Debating how Canada compares - both regionally and in relation to other countries - is a national pastime. This book examines how political scientists use comparison as a tool to better understand Canadian political life. Using a variety of methods, the contributors explore topics as diverse as Indigenous rights, voting behaviour, and climate policy. While their theoretical perspectives and the kinds of questions they explore vary greatly, as a whole they demonstrate how the "art of comparing" is an important strategy for understanding Canadian identity politics, political mobilization, political institutions, and public policy.

Over the past decade, the introspective, insular, and largely atheoretical style that informed Canadian political science for most of the postwar period has given way to a deeper engagement with, and integration into, the global field of comparative politics. This volume is the first sustained attempt to describe, analyze, and assess the "comparative turn" in Canadian political science. Canada's engagement with comparative politics is examined with a focus on three central questions: In what ways, and how successfully, have Canadian scholars contributed to the study of comparative politics? How does study of the Canadian case advance the comparative discipline? Finally, can Canadian practice and policy be reproduced in other countries?

Debating how Canada compares - both regionally and in relation to other countries - is a national pastime. This book examines how political scientists use comparison as a tool to better understand Canadian political life. Using a variety of methods, the contributors explore topics as diverse as Indigenous rights, voting behaviour, and climate policy. While their theoretical perspectives and the kinds of questions they explore vary greatly, as a whole they demonstrate how the "art of comparing" is an important strategy for understanding Canadian identity politics, political mobilization, political institutions, and public policy.