Political Science - Theses, Dissertations, and other Required Graduate Degree Essays

Canada’s water sovereignty is increasingly threatened by the growing scarcity of this resource around the globe, particularly within the United States. This thesis explores the political and economic factors poised to drive future commodification and export of Canadian water resources. Despite federal opposition to water exportation, I illustrate how Canada may be forced to pursue this practice in the absence of drastic reforms to current federal water policy. Engaging staples theory, this thesis provides a comparative analysis of determinants driving early Canadian staples development with those encouraging bulk water exportation today. Early staples discourses are utilized to explore the likelihood of water exportation, while illustrating the utility of the staples approach to modern Canadian contexts. My research identifies several new factors an updated staples theory must consider in contemporary analyses of Canadian resource development, including, the modern environmental movement, the growth of international trade frameworks, and a decentralized Canadian federation.

The right to vote ultimately expresses political membership in democratic states. The logic behind franchise rules in a particular state tells us much about how that state conceives its polity. This becomes clear if we study voting rights of marginal groups, since these people often define boundaries of the polity in question. From this perspective, the present study investigates the logic of Japanese political membership by scrutinizing voting rights of overseas Japanese and non-citizen ethnic minorities inside Japan. Utilizing Elaine R. Thomas' analytical framework, the study identifies competing conceptions of political belonging expressed in Japanese debates about voting rights of the two marginal groups. My finding is that the Japanese conception of political membership is more complex than one would expect from the strong ethnic homogeneity of the Japanese community. This study also clarifies where Japan stands in relation to other states.