Political Cultures of Canada and the United States - Essay Example

However, there has been observed a tendency of the change of attitude on this perspective by the Canadians, becoming increasingly detached to their government, fading their support for the custom political parties, in favor of new ones with new ideologies. This raises the concern as to whether the Canadian people are becoming Americanized. This issue creates different opinions from scholars, with Paul Nesbitt-Larking supporting this viewpoint while Michael Adams sees it in the contrary, citing the support for government action and universal health policy as a characteristic of Canada only.

According to Paul, there has been a lot of American influence on the Canadian domestic and foreign affairs, in an attempt to have Canada annexed to the US. Although Canada is the greatest trading partner to the US, the US does not seem to recognize this, attributing this status to Japan (Nesbitt-Larking 3).The US does not seem to appreciate the monarchial system of the Canadian government, always attacking it through diplomacy. Described as ‘Elephantine,’ the influence of the US on Canada is apparent in various fronts.

From the economy, where the US dominates the Canadian economy, having the most profitable organizations in Canada owned by the Americans to the entertainment, military and political institutions which almost replicate those of the US (Nesbitt-Larking 4). Though Canada has for long greatly struggled to maintain its ‘communitarianism’ ideology, it has been greatly affected by the ‘Individualism’ ideology of the US to the extent of perceiving the US political culture as the most perfect.

Thus, according to Paul, Canada is constantly struggling between adopting the US possessive individualism and the European collective and conservative communitarianism. This spirit of Americanization is observed to have crept into the minds of the Canadians who even think it wise to have a re-union of both countries. The advocates of such opinions are those who perceive the American spirit of entrepreneurship and individualism as the perfect spirit to embrace. Therefore, according to Paul, Americanization of the Canadians is slowly taking shape, and it might eventually turn rife and change the completely Canadian culture both economic and socio-political into the American one.

The continued growth in popularity of the US political culture and the spirit of individualism is likely to cause a fading of the traditional political cultures of Canada and eventually have the new ideology adopted and the old political culture, systems and institutions done away with. This is what Paul refers to as the “danger of Americanization.’ Whether this occurs is dependent on the Canadian people’s ability to resist this cultural transformation, an aspect that has been there for long enough (Nesbitt-Larking 9).

It is argued that the Canadian political parties and leaders have been propagating the individualism spirit and ideology over the past two decades. This can been through the advocacy of the free market systems (Nesbitt-Larking 11). Through the fiscal and monetary policies, these leaders reduced the size of the public sector, through cuts to the sector and the provinces in terms of funding. The policies created unemployment and leaned the middle class earnings, through taxation. All this was meant to reduce the importance of the public sector and promote the spirit of ind