Hello! You have to write an essay: your chosen topic must have some direct bearing on the subject of Canadian Political Culture and a specific region/group/province etc.. The paper body is to be 15 pages long (no more and no less) double-spaced, in a standard font appropriate to academic work, no larger than 12 point, and with standard margins. The Cover Sheet, Table of Contents, and Bibliography do not count as part of the 15 page body of the paper. You may include tables and graphs in the body of the paper, however these are generally considered to be included in addition to the text, and must inform the paper directly by their use, and not be employed to either stretch the paper to 15 pages, or to make up for too little actual content. The body of the paper is to be paginated. Neither the Cover Sheet, nor the Table of Contents is paginated. The paper proper should be prefaced by an Introduction wherein the student shall give the reader sufficient background information on the topic as to contextualise the problematic. The problematic should ultimately be identified by way of the posing of a Research Question at the end of the Introduction. The Introduction should account for 1-3 pages of the paper proper. Immediately after posing the Research Question and under a new section dedicated to the Thesis and Argument, a brief Thesis Statement should be offered. The Thesis Statement responds directly to the Research Question, and in so doing must be stated causally, and not as a simple descriptive exercise. The Thesis gives the what, why, and how of the response to the research question, that is: what happened, why it happened and how it happened (a mechanism for causality). A Good Thesis Statement should be no longer than a couple of sentences long. The fuller implications of the Thesis are explored in the Argument. The Argument gives substance to the Thesis Statement by fleshing out the fuller causality at play, exploring the events described (the what) and the causal mechanism of how and why they unfolded the way that they did. The Thesis and Argument should account for 2-5 pages of the paper proper. Having offered a Thesis and Argument, you should then examine both in light of the existing literature in a dedicated section identified as the Literature Review. Therein you will take up those sources in the academic literature that seem best suited to your topic at hand. These may include the readings from the text, but should also include academic literature specific to your case study. There may will be different perspectives on Canadian Political Culture that you are exploring, and while you may well be more comfortable and in closer agreement with some of your sources, you should always acknowledge the opposite perspectives if only to critique their interpretation. You have some stylistic choices to make in writing your Literature Review. Some students prefer to examine the literature and then return to their argument in light of that literature in the Conclusion at the end of the paper. Others are happier to entertain their argument in light of that literature in the body of the Literature Review proper. If you choose this latter style, it will make your Literature Review longer and your Conclusion shorter. Take great care to cite your sources fully and correctly, and be careful to avoid any accusations of mosaic plagiarism where you summarise several pages of an author without properly assigning authorship through citation. The Literature Review will account for between 4-7 pages of your paper. Your Conclusion will return to your Thesis and Argument and you may well amend both in light of your examination of the literature under the Literature Review. You will consider what held up in the Thesis and Argument, and what may need to be revisited, revised or even denied. Your Conclusion will also suggest some other fruitful avenues that might be explored upon taking another look at your topic, either on its own or in light of other political cultures that share certain qualities and characteristics with your chosen movement. Depending of the stylistic choice that you made in approaching your Literature Review, your Conclusion should account for 3-4 pages of your paper. A proper Bibliography must have minimum 10 sources and maximum 15 they must be academic sources. I will put here some topics to give you an idea what to choose as a topic. Topics: Topic 1. The Missing Pieces of the Puzzle: Louis Hartz and Gad Horowitz, in building a model for understanding the political Culture of New Societies might have been somewhat accurate for the period wherein they wrote. Similarly, their assessment of the component groups of Canadian political culture was accurate to the point of identifying the dominant historical influences and evolution over time. Things have changed: first off, the component cultural groups have changed over time, second off, the most active groups in contemporary Canadian political culture are not necessarily those with a cultural foundation. Parts are missing from Hartz/Horowitz analysis both then and now, and this analytical perspective, while valuable from a historical perspective, is no longer equal to the task of parsing out Canadas contemporary political culture. Topic 2. The Tools of Cultural Nationalism: The nation-state is being torn in a number of directions, many of which are conspiring to rob the state of its traditional means of creating and protecting its cultural identity. The globalising effect of International trade agreements combined with the rise of the internet and new social media have resulted in severe limits on the state when it comes to protecting national culture, and the proliferation of new avenues leading to particular and individual areas celebrating aspects identity separate from national identity are making it difficult for the nation-state to build a national identity as it has done in the past. A diamond with too many facets: There is no overarching national identity capable of over-riding the many competing aspects of individual and collective identity in a post modern world. The best that the nation-state can plan for is a loose association of regional identities that share a sufficient foundation to keep them united in a marriage of political convenience. Topic 3. Canadian Eh?: Our multicultural identity may well be our one shared aspect of identity that we can agree on. The best response to critics of multiculturalism may well be the observation that the Canadian state has managed to prevail thus far. Notwithstanding the diversity of regional, provincial, linguistic and cultural identities, there remains a shared set of core values and beliefs that unite us in diversity. These values along with the particular ones of our region, province, language and/or our home culture make us who we are. Was Canadian confederation a failed attempt at a federal state, or was its looser association an intuitive and necessary template for a post-modern future nation-state? It might have been a compromise when conceived, but Canadas looser federal system is a far better template for a successful federal state in the new millennium.
