At least, that’s what people across the country have been telling us. In recent years, we have seen voter turnout fall to historic lows, and the number of people involved in political activities of all kinds is decreasing. Given this problem, we wanted to know: Why are people disengaging from politics? There are lots of reasons out there, but we wanted to get some answers to this question... [More]

"Should we make voting mandatory?" asks a political debate going on in the New York Times.  It's a fascinating discussion from a varied group of people, including Lisa Hill, a political scientist from the University of Adelaide.  Australia is, of course, the most often cited example of where voting is mandatory (though there are other countries that require voting as well). She argues t... [More]

Last week, the White House launched a website called “We the People” giving people an online tool to file petitions directly with the government. Petitions that receive over 5,000 signatures within 30 days are guaranteed an official response from the Obama administration. Petitions are not new of course. As the Globe and Mail reports, the White House has always accepted petitions th... [More]

Samara is pleased to host guest blogs from those researching or thinking about politics, journalism, democracy and civic engagement.  Our latest contributor, Zakary Paget, recently earned a graduate degree in communications from Carleton University, where he researched digital media issues and citizen engagement extensively. He currently resides in Toronto and works at Fleishman-Hillard, a ... [More]

140 characters. That’s not a lot of space to say anything yet millions of people use Twitter everyday to do just that. This is especially true with politics.  During the recent federal election, almost a million tweets were posted in Canada, all talking about the campaign.   One of the things we’re exploring at Samara is exactly what this online political conversation looks ... [More]