Great Plains Studies, Center for

 

Date of this Version

Winter 2011

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 31:1 (Winter 2011).

Comments

Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

Characteristics assigned to America's classical liberal ideology-rugged individualism, market capitalism, egalitarianism in the sense of equality of opportunity, and fierce hostility toward centralized federalism and socialismare particularly appropriate for fathoming Alberta's political culture. In this article, I contend that Alberta's early American settlers were pivotal in shaping Alberta's political culture and that Albertans have demonstrated a particular affinity for American political ideas and movements. Alberta came to resemble the liberal society in Tocqueville's Democracy in America: high status was accorded the selfmade man, laissez-faire defined the economic order, and a multiplicity of religious sects competed in the market for salvation.1 Secondary sources hint at this thesis in their reading of the papers of organizations such as the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) and Alberta's Social Credit Party.2 This article teases out its hypothesis from such secondary sources and covers new ground in linking the influence of Americans to Alberta's exceptionalism in Canadian politics, the province where federal and provincial conservative parties have been strongest and where resistance to federal intrusions has been the most vigorous in English Canada. Alberta has been Canada's "maverick" province, more receptive to neoliberalism (or what many term neoconservatism) than the Canadian norm.

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