiscal and monetary policy to their full capacity. Many if not most of these progressive elite eventually surrendered to the overwhelming force of political momentum and convention out of some combination of honest intellectual conversion, battle fatigue, or recognition that they were on the losing side of history. The rest were merely silenced or sidelined by the forces of convention. Consequently, I argue contra the dominant narrative of Canada's fiscal and monetary turn, that the strength and durability of our current fiscal and monetary policy conventions depend on the degree of consensus among this elite much more than among the broader public. n TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS II CHAPTER 1 : CONVENTIONS AND THE RESILIENCE OF IDEAS 1 THE ARGUMENT 3 THE THEORETICAL CONTEXT 5 THE RELEVANT LITERATURE 8 THE SITUATION 10 CHAPTER 2 - CONVENTIONS AND THE ELITE 13 THE REAL WORLD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 13 THE REALITY OF CONVENTION 16 THE POTENTIAL INSTABILITY OF CONVENTION 20 THE EMERGENCE OF CONVENTION 22 THE PLACE OF IDEOLOGY 25 THEORETICAL TOOLS FOR STUDYING CONVENTION FORMATION AND MAINTENANCE .' 28 (i) The Institutional Circuit: Late Modernity, the Public Sphere and the Theory of the Technologization of Discourse 29 (ii) Media Circuits: Late Modernity, Media Practices and Studying Media Content 32 (a) Media Practices, Consensus, and Late Modernity 33 (b) Analyzing Media Content 1: Critical Discourse Analysis 37 (c) Analyzing Media Content 2: Metaphor 40 (Hi) Polling Circuits: Agenda Setting and Elite Concerns 44 CONCLUSION 49 CHAPTER 3 : CONVENTIONS ARE BORN IN STRUCTURAL CHANGE 51 THE POST-WAR FISCAL CONTEXT 51 THE POST-WAR MONETARY CONTEXT 62 LEGITIMATION CRISIS 64 CONCLUSION : LEGITIMATION CRISIS AND THE ELITE 68 CHAPTER 4 : CONVENTIONS AND THE TECHNOLOGIZATION OF DISCOURSE 72 The Communicative Turn at the Department of Finance 75 Unveiling the Budget: The Demise of Secrecy 78 Communicating Budgets: An Evolutionary Account 80 The Mulroney Era 83 The First Campaign 84 The Second Rhetorical Campaign 86 The Chretien/Martin Years 89 The 1994 Budget and Its Aftermath 92 The Turning Point 95 The New Communications Cycle 97 in The Aftermath of 1995 101 THE COMMUNICATIVE TURN AT THE BANK OF CANADA 102 Bank Of Canada History Through A Communicative Lens 105 The Move to Transparency 107 Expectations Management: The 1990s Ill Conclusion: The Communications Challenge of Late Modernity 118 CHAPTER 5: CONVENTIONS CONTAIN THEIR NEGATION 121 THE MONETARY POLICY VEIL 121 LIFTING THE VEIL 123 THE EVIDENCE 126 The Committee Context 126 The Crow Era: 1987 - 1993 128 The Thiessen Era : 1994 - 2000 133 The Dodge Era: 2001 - 2007. 141 THE UNVEILING 148 The Crow Vs Langdon Exchange 148 The Thiessen - Nystrome Exchange 755 Dodge and Minna 162 The Dodge-Mina 2002 Exchange 162 The Dodge-Minna 2004 Exchange 167 CONCLUSION 170 CHAPTER 6 - CONVENTIONS, AGENDAS AND THE MEDIA 173 WHY I CHOSE TO STUDY THE GLOBE 174 TARGETING THE ELITE 175 SAMPLING PROCEDURES 180 CHOOSING KEYWORD SEARCH TERMS 181 THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 184 GLOBE COVERAGE AND THE REAL WORLD 188 WHO HAD VOICE? 191 SOURCING AND UNIFORMITY 195 CONCLUSION 200 CHAPTER 7: THE METAPHORS OF CONVENTION 203 THE PLACE OF ECONOMIC METAPHORS 204 THE PROCESS OF IDENTIFYING METAPHOR CATEGORIES 207 THE PROCESS OF VISUALLY DEPICTING METAPHOR CATEGORIES 208 THE METAPHORS OF MONETARY POLICY 209 i. MONETARY POLICY IS WAR: The Language of Class Warfare (1) 210 ii. INFLA TION IS A SIREN'S SONG: The Language of Discipline 213 Hi. MONETARY VARIABLES ARE LIQUIDS: The Language of Theory 217 iv. MONETARY POLICY IS LIKE DRIVING A CAR: The Language of Technocratic Control 218 v. INFLATION IS A DISEASE: The Cure for What Ails Convention 220 vi. The Governors Speak: The Signs of Convention 221 vii. Technologization of Discourse Metaphors 222 iv QUANTIFYING MONETARY POLICY METAPHORS 223 THE METAPHORS OF FISCAL POLICY 227 L DEFICIT REDUCTION IS WAR: The Language of Class Warfare (2).... 228 ii. DEFICITS ARE A DISEASE: The Language of the Madman 231 Hi. DEFICITS ARE A SIREN'S SONG: Deficits are a Temptress 233 iv. GOVERNMENTS ARE LIKE HOUSEHOLDS: The Language of Fiscal Constraint 234 QUANTIFYING THE FISCAL POLICY METAPHORS 238 CONCLUSION 240 CHAPTER 8: THE RHETORIC OF CONVENTIONS 242 1994: THE GLOBE AND MAIL ANGERS MARTIN 242 External Analysis 243 Internal Analysis 245 1995: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL SOUNDS THE ALARM 258 External Analysis 260 Internal Analysis 262 1997: THE FISCAL CONVENTION ACQUIRES A NARRATIVE 268 External Analysis 269 Internal Analysis 270 IN DEFENCE OF THE FISCAL CONVENTION 277 External and Internal Analysis 279 CONCLUSION 282 CHAPTER 9 : THE PUBLIC'S CONVENTIONAL VIEW 283 THE EXISTING RESEARCH 283 THE DATA: POLICY AGENDAS, LEGITIMATION THEMES AND GOVERNMENT FINANCES 287 REVIEWING THE AGENDA-SETTING EVIDENCE 301 ANOTHER LOOK AT THE MIP DATA 304 CONCLUSION 309 CHAPTER 10: CHALLENGING CONVENTIONAL OPINION 312 A GENERAL CRITIQUE OF THE TECHNOLOGY OF POLLING 312 THE EARNSCLIFFE STUDIES 316 Downplaying of Conflicting Evidence and The Use of " Waste" 316 (Near) Absence of Class-Based Analysis ,. 320 Strong Conclusions from Weak Evidence 325 Appealing to Finance 331 CONCLUSION 332 CHAPTER 11 : CONCLUSION: THE CONVENTIONAL STORY, SO FAR 338 THE STORY So FAR , 340 ASSESSING THE CONVENTION AS IDEOLOGICAL 344 WHY THESE CONVENTIONS AND DID THE DEBATE HAVE TO BE IDEOLOGICAL?... 345 REFERENCES 347 v LIST OF TABLES Table Number Table Title Page Number Table 5-1 Appearances by Bank of Canada Governors 129 Before the Finance Committee, 1987 - May 2007 Table 6-1 Profile of Targeted Globe and Mail Audience 180 Based on Data Compiled from Financial Facelift Column, May 1999 - April 2006 Table 6-2 Search Strings Used to Derive Samples for Fiscal 182
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