Theoretical Debates

Our theoretical exploration of identity politics within Canadian political science focuses on three dominant and overlapping themes: the “recognition versus redistribution” divide, the so-called “culturalist turn,” and finally the ongoing quest for a unified pan-Canadian identity. These discussions all grapple with the role of “difference” within broader collectives.

The recognition/redistribution debate hinges on competing understandings of what constitutes material-based oppression and the extent to which cultural and materialist claims can be cleanly distinguished either analytically or in praxis. Butler objects to accounts which render “certain oppressions as part of political economy and relegates others to the exclusively cultural field” (Reference Butler1997: 270). She faults both orthodox Marxists and feminist theorists such as Fraser (Reference Fraser1997a) with treating “new social movements” (a designation discussed with greater scrutiny below) as “merely cultural” and relying on a false cultural/economic dichotomy which belies the extent to which economic capitalist relations depend on a particular racial and sexual social order. Fraser (Reference Fraser1997b) disputes that the recognition/redistribution distinction subordinates claims of recognition as “merely cultural” and instead avers that misrecognition and maldistribution are separate, but equally primary, forms of injustice requiring contestation.

The second, and related, theme influencing discussions of identity politics within Canadian social sciences concerns the recognition and accommodation of cultural difference. The interdisciplinary popularity of the liberalism of Kymlicka and Taylor has meant that discussions around the politics of identity have largely been framed under the rubric of culture at the exclusion of the material. Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka1998) portrays the liberal democratic values and ideological commitments of the Canadian state as largely fixed and allows for cultural accommodation only within the confines of these non-negotiable norms. While Kymlicka is optimistic about the potential to publicly reconcile cultural claims within liberal representative democracy, Taylor (Reference Taylor and Gutmann1994) is explicitly concerned that the “politics of difference” pose a threat to liberal values framed as “the politics of universal dignity.” Accordingly, Taylor seeks to reinscribe the public/private divide and confine claims for cultural recognition to the private realm. Although there are important differences in Kymlicka's and Taylor's thought, both scholars fit within a liberal nationalist political project (Nath, Reference Nath2011) and both posit limits to cultural accommodation within the framework of the liberal state.

In response to this culturalist dominance, critical race and Indigenous scholars have raised several concerns. Bannerji's critique faults Taylor for failing, “to make any distinction between different kinds of differences, those which could be called cultural diversities and those structured through power relations and which could be encoded as gender, ‘race’ and class” (Reference Bannerji2000: 131–132). Bannerji accuses the Canadian state's multicultural policies of reducing the material and structural demands of marginalized groups to “officially constructed communities” based on identity (Reference Bannerji1996: 105). Similarly, Mackey describes Canadian liberalism as dependent on “its ability to construct itself as not cultural (in that it is not presented as the project of one cultural or ethnic group), but as universal and rational” (Reference Mackey1999: 174, emphasis in original). More recently, Coulthard (Reference Bannerji2014) offers an Indigenous critique of the politics of recognition, arguing that in the context of fundamental power imbalances the terms of recognition are largely set by the colonial state and operate symbolically in concert with ongoing material dispossession. Building on these critiques, our research is animated by a concern that the deployment of the term identity politics has become a strategy for obfuscating the extent to which cultural and identity-based attachments inform ostensibly universal politics.

Finally, references to identity politics are frequently situated within broader discussions about how to identify and theorize “Canadianness” as a distinct identity. Whitaker observes that, “for much of Canadian national history, there was only limited conceptualization of Canada as a stand-alone sovereign nation” (Reference Whitaker2000: 221). Canada's relatively young and fragile sovereign nationalism has thus been a source of much debate surrounding the enduring influence of Britain and France, as well as the encroaching influence of the United States. Vickers has critiqued this nationalist preoccupation within Canadian studies as obscuring the intrinsically raced, gendered and settler-colonial nature of the Canadian state. In her 1992 address at a conference organized by the Association for Canadian Studies, she described Canadian studies as founded on a radical conservative and anti-modernist consensus that makes it “hard for anyone other than white males of the majoritarian culture to find a sense of identity in the discourse represented in the founding consensus” (Reference Vickers, Goldie, Lambert and Lorimer1994: 363, emphasis added). As a consequence of this restricted view of “Canadian selves,” those other marginalized Canadian selves are designated as “special interest” when they collectively mobilize on the basis of shared marginalization or shared identity (Dobrowolsky, Reference Dobrowolsky1998). This perennial debate over Canadian identity, in conjunction with theoretical debates over redistribution/recognition and culturalism, inform our later discussion of how identity politics are discursively demarcated from politics.

Methodological Approach

We examined the use of the term identity politics in research articles in the leading English language peer-reviewed academic journals in the Canadian social sciences. We chose peer-reviewed journal articles because journals act as “gate-keepers” (Thompson, Reference Thompson2008) for academic disciplines, serving as the major site of publication by experts in the field. Consequently, journals perform a hegemonic role in defining the boundaries and conceptual language of academic practice. To facilitate comparison with Thompson's examination (Reference Thompson2008) of discourses of race in the Canadian social sciences we chose to focus on four of the same journals: Canadian Journal of Political Science (CJPS), Canadian Public Policy (CPP), Canadian Public Administration (CPA), and Canadian Journal of Sociology (CJS). To these we added Journal of Canadian Studies (JCS) and Studies in Political Economy (SPE) to increase our breadth. As our interest is in how identity politics is mobilized in mainstream journals that do not primarily focus on race, ethnicity or gender, our case selection was guided by an attempt to include journals that reflect dominant research areas in political science where the concept identity politics was likely to circulate, including political economy (SPE), political sociology and political behaviour (CJS), and Canadian national identity (JCS). To track the use of the term identity politics in our selected journals we conducted a full text search for both “identity politics” and “politics of identity” for the years 1985–2015, inclusive.Footnote ³ The 1985–2015 time frame was chosen because it corresponds with the date the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect and the ensuing concern with political claims-making based on identity (Abu-Laban and Nieguth, Reference Abu-Laban and Nieguth2000; Cairns, Reference Cairns1991; Dobrowolsky, Reference Dobrowolsky1998; Morton, Reference Morton1987). We then manually removed any search results that were not peer reviewed research articles or were false positives.Footnote ⁴

Once a dataset of peer reviewed research articles was established for each of the journals, the publication information was recorded, as well as any discourse fragments pertinent to the article's use of identity politics. Then the following questions were considered.Footnote ⁵

• • Do the authors use identity politics to describe their own scholarship or that of others?

• • Does the article provide a definition of identity politics and/or references?

• • Who are described as the subjects of identity politics?

• • Do authors tend to use the term in a laudatory, neutral or pejorative manner?

• • Is engagement with the term substantive or cursory?

• • Does the prevalence of the term identity politics in academic literature vary over time?

• • What overall purpose does the term play in the article's argument?

Multiple responses were allowed for categories that were not mutually exclusive, as our goal was to capture the full range of discursive expression. Both researchers categorized each individual article independently and responses were cross-checked between researchers. Responses were then coded to identify patterns and common themes. In keeping with Silverman's observation (Reference Silverman, Denzin and Lincoln2000) that complex, predetermined coding schemes can be too deterministic to capture the data accurately, thematic categories were inductively drawn from a close reading of discourse fragments.

In our work we adopt a form of discourse analysis known as critical discourse analysis (CDA). Building on traditional practices of discourse analysis, CDA applies a lens of social criticism to consider how social power relations are implicated in discourses. Practitioners of CDA argue that even scholarly discourses are not neutral, disinterested exercises but rather are embedded in social relations, ideology and power (Fairclough, Reference Fairclough, Wodak and Meyer2002; Van Dijk, Reference Van Dijk, Schiffrin, Tannen and Hamilton2003). As a result, analyzing scholarly discourses can shed light on how academic writing, as a form of elite discourse, can “enact, confirm, legitimate, reproduce, or challenge relations of power and dominance in society” (Van Dijk, Reference Van Dijk, Schiffrin, Tannen and Hamilton2003: 353).

Following Fairclough (Reference Fairclough2001) we analysed journal articles using the moniker identity politics in three steps. First, we engaged in a surface reading of the text, to identify references to identity politics: assessing the location, content and prevalence of the term. Then we undertook a critical engagement with the text to examine how assumptions embedded in the concept of identity politics were mobilized by the author. This engagement included noting coded language, argumentative positioning, tonality and the marginalization/augmentation of particular voices. Tonality was assessed by examining the adjectives and descriptors associated with identity politics, for example, the negative presentation of identity politics as divisive, threatening, and/or undesirable, or conversely the use of positive or ambivalent descriptors (Young and Soroka, Reference Young and Soroka2012). This tonality assessment enabled consideration of whether the use of the term identity politics was intended to augment or detract from a particular line of scholarship. Finally, we drew linkages between broader socio-political developments and the discursive use of identity politics.

Finding Identity Politics

Overall, we found 83 occurrences of the term “identity politics” or “politics of identity” from 1985 to 2015 in peer reviewed research articles in our six journals.Footnote ⁶ References were not distributed evenly: JCS contained the most references with 27, while CPP had the fewest with three mentions of identity politics (see Fig. 1). One journal, CPA, had no references at all. Temporally, there was only one reference prior to 1990 and the majority of references occurred after 1994. Mentions of identity politics peaked in a cluster around the year 2000, with subsequent high points in 2008 and 2013 (see Fig. 2).

Figure 1 Distribution of references to ‘identity politics’ by academic journal

Figure 2 Distribution of references to ‘identity politics’ by year

As political events often precede academic engagement with these developments, this leads us to explore what happened in Canadian politics to stimulate ongoing discussion of identity politics in the 1990s, a term virtually absent in earlier literature. We suggest debates around constitutional reform, multiculturalism and free trade may be historical factors informing the heightened identity politics references in the late 1990s. The non-ratification the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords spurred a national discussion about the role of so-called “special interests,” including women and state-identified groups such as visible minorities and Aboriginal peoplesFootnote ⁷ in the failure to arrive at a national consensus (Lusztig, Reference Lusztig1994; Tully, Reference Tully1995, but also Abu-Laban and Nieguth, Reference Abu-Laban and Nieguth2000; Dobrowolsky, Reference Dobrowolsky1998 for dissenting perspectives). These constitutional conversations overlapped with discussions of increasingly entrenched state multiculturalism which was introduced in 1971, but not legislated into enduring existence until 1988.Footnote ⁸ Finally, the 1990s were also marked by concerns around free trade, especially the implications of NAFTA for Canadian manufacturing and the labour movement. These concerns were particularly dominant in the left political economy tradition (Gill, Reference Gill1995; Robinson, Reference Robinson1994), and arguably aggravated by the perceived vibrancy of so-called “new social movements,” popular movements not organized through unions or labour affiliations (Carroll and Ratner, Reference Carroll and Ratner1995; Conway, Reference Conway2000; Rose, Reference Rose1997).

The prominence of constitutional debates, multiculturalism and free trade discussions may also help illuminate why identity politics has had more traction in JCS, CJPS, and SPE. We would expect JCS (a journal focusing on all facets of Canada) to include extensive discussions both around constitutional reform and free trade, as well as scholarship related more generally to questions of Canadian identity, including multiculturalism. Similarly, we would expect CJPS, as a journal that publishes extensively on constitutional and economic issues to engage more heavily in discussions around identity politics than CPP or CPA, which are more narrowly focused on the issues of public policy and administration.

In the next section of our analysis, we move from this snapshot of the general landscape of distributions of the label identity politics to consider three areas of inquiry. First, who are the subjects ascribed to identity politics? Second, is the term used in an analytically rigorous manner? Finally, how does the term contribute to the overall argument of the article? Each of these questions is considered below.

Subjects of Identity Politics

Identity politics could refer to any group drawn together by a common social marker. This view harkens back to Jenson's observation that all politics are the politics of identity in that all politics are situated in particular subjectivities (Reference Jenson1991). Nevertheless, our analysis found that only some subjectivities were commonly labelled identity politics. Perhaps unsurprisingly, identity politics most frequently referenced ethnic groupings, with 40 articles linking identity politics to ethnicity. Ethnicity was followed at some distance by gender, sexuality, race and new social movements (NSMs) with several other categories receiving occasional mention (see Fig. 3). Broadly speaking, we can identify three overlapping clusters of referents: an ethnoracial/cultural grouping that includes mentions of ethnicity, race, religion and culture; a gender/sexuality cluster of references to feminism, gender, sexuality and LGBTQ+ organizing; and a smaller nationalism and NSM cluster including references to nationalism, sub-national geopolitical identities, and new social movements.

Figure 3 Distribution of subjects of ‘identity politics’

A recurrent theme within each grouping is the general absence of a specific referent, as well as internal inconsistencies in the usage of the term. These concerns are discussed in greater detail below, as well as in the following section on analytic rigour.

Lack of Analytic Rigour

In outlining the various subjects of identity politics, we observe a lack of specific referent in terms of whose politics are cast as identity politics. This implies a degree of conceptual looseness around the term, which is concerning as we agree with Nath that “a lack of clarity/transparency around the level of analysis we adopt when we speak about ‘identity’ jeopardizes our analytic rigour” (Reference Nath2011: 162). The issue is not solely that many groups are associated with identity politics but more importantly that the usage of the term often references oppositional theoretical framing. The lack of analytic rigour was further compounded by the absence of references linking the term identity politics to particular scholars and/or definitions clarifying the concept. Seventy per cent of the articles surveyed provided no references to support their use of identity politics, despite the noted absence of a common sense meaning attached to the term in the academic literature. We applied a broad understanding of what constitutes a definition a definition could be either explicitly stated or implicitly read out of the surrounding text. Even so, out of 83 articles that used the term, only 16 offered a definition.

Of the articles that did offer implicit or explicit definitions, three dominant, though not necessarily exhaustive, groupings emerged. One grouping consists of definitions that emphasized culture or ethnicity. For example, Lecours understands identity politics as seeking rights and recognition in relation to “cultural distinctiveness” (Reference Lecours2000: 503); Lucas christens identity politics “the politics of diversity” (Reference Lucas2013: 95); and Redhead argues these are claims based on ethnicity, particularly those that mobilize an essentialist view of identity (Reference Redhead2003). For these scholars, identity politics is very closely linked to ethnoracial and cultural demands. A second cluster emphasizes collective action without singling out ethnicity. This perspective is exemplified by Haklai who views identity politics as “collective identity on the basis of shared identity” within a social movement (Reference Haklai2003: 793), Conway, for whom the term encompasses all non-class based “equality-seeking movements” (Reference Conway2000: 67), and Michalski who describes identity politics as general issues related to “group memberships and human rights” (Reference Michalski2008: 522). A third grouping is marked by generality, arguing identity politics is just “politics” (Jenson Reference Jenson1991: 50); or the general “naming or identifying of subordinate groups” (Stavro Reference Stavro2007: 440).

Very broadly these definitional groupings are linked by a concern with collective claims making, though they lack unity otherwise, and again definitions were absent from the majority of articles mentioning identity politics. Both the preponderance of cursory references and the absence of references and/or definitions are indicative of a lack of analytic rigour in the usage of the term. The dominance of cursory references indicate the term is being “name dropped” rather than substantively engaged. Furthermore, an absence of references to specific scholarship or political interventions enables the term to be used as a derogatory rhetorical tool without specifying precisely what scholarship commits the alleged fallacies of identity politics.

Analytical Distancing

We now turn to the role identity politics played in the argument of the articles in which it was used. We discuss these findings through two questions. First, did authors position their own work within an identity politics framework? Second, what was the role of the reference to identity politics in the overall argument?

We differentiated between authors who described identity politics as a framing within which their own analysis could be included and those who used identity politics as a point of contrast to describe a body of work that differed from their own. No author offered a declarative statement explicitly referring to themselves as an identity politics theorist or fitting their work within a politics of identity framework. Of the more than 83 articles reviewed, only 12 used identity politics to describe a framework applicable to their own work. In contrast, 54 articles applied the label identity politics to others' work, usually as evidence of some deficiency. For instance, scholars engaged in identity politics were described as erroneously “prioritiz[ing] differences and attach[ing] political rights to them” (Pickup et al., Reference Pickup, Sayers, Knopff and Archer2004: 622). These rhetorical dismissals of identity politics reflect differing political orientations; while social political economy interventions decry identity politics as a movement away from materiality, liberal-based critiques portray the focus on difference as antithetical to universal politics. Even feminist and critical race scholars used the terminology of “mere identity politics” (Smith, Reference Smith2009: 837) and “traps of identity politics” (Jhappan, Reference Jhappan1996: 18); and even “infinite traps of identity politics” (de Seve, Reference De Seve2000: 63) to distinguish between their own work (positioned as more substantive and nuanced) and the work of those other scholars who are rarely explicitly named or referenced. Sometimes identity politics was connected with an element of duplicity. For example, language such as “identity-politics gambits” (Reid, Reference Reid2012: 117) and “underhanded identity politics” (Mensah, Reference Mensah2014: 6) adopt a negative tone and hint at a dishonesty embedded in identity politics.

In work that described identity politics as something that others do, there was a tendency to associate the concept with reified formations of ethnicity and gender. In contrast, when authors did take ownership of the concept of identity politics, they discursively resisted caricature by framing the concept as expanding democratic engagement through attending to issues of inequity and uneven power relations. For example, in responding to what they decry as Howard-Hassmann's misrepresentation (Reference Howard-Hassmann1999) of their work on multiculturalism, Abu-Laban and Stasiulis argue that rather than being a danger to Canadian identity, “it is precisely such social movements that seek to enlarge and enrich Canadian citizenship in the sense of broadening the sense of social justice and equality for all” (Reference Abu-Laban and Stasiulis2000: 482). Similarly, Maclure differentiates between identity politics grounded in a “hermetic and essentialist conception of culture” and more fluid conceptualizations “fraught with symmetrical and asymmetrical power relations” arguing for the adoption of the latter perspective (Reference Maclure2003: 4). This observation points to a significant dissonance between the way alleged practitioners of identity politics were accused of deploying the term and the way it actually was taken up by authors who accepted the moniker as an appropriate characterization of their work.

Considering the role that reference to the term “identity politics” played in a given article also supports this observation of conceptual distancing. Rather than being used to provide background, context or exposition, most often identity politics was used in an act of juxtaposition: typically mobilizing a negative tone, to provide a contrast with an article's own discursive positioning. This tendency was present in over half the articles we reviewed. Juxtaposition was often done in opposition to class (for example, Conway, Reference Conway2000; Major, Reference Major and Winters2013; Mooers, Reference Mooers2001; Mookerjea, Reference Mookerjea2013; Otero, Reference Otero2004). By attaching “identity” to “politics” authors were more frequently signalling a normative position wherein they distanced themselves from the term, rather than offering a rigid designator. Taken in conjunction with the fact that identity politics often references actors outside the traditional hetero-white-male subject of Canadian politics, this usage produces a subtle reinscription of hegemonic conceptions of what politics is, where it happens and who does it.

Immaterial Identities?

As noted above, the discursive movement away from identity politics was frequently followed by an insistence that the author was motivated by a concern more materially pressing than “mere” identity (Butler, Reference Butler1997). These discussions repeatedly invoked the recognition/redistribution debate, either through explicit reference to Fraser (for example, Angus, Reference Angus2001; James, Reference James2004; Vosko, Reference Vosko2002) or through reference to a cultural/material divide (for example Haklai, Reference Haklai2003; Mooers, Reference Mooers2001), though often the focus was on overcoming the limitations of this debate. For example, Vosko asks, “How might feminist political economy scholarship advance prevailing debates over the ‘politics of recognition’ and the ‘politics of redistribution’?” (Reference Vosko2002: 76). Similarly, James (Reference James2004) uses the case of the Chinese head tax to demonstrate the redistributive components of what is often understood as an issue of recognition, seeking to add nuance to dichotomous discussions. Yet throughout these discussions, the distancing of the subjects of identity politics (ethnicities, gender, sexualities, race, culture and so forth) from class or materially based distinctions remained persistent. Even authors who appear to be contesting the disjuncture between class- and identity-based movements take the existence of this division as the starting point. For example, Angus searches for a way of integrating “identity-politics of new social movements” with “the socialist emphasis on use-value, or subsistence” (Reference Angus2001: 129). Similarly, McMichael states, “transcending undifferentiated class interest and identity politics are necessary and likely” (Reference McMichael1999: 37). There is a tension then between attempts to transcend the debate that consequently revivify the centrality of the debate itself by taking it as a starting point for analysis. Crucially, authors who cite Fraser and/or Butler and engage in a sustained analysis of the recognition/redistribution debate (for example, Vosko, Reference Vosko2002) may be discursively resisting this tendency to separate class and other articulations of identity.

The culturalist/materialist divide is also central for those authors in dialogue with cultural theorists like Kymlicka and Taylor, for it is only through the maintenance of this divide that these authors are able to address their apprehensions regarding the ability of the liberal, civic oriented values of the Canadian state to survive the divisiveness of identity-based group demands.Footnote ¹² These interventions often clung to public/private boundary lines and sought to articulate which form of identity-based demands could receive recognition in the public arena. Whitaker references Kymlicka as an example of a “temperate and reasoned defence” of multiculturalism and ties identity politics to Taylor's “politics of recognition” (Reference Whitaker2000: 226). Pickup and colleagues similarly reference Kymlicka with respect to his position that “group rights are not antithetical to liberalism” (Reference Pickup, Sayers, Knopff and Archer2004: 642n) as a possible rejoinder to the concern that identity politics “can be seen as a threat to civic society” (Reference Pickup, Sayers, Knopff and Archer2004: 642). Continuing with the theme of the threat of identity-based political divisions, Redhead offers a rereading of Taylor's contributions “to address political fragmentation” (Reference Redhead2003: 61) as the antidote to schisms created by identity politics. The crux of these contributions relies on rendering the demands of identity politics as immaterial to the non-negotiable liberal civic oriented norms already cemented within the Canadian state.

Concluding Thoughts

In her 2017 presidential address to the Canadian Political Science Association, Abu-Laban referred to the “ideational construction of Canadian political science” as “identity politics par excellence” in that it sought to build and defend “a white settler colony whose institutions, practices and language derived from Britain” (Reference Abu-Laban2017: 905, italics in original). If identity politics have been integral to politics throughout the formation of Canadian political science, what is the analytical purpose of differentiating identity politics from politics? Our review has demonstrated that identity politics tends to be deployed as a method of controlling the boundaries of political discourse and limiting who and what gains entry into the political. This serves to cement an exclusionary conception of Canadian identity reflective of what Mackey describes as “a notion of Canadianness in which the real and authoritative Canadian people are defined as white, culturally unmarked and assimilated Canadian-Canadians” (Reference Mackey1999: 212). Moreover, so-called identity politics have been positioned as threatening to traditional conceptions of Canadian identity, a position that only is tenable if one accepts the possibility that at some point there was a Canadian nationalism free from racialized and/or gendered content; a position indefensibly oblivious to the context of a settler-colonial, capitalist, patriarchal state.

As Canadian political scientists engaged in studies which place gender and race centrally within our work but rarely under the banner of identity politics, we sought inquiry into whether the use of the term “identity politics,” much like the accusation of political correctness, masks a turning away from substantive engagement with marginalized voices. If identity politics is what those “others do” what language do others use to speak about their own political interventions? If scholarly research dealing in depth with issues of ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality frequently does not contain reference to identity politics, is there a chasm between this scholarship and mainstream social sciences research? Notably, there has been increasing attention to diversifying political science scholarship, as evidenced by the “Finding Feminisms” special issue of the Canadian Journal of Political Science (Dobrowolsky et al., Reference Dobrowolsky, Macdonald, Raney, Collier and Dufour2017) wherein contributors describe their work as engaging in intersectional analysis or anti-oppression, rather than embodying identity politics.Footnote ¹³ These self-selected theoretical framings connect political science scholarship with nuanced interdisciplinary analyses that work through questions of positionality, power and representation, while eschewing the tenuous demarcation of identity from politics. The danger of identity politics lies not in its imagined penchant for trapping us in difference, but rather in the appellation's success in reifying disciplinary and political boundaries. Without recourse to the euphemism identity politics, those unwilling to engage in scholarship that foregrounds social relations such as race, ethnicity and gender will be required to do so explicitly.