Provincial and Territorial Politics in Canada and Beyond

J05 - Micro-Paper Roundtable: Provincial Politics, Policy, and Data: Towards a Collaborative Infrastructure

Date: May 30 | Time: 01:30pm to 03:00pm | Location: Classroom - CL 408 Room ID:15751

Chair/Président/Présidente : Jim Farney (University of Regina)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Anthony Sayers (University of Calgary)

Provincial Politics, Policy, and Data 3: Towards a Collaborative Infrastructure:

Shannon Sampert (University of Winnipeg)
Michael Howlett (Simon Fraser University)
Jared Welsey (University of Alberta)
Tom McIntosh (University of Regina)

Abstract: Canadian provinces do much of the policy making heavy lifting in Canada, are significant sites of political mobilization, but have been understudied in both dimensions. Shared institutions, histories, and policy challenges make provinces ideal candidates for comparative research, a potential that political scientists are beginning to recognize. As the discipline pays more attention to provincial policy making process and to politics in the provinces a number of valuable research programs are beginning to open up. But, this workshop takes as its starting contention that these research programs would benefit from a concerted effort to capture and systemize data about provincial societies, economies, political systems, and policy outcomes in a way suited to use by political scientists (in the first instance), policy-makers, and the informed public.In this workshop, we focus on how to build a collaborative data infrastructure to address these problems.