Dennis Pilon
Biographic Data
| ID | 1451113 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dennis Pilon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dennis |
| FAMILY NAME | Pilon |
| SIGNATURE | PILON D |
| AFFILIATIONS | York University |
| ORCID | 0009-0007-6373-2937 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Democracy’s Decline
Democratic Multiplicity Under Capitalism
The call to recognize democratic multiplicity, that is, that democracy exists in spaces other than the state, rightly underlines the social dimension of collective governance in modern societies. Capturing this rich diversity of experience and theorizing its impact is an important counter to traditional top-down state-centric democratic theory. Yet there is a danger that in the pursuit of particular spaces of democratic activity, the broader capi…
A Pirouette of Political History
This review essay examines five recent volumes in the UBC Press Turning Point Elections series that individually cover electoral contests taking place in 1867, 1921, 1935, 1957/1958, and 1993. As Canadian elections have not received much historical attention the volumes are both ground-breaking and true to the claim of the title to the series in that they are indeed ’turning points’ in Canadian electoral history, i.e. ones that signalled a signif…
Are Canadian Voting System Reform “Trade-Offs” Really Trade-Offs? Operationalizing Voting System Values and Assessing the Evidence
Le débat entourant la réforme du mode de scrutin au Canada est présenté comme un choix entre des valeurs opposées, mais tout aussi valables, qui sont incarnées ou produites par divers systèmes de scrutin, généralement représentés comme des compromis. L’élément central d'un tel discours, c'est que le choix retenu, quel qu'il soit, entraînera inévitablement des avantages tout autant que des coûts (p. ex, des résultats plus proportionnels, mais une …
Beyond codifying common sense
Critics argue that historical institutionalism (HI) ignores the social dimension of its research, particularly as concerns social inequality. This article tracks the problem back to the field’s implicit reliance on positivist empiricism and a narrow understanding of what constitutes a theory and argues that these unacknowledged commitments effectively block HI from addressing the issue. Instead, this article argues for critical institutionalism, …
Reform and Reaction
This response critically examines claims made by Jack Lucas in a contribution to this journal [Lucas, J. (2020). Reaction or reform? Subnational evidence on P.R. adoption from Canadian cities. Representation, 56(1), 89–109] about the causes of voting system reform in four Canadian municipalities in the First World War era, taking issue with his characterisation of the debate and his approach to historical analysis
The Contested Origins of Canadian Democracy
This article takes up the debate about Canadian democratization, arguing that Canada was not democratic in 1867 and that the various electoral reforms pursued throughout the late nineteenth century were not part of a democratic agenda. Instead, they were the product of competing political elites seeking to stabilize an emerging liberal order—a form of government responsive to the economically privileged—and to do so in a way that would favour the…
Reviving Social Democracy
Researching Voter Turnout and the Electoral Subaltern
Political scientists struggle to explain why citizen engagement generally, and turnout at elections specifically, keep declining, despite considerable research on this problem. This article explores how attention to class understood as a lived experience might refocus this research in more productive ways. Political scientists are having difficulty accessing nonvoters—the group they need to talk to—because they make too many assumptions about who…
Wrestling with Democracy
The End of Parliamentary Socialism
Homo Economics
The End of Parliamentary Socialism
Beyond codifying common sense
Critics argue that historical institutionalism (HI) ignores the social dimension of its research, particularly as concerns social inequality. This article tracks the problem back to the field’s implicit reliance on positivist empiricism and a narrow understanding of what constitutes a theory and argues that these unacknowledged commitments effectively block HI from addressing the issue. Instead, this article argues for critical institutionalism, …
The Contested Origins of Canadian Democracy
This article takes up the debate about Canadian democratization, arguing that Canada was not democratic in 1867 and that the various electoral reforms pursued throughout the late nineteenth century were not part of a democratic agenda. Instead, they were the product of competing political elites seeking to stabilize an emerging liberal order—a form of government responsive to the economically privileged—and to do so in a way that would favour the…
Homo Economics
The End of Parliamentary Socialism
Wrestling with Democracy
Researching Voter Turnout and the Electoral Subaltern
Political scientists struggle to explain why citizen engagement generally, and turnout at elections specifically, keep declining, despite considerable research on this problem. This article explores how attention to class understood as a lived experience might refocus this research in more productive ways. Political scientists are having difficulty accessing nonvoters—the group they need to talk to—because they make too many assumptions about who…
Reviving Social Democracy
The Contested Origins of Canadian Democracy
This article takes up the debate about Canadian democratization, arguing that Canada was not democratic in 1867 and that the various electoral reforms pursued throughout the late nineteenth century were not part of a democratic agenda. Instead, they were the product of competing political elites seeking to stabilize an emerging liberal order—a form of government responsive to the economically privileged—and to do so in a way that would favour the…
Beyond codifying common sense
Critics argue that historical institutionalism (HI) ignores the social dimension of its research, particularly as concerns social inequality. This article tracks the problem back to the field’s implicit reliance on positivist empiricism and a narrow understanding of what constitutes a theory and argues that these unacknowledged commitments effectively block HI from addressing the issue. Instead, this article argues for critical institutionalism, …
Reform and Reaction
This response critically examines claims made by Jack Lucas in a contribution to this journal [Lucas, J. (2020). Reaction or reform? Subnational evidence on P.R. adoption from Canadian cities. Representation, 56(1), 89–109] about the causes of voting system reform in four Canadian municipalities in the First World War era, taking issue with his characterisation of the debate and his approach to historical analysis
Are Canadian Voting System Reform “Trade-Offs” Really Trade-Offs? Operationalizing Voting System Values and Assessing the Evidence
Le débat entourant la réforme du mode de scrutin au Canada est présenté comme un choix entre des valeurs opposées, mais tout aussi valables, qui sont incarnées ou produites par divers systèmes de scrutin, généralement représentés comme des compromis. L’élément central d'un tel discours, c'est que le choix retenu, quel qu'il soit, entraînera inévitablement des avantages tout autant que des coûts (p. ex, des résultats plus proportionnels, mais une …
A Pirouette of Political History
This review essay examines five recent volumes in the UBC Press Turning Point Elections series that individually cover electoral contests taking place in 1867, 1921, 1935, 1957/1958, and 1993. As Canadian elections have not received much historical attention the volumes are both ground-breaking and true to the claim of the title to the series in that they are indeed ’turning points’ in Canadian electoral history, i.e. ones that signalled a signif…
Democracy’s Decline
Democratic Multiplicity Under Capitalism
The call to recognize democratic multiplicity, that is, that democracy exists in spaces other than the state, rightly underlines the social dimension of collective governance in modern societies. Capturing this rich diversity of experience and theorizing its impact is an important counter to traditional top-down state-centric democratic theory. Yet there is a danger that in the pursuit of particular spaces of democratic activity, the broader capi…
Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Democracy (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Canadian Identity and History (3 works) · Economics (3 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (3 works) · Political economy (3 works)