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Identity Politicking: New Candidacies and Representations in Contemporary Canadian Politics

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Identity Politicking: New Candidacies and Representations in Contemporary Canadian Politics Identity Politicking: New Candidacies and Representations in Contemporary Canadian Politics by Teresa-Elise Maiolino A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Sociology University of Toronto © Copyright by Teresa-Elise Maiolino 2017 Identity Politicking: New Candidacies and Representations in Contemporary Canadian Politics Teresa-Elise Maiolino Doctor of Philosophy Department of Sociology University of Toronto 2017 Abstract This dissertation centres on the candidacies and leaderships of three politicians—Justin Trudeau, Olivia Chow, and Kathleen Wynne. It examines the ways in which gender, race, sexuality, and other salient aspects of politicians’ identities are strategically negotiated and mobilized by politicians, political actors, the media, and the grassroots. The cases herein question the extent to which identity matters in Canadian electoral politics at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels, bridging sociological understandings of power and authority with feminist analyses of identity. The project engages broadly with qualitative methods—discourse analysis, media analysis, participant observation, and interviewing. The research contributes to understandings of: (1) the durability of masculinity in Canadian electoral politics; (2) dispositional requirements for leaders; (3) the compensatory labour that minority politicians perform; (4) alignments and allegiances between politicians and grassroots movements. The first case of the dissertation examines media coverage of a charity-boxing match between Liberal Member of Parliament Justin Trudeau and Conservative Canadian Senator Patrick Brazeau. It offers the concept recuperative gender strategies to describe how political leaders work to restore their public gender identities. The second case is focused on the candidacy of visible minority Toronto mayoral candidate, Olivia Chow. The case offers three concepts that ii illuminate forms of identity work that minority politicians navigate on the campaign trail: dispositional requirements, ideological alignment , and political compensatory labour . The final case analyzes social movement actors’ assessments of Premier Kathleen Wynne—the first woman and openly lesbian premier of Ontario—and presents a typology of words and deeds to map the terms under which social movement actors judge progressive politicians. iii Acknowledgments I am grateful to many people for helping this dissertation come to fruition. I would like to extend my most sincere gratitude to my supervisor, mentor, and friend, Dr. Judith Taylor. Thank you for the countless hours you have devoted to me over the last six years. You have generously shared your expertise. You have whole-heartedly believed in and defended my scholarship. Thank you for challenging me to grow as an academic and as a person. You have taught me to publish, you have taught me to teach, and most importantly, you have taught me to cultivate my own sociological imagination—for this I will forever be indebted to you. Thank you to my Professors and friends at the University of Toronto. To my committee members Dr. Shyon Baumann and Dr. Sandy Welsh, thank you for your feedback on this dissertation and for engaging so deeply with my ideas. Your encouragement and guidance have immensely improved the research. Thanks to Dr. Hae Yeon Choo and Dr. Cynthia Cranford, who have also assisted me on this journey. Jaime Nikolaou, we have shared a unique experience. Thank you for all your help and for being a fantastic feminist comrade. Catherine Man Chuen Cheng, thank you for all your support, for taking me to coffee shops, for Skype calls, and conference trips. A very warm thank you to Vanessa Tancredi, Rachel Morgan, Andrea Iadipaolo, Adam Caldana, Fedele Mazzei, and Carolynn Mazzei, the greatest lifelong friends a person could have. Thank you for always being there for me and for so many adventures. Thank you to my extraordinary family. To all of my cousins, aunts, and uncles, I am thankful that you have entertained my feminist rants and celebrated my accomplishments. A special thank you to three incredible young women, Julia Maiolino, Emily Livi, and Megan Livi, who have been along for the ride from the very beginning. Many thanks to my wonderful parents-in- law, Darlene and Domenic Marando, my brother-in-law, Joseph Marando, and sister-in-law, Sara Moncata, for caring about my work, for your love and kindness, and for your company. I am so fortunate to have two sisters to travel with through life. Nadia Maiolino, thank you for all of your wisdom, for editing every paper I have ever written, and for the all-nighters. Celine Maiolino, thank you for being my sounding board and my rock. Thank you for reminding me to iv “live” and taking me out to do so. Thank you also to my brother-in-law Jason Wells, for always lending a helping hand. To know my parents, Rita and Frank Maiolino, is to know generosity beyond measure. There are no words or gestures of thanks that could possibly do them justice. To my Mom and Dad, thank you for your strength, unwavering love, and endless self-sacrifice. Thank you for being my first conversationalists and fostering a profound curiosity in me about the world. Dylan Marando, my partner in love and life, I will never be able to thank you enough for making my dreams your own. Thank you for grounding me, for holding it all together when everything was falling apart, and for pushing me further than I ever thought was possible. This dissertation benefited immensely from you and from thirteen years of riveting discussions and debates, especially around Canadian politics. Finally, I am eternally grateful to my grandparents. Thank you for your lifetimes of courage and hard work. Gabriella Omiccioli, Carlo Livi, Teresa Filippo, and Luigi Maiolino, il mio dottorato di ricerca dedico. v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ vi List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii List of Appendices .......................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Overview of Dissertation ............................................................................................................ 3 A Survey of the Field .................................................................................................................. 5 Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2 Political Pugilists: Recuperative Gender Strategies in Canadian Electoral Politics ..... 10 Gender and Politics in Canada .................................................................................................. 11 Masculinities ............................................................................................................................. 14 Data and Methods ..................................................................................................................... 16 Findings .................................................................................................................................... 18 From “Precariously Masculine” to “Sufficiently Masculine” ........................................... 18 Recuperative Gender Strategies ......................................................................................... 22 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 24 Chapter 3 “I’m not male, not white, want to start there?”: Olivia Chow and Identity Work in Toronto’s 2014 Mayoral Election ............................................................................................. 26 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 26 Identity Work ............................................................................................................................ 29 Women and Electoral Politics ................................................................................................... 30 Intersectionality ........................................................................................................................ 31 Data and Methods ..................................................................................................................... 32 Findings .................................................................................................................................... 34 vi Dispositional Requirements ............................................................................................... 34 Ideological Alignment ....................................................................................................... 39 Political Compensatory Labour ........................................................................................
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