Book Launch: Social Conservatives and Party Politics

Tue., Sep. 25, 2012 2:30 p.m. - Tue., Sep. 25, 2012 4:00 p.m.

Location: RIC Atrium, RIC 101

This is a special event to launch the newly released book Social Conservatives and Party Politics in Canada and the United States. Author Dr. James Farney will give a presentation on his book followed by a reception where guests will have an opportunity to meet the author. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at this event.

About the book: The strength of the Tea Party and Religious Right in the United States, alongside the Harper Conservatives’ stance on same-sex marriage and religious freedom in Canada, has many asking whether social conservatism has come to define the right wing of North American politics.

In this timely and penetrating book, James Farney provides the first full-length comparison of social conservatism in Canada and the United States from the sexual revolution to the present day. Based on archival research and extensive interviews, it traces the historic relationship between social conservatives and other right-wing groups. Farney illuminates why the American Republican Party was quicker to accept social conservatives as legitimate and valuable allies than the Conservative Party of Canada.

This book will be indispensable for understanding why a movement so powerful amongst American conservatives has been distinctively less important in Canada and how the character of Canadian conservatism means it will likely remain so.

About the author: Dr. James Farney is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Regina.

For more information, please contact the Department of Political Science at 306-585-4206