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A Century of Political Science in Canada

For more than a century, the president of the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) has delivered an address to his or her colleagues at the discipline’s annual meeting. This essay surveys the CPSA presidential addresses to reflect on the content and practice of political science in Canada: what Canadian political scientists have been studying, and how they have gone about studying it. The author argues that there are resources in the presidential addresses to support both celebratory and denunciatory stories of the history of Canadian political science. The author also suggests three basic realities that any honest history of the discipline, whether celebratory or critical, must address: the two-sided nature of disciplinary fragmentation, the ongoing significance of practical disciplinary concerns, and the omnipresence of the “takers versus givers” question in Canadian political science.