Joe Clark provides a few reasons for why he thinks Canada is not a strong democracy. In his article, he briefly describes five key flaws in the Canadian political system. For example, Clark points to the fact that Canadian federal politics lacks competition. Second, he makes the claim that two important functions are not being performed. These functions are: “holding the people in power accountable and offering electors an acceptable place to turn” (Clark 2004: 400). Third, he argues that certain political actors do not have much influence …show more content…
He states that “poor agency and policy framing have wrongly rendered democracy promotion” (Legler 2012: 584). He goes on to say that there are challenges with national interests such as trade and security interests. His article briefly describes the arguments of other scholars. Levitt suggests that the issue is not economic or security reasons. Rather, he says, the issue involves democratic principles and human rights. Welsh places an emphasis on foreign policy and argues for three elements which are: Canada as a liberal democracy, relationship with the U.S and Mexico, and Canada’s internationalist vocation. Legler’s article is relevant to my topic book, Tragedy in the Commons, because of the different writing styles used. Legler’s article makes each country as a whole appear to be the actor, while my topic book limits itself by making the politicians themselves the actors. This is done by the fact that the book provides a micro view (personal quotes) of the drawbacks of Canada’s system and Legler’s piece is a macro view (no personal quotes) of what happened with the Harper