Keith Banting lecture in the Jour Fixe of the SOCIUM.

Until the 1990s Canada was a typical re-distributive welfare state unlike to its southerly neighbor. But ever since the 2000s, together with the USA and Switzerland, the country belongs to the countries least redistributing in the OEDC-world. Keith Banting from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario/Canada has not only proved a surprising development but he also offered an explanation: In the last 25 years, the redistribution of party political weights has, until recently, had the consequences that social inequality has not become an important topic of public interest.

Banting pointed out that in recent years liberals as well as conservatives and the new democratic social policy in a larger sense were defined as "protection of the middle class", which permitted all three to combine very different contents with such policies. Inequality was just one topic among many, so that the Canadian debate is much more diffuse than would be in the case of continental Europe.


Contact:
Prof. Dr. Celine Teney