Genevieve Fuji Johnson

Governing sex work: an agonistic policy community and its relational dynamics

Relatively few policy scholars have analyzed prostitution laws and the governance of sex work. This is unfortunate because the policy area is associated with societal problems, and the systematic study of public policy was initially conceived to address such problems. Moreover, this dearth is problematic for reasons related to how we conceptualize policy processes, actors involved in them, relationships among them, power structures characterizing them and ultimately the significance of policy. Developments in prostitution laws in Canada, through constitutional challenges to criminal provisions and local practices of implementation, suggest the analytical usefulness of the policy community heuristic in capturing important relational dynamics. With a focus on relationships and not merely structural and strategic linkages, it can capture nuances concerning changing dynamics and their implications for policy. Conceptually, this study suggests that agonistic relations emerge within policy communities that may be deeply divided when members experience catalyst events of which the public is aware, cannot easily refute the evidence and converge on a response framework. This study highlights policy developments that in significant ways have been driven by sex workers in Vancouver, BC.

A Question of Respect: A Qualitative Text Analysis of the Canadian Parliamentary Committee Hearings on The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act

We evaluate the Canadian parliamentary hearings on The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act to determine whether respectful and fair deliberation occurred. Our focus is on the content, tone, and nature of each question posed by committee members in hearings in both chambers. We find that, on the whole, the vast majority of questions met this baseline but that committee members were biased toward witnesses in agreement with their position and against witnesses in opposition to it. In addition to our substantive findings, we contribute methodological insights, including a coding scheme, for this kind of qualitative text analysis.

Research Openness in Canadian Political Science: Toward an Inclusive and Differentiated Discussion

In this paper, we initiate a discussion within the Canadian political science community about research openness and its implications for our discipline. This discussion is important because the Tri-Agency has recently released guidelines on data management and because a number of political science journals, from several subfields, have signed the Journal Editors’ Transparency Statement requiring data access and research transparency (DA-RT). As norms regarding research openness develop, an increasing number and range of journals and funding agencies may begin to implement DA-RT-type requirements. If Canadian political scientists wish to continue to participate in the global political science community, we must take careful note of and be proactive participants in the ongoing developments concerning research openness.