Democracy off balance
Subtitle: freedom of expression and hate propaganda law in Canada
By: Stefan Braun.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Toronto; Buffalo
Language: eng
Number of pages: 384
Subjects: Freedom of expression -- Canada.; Freedom of speech -- Canada.; Hate speech -- Canada.
Description: Annotation: 2006 Harold Adams Innis Prize Finalist for the best peer reviewed English language book in the social sciences in Canada.

Freedom of public expression is becoming ever more contested in Canada. The idea that official messages, meanings, and histories can take the place of publicly constructed ones - for fear of what an uncensored public might themselves construct - is gaining widespread acceptance. Public invocation of hate propoganda law, its language, and its moral authority in otherwise ordinary discursive contexts, has been seminal to, and is symbolic of this trend. 

Democracy Off Balance offers an analysis of hate censorship as a paradox of modern democratic discourse. In this controversial work, Stefan Braun argues against the supposed public interest served by hate speech laws and dissects the complex forces - the politically self-contradictory thinking and the socially self-defeating assumptions - that drive censorship thinking in Canada today. 

Braun draws on censors' own terms of social and political reference to show how they undermine their own causes with hate censorship. He demonstrates how hate speech law reaches beyond its strictly legal confines and essentially conditions and corrodes public discourse. Timely and absorbing, Democracy Off Balance Offers a multidimensional approach to the debate and challenges traditional views on the legal boundaries of freedom of expression. 

From the Back Cover
'Democracy Off Balance is a masterfully crafted and meticulously 
presented thesis against legal, especially criminal, censorship of 'hate 
speech.' Stefan Braun draws on the Canadian experience and on progressive 
censors' own terms of reference to expose the case for public silencing as 
fundamentally flawed, and speaks directly to all who detest intolerance but 
value real social harmony and a strong political democracy. Rich in 
examples, detail, and nuance, this book may well become a landmark in its 
field.' -- Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union, and 
Professor of Law, New York Law School

'In Democracy Off Balance, Stefan Braun carries out a rigorous and 
provocative examination of the assumptions used to support restrictions on 
political discourse aimed at promoting diversity and social harmony. For 
Canadians concerned about the condition of free speech in our 
constitutional democracy, Braun's book is mandatory reading.' -- Peter H. 
Russell, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Toronto
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [355]-366) and index.
Table of contents: value: Acknowledgments