Warren Magnusson: Pedagog and Activist
William K. Carroll (University of Victoria)
Warren Magnusson was a brilliant political theorist, but as he noted in The Search for Political Space (1996, p. vii), “I like to think that my empirical work has grounded my theoretical reflections, and vice versa.” Indeed, Warren’s astute studies of municipal radicalism informed, and were informed by, his deep critiques of state-centric political thought. Yet in the 1980s, when neoliberalism began to be implemented across the advanced capitalist world, Warren went beyond the academic dialectic of empirical work and theoretical reflection to lead two important political initiatives, centered at the University of Victoria (UVic), but with wider ramifications. Both forays into praxis led Warren on a path toward some of his major theoretical contributions, as presented in The Search for Political Space.
The first of these originated in a local political crisis in 1983, provoked by the “restraint program” that British Columbia’s Social Credit government introduced in May of that year. Inspired by Thatcherism, the program was the first full-fledged neoliberal assault on human rights and social welfare in Canada. By the closing weeks of 1983, in the aftermath of an escalating political strike and multi-sectoral protest movement – the Solidarity Coalition – academics at UVic were ready to push back. It was Warren who stepped forward, convening a group that became the Committee on Alternatives for British Columbia – CABC.
Under his leadership the CABC produced two books that critiqued neoliberalism and offered alternatives with contributions mainly from UVic academics. As a member of the CABC steering committee and co-editor of the first book, The New Reality: The Politics of Restraint in British Columbia, I experienced Warren’s democratic style of leadership directly. He inspired the team of 20 contributors to produce highly accessible, public-facing analyses. The book focused on the specificities of British Columbia yet placed them in the context of global developments, emphasizing in its Conclusion (which Warren penned most of) that “local as well as global developments give rise to opportunities for political action” (Magnusson et al. 1984, p. 277). Released only months after the political strike of 1983, The New Reality quickly became a BC bestseller, providing resources to critical social movements and publics in the ongoing fight-back. Two years later, the CABC published a second book, After Bennett: A New Politics for British Columbia, which again mobilized a network of progressive academics, this time to explore the possibility of creating “an authentically democratic society” in which British Columbians could take control of their communities and working lives (Magnusson et al. 1986, p. 14).
Under Warren’s leadership, the CABC continued to create new political spaces into the late 1980s: for instance, through a series of public forums on “The Politics of Empowerment” in 1987 and 1988. Nearly a decade on, he reflected on a key lesson from his CABC activism: that civic progressives, urban radicals, and local socialists were all searching for political space in the contemporary crisis of social democracy. “…What I sensed in the 1980s was that many radicals had been driven – sometimes against their better judgment – to explore the political space offered by urban politics and municipal government, in the hope that this would connect them with a wider political base and give them a place within the state to contest the logic of contemporary capitalism” (Magnusson 1996, p. 21).
As other progressive think tanks emerged, the CABC fell dormant, but the network that had developed within UVic served as a basis for the second important initiative. In 1987, Warren led the complex process that begat an interdisciplinary graduate program in Contemporary Social and Political Thought (CSPT) which, amid various academic orthodoxies, opened political space to critical theory in the social sciences and humanities. Warren directed the program from its inception in 1988 to 1994, when I served a term as director. In these years, the program expanded from its three initial participating departments (Political Science, Philosophy and Sociology) to include English and History (and rebranded itself as Cultural, Political, and Social Thought). Warren and I co-taught the first CSPT 500 course, in the fall of 1988, during which I came to appreciate his Socratic pedagogy, which offered more questions than answers, inspiring a keen group of students to engage critically with a wide range of theoretical perspectives. CSPT was designed as an interdisciplinary critical theory program that could be taken up within discipline-specific graduate programs. This model, Warren’s brainchild, has been effective in building and maintaining a progressive community on campus around critical theoretical perspectives, with alumni numbering in the hundreds and nine academic units currently participating.
Warren Magnusson went on, in succeeding decades, to make signal theoretical contributions, and he is rightly renowned as a path-breaking political theorist of urban modernity. But the instances I have recalled invite us to recognize his practical contributions in creating more space for critical thought and action. He combined theory and practice in creative and impactful ways, interrogating the prospects for and facilitating the expansion of the spaces from which change can emanate, within academe and well beyond it.
References
Magnusson, Warren, William K. Carroll, Charles Doyle, Monika Langer, and R.B.J. Walker, eds. 1984. The New Reality: The Politics of Restraint in British Columbia. Vancouver: New Star Books.
Magnusson, Warren, Charles Doyle, R.B.J. Walker, and John DeMarco, eds. 1986. After Bennett: A New Politics for British Columbia. Vancouver: New Star Books.
Magnusson, Warren. 1996. The Search for Political Space: Globalization, Social Movements, and the Urban Political Experience. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
William K. Carroll is a Professor of Sociology at University of Victoria.