Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Political Science in 1975"

Party Loyalty in Canada: The Question of Party Identification

Abstract: In a recent article in this Journal, Paul M. Sniderman, H. D. Forbes, and Ian Melzer challenge the proponents of what they characterize as the “textbook theory” of Canadian parties. They claim that their examination of the 1965 and 1968 Canadian national election studies contradicts the conclusions of almost every analyst of parties and voting in Canada. While a little debunking of long-held interpretations is always valuable in any discipline, one should exercise caution. Conventional wisdom does not usually acquire that status without containing at least some small measure of validity. In this case I must conclude that more confusion has been created than has been cleared away and previous analysts should not be considered to have erred quite as much as the authors of this article would like us to believe. Sniderman et al. argue that, because of “an obsession with national unity” on the part of political parties and a fear of fragmentation which produces undifferentiated politics of accommodation, “Canadian voters tend to lack strong loyalties to the older parties, at least when compared to the Americans and the British. As a consequence, electoral support for the older parties in Canada tends to be unstable.”The first part of this proposition asserts that concern with national unity necessarily produces such similar policy positions that parties are interchangeable, being distinguished only by their leadership. Although this is an interesting proposition, it will not be dealt with here.

Political Science in Canada and the Americanization Issue

Abstract: Le probleme de l'americanisation de la science politique au CanadaCet essai a pour objectif d'analyser les principales composantes de la controverse actuelle concernant l'influence americaine sur le developpement de la science politique au Canada, tout particulierement au Canada anglais. Apres avoir rappele les grandes lignes de l'histoire de la science politique au Canada depuis le dix-neuvieme siecle jusqu'a nos jours, l'auteur circonscrit les arguments fondamentaux sur lesquels le debat de l'americanisation repose en accordant une attention toute particuliere a trois facteurs cruciaux qui n'ont pas, selon lui, ete suffisamment consideres jusqu'a present. L'enonce d'une approche generate pour l'etude des phenomenes politiques canadiens permet a l'auteur de tirer certaines conclusions pertinentes au probleme de l'americanisation et de poser certains jalons strategiques pour la recherche politique au Canada.

Constituency Service among Canadian Provincial Legislators: Basic Findings and a Test of Three Hypotheses

Abstract: That most federal and provincial legislators in Canada regularly devote substantial proportions of their time and energy to constituency service tasks is part of the folklore of Canadian politics.' According to the conventional wisdom, MP S and MLAs respond to sizable volumes of requests for assistance in handling personal, family, or group problems, as well as provide information to constituents regarding policies, programs, or government in general. In their recent text, Richard J. Van Loon and Michael S. Whittington, for example, observe that MP S play only limited roles in the policy-making process and that "the M.P. today is acting more and more as a channel through which the individual constituent can register and seek redress of grievances. The types of problems being dealt with by MPs ... involve inequities in the application of existing policies to individual cases ..."" Similarly, Walter L. White, Ronald H. Wagenberg, and Ralph C. Nelson comment that "every day of the session the member reviews requests for services from individuals or groups of constituents ... He is often the last resort for a frustrated citizen who has been thwarted in his attempts to gain satisfaction either from a government or private institution."3 Furthermore, as Van Loon and Whittington suggest, it can be argued that the demand by constituents for service by MPs or MLAs is presently increasing as a result of difficulties and frustrations individuals encounter in their attempts to deal with contemporary governmental structures which are experienced as being complex, bewildering, and unresponsive to the needs of "ordinary" citizens. In this regard, Aiken states that "people now expect their Members to smooth out the operation of the laws they have passed. Each person is a special case. He does not understand the laws, the regulations, how they came into being or how they are applied. But he expects his Member to. And he expects a favourable decision."4 Likewise, in their recent study of the Ontario legislature Dalton Camp, Douglas Fisher, and Farquhar R. Oliver observed that "while the sessions have slowly and steadily lengthened in the past

Canada and the Quest for a National Policy

Abstract: La recherche d'une politique nationale pour le CanadaLe nationalisme canadien s'est pendant longtemps exprime en termes economiques. La politique nationale de Macdonald et Laurier etait essentielle a la nationalite canadienne et la construction d'une infrastructure longitudinale se poursuit toujours, bien que certains de ses elements contemporains, tels la Voie Navigable du Saint-Laurent et les reseaux aeroportuaires et radiophoniques, contribuent autant a l'integration continentale qu'a l'integration nationale. La politique nationale traditionnelle en etait une de developpement puisqu'elle etait axee sur la croissance au moyen de l'intervention du gouvernement federal dans la mise en place de nouvelles structures economiques. Par contre, les recommandations de la Commission Rowell-Sirois concernant la perequation fiscale et l'administration par le gouvernement federal des plans conjoints ne touchaient guere aux structures economiques du pays. Au cours des dernieres annees, deux auteurs, John Dales et Harry Johnson, ont oppose des arguments tres convainquants au nationalisme economique canadien et une nouvelle strategie du developpement industriel canadien, fondee sur l'innovation technologique autochtone, a connu ses premiers enonces theoriques ainsi qu'une mise en application tres parcellaire. Toutefois, ce nouveau mercantilisme technologique ne cadre pas avec les realites du federalisme canadien, surtout en ce qui a trait aux provinces de l'Quest.

Dimensions of political participation in a canadian sample

Abstract: Recent works have compared political participation in a variety of democratic polities. One major finding of some of this research is that to classify individuals as highly active or inactive politically is to oversimplify the notion of participation. Political participation is multidimensional: active participants in one kind of political behaviour may be inactive in another. Preoccupation with one form of participation, such as voting, may obscure the extent and nature of participation taking place. This finding was summarized neatly in a recent work: “Citizens differ not only in the overall amounts of participation they perform but also as to the types of acts in which they choose to engage. Furthermore, these different types of acts are quite distinctive in form and function and can almost be thought of as alternative participatory systems: – systems that are used for different purposes, that are able to provide types of benefits, and that relate the participant to his government and to his fellow citizens in fundamentally different ways.” Surprisingly, perhaps, these types of participation have been found to be similar across several democratic polities. Four distinct activities have been located in the several nations: (1) voting; (2) active participation in political campaigns; (3) cooperative activity such as joining with others formally or informally to pursue political goals; and (4) contacting government officials about some public problem. There has been little analysis of the forms of participation of Canadians.

An Environmental Case against Equality of Right

Abstract: This paper is based on the premise that the political writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke constitute a proposal for ensuring peace within political structures. The proposal hinges on a concept of equality which must be both understood and accepted by anyone who questions his obligation to obey a coercive political authority. This concept of equality is first developed by Hobbes and subsequently employed by Locke in his defence of unlimited acquisition. In Locke's Second Treatise it becomes clear that to found a political order on Hobbes' concept of equality logically entails the unlimited appropriation of nature by men, and that nature is to be thought of as "waste." When Hobbes' concept of equality is used as it is by Locke we see that equality is not simply a narrow political concept or even a broader social concept. Rather, it constitutes a way of viewing the relation between man and his natural environment. To actually employ this concept of equality as a means of obtaining order within a political jurisdiction requires unlimited acquisition to be facilitated and unappropriated nature to be treated as without worth or as "waste."

Psychological Needs, Personal Control, and Political Participation

Abstract: Political theorists have long argued that political participation has been a minimal requirement of democratic political systems1 More recently, social scientists have turned their attention to understanding the factors that impede or promote participation2 This paper examines several such hypotheses which lie within the framework of personality and social-psychological theory Briefly stated, this author's contention is that: (1) each individual has a need to have sufficient

Contra Contract: A Brief against John Rawls' Theory of Justice

Abstract: Une critique du « Theory of Justice » de John RawlsLe « Theory of Justice » de John Rawls constitue une importante contribution a la tradition liberale du contrat social. La recherche d'une contre-proposition a l'utilitarisme amene Rawls a tenter de formuler deux principes de justice sociale qui soient fondes sur la seule connaissance generale de l'univers el non sur des circonstances individuelles (telles le sexe, la situation historique, la classe sociale et la race) susceptibles d'en alterer l'application: l'optimisation de la liberte et la distribution des biens sociaux qui favorise la classe la plus demunie.Selon l'auteur, cette analyse comporte d'importantes faiblesses. Premierement, les principes generaux de Rawls lui apparaissent inacceptables en tant que specifications deliberatives d'une part parce qu'ils sont difficilement applicables aux situations impliquant des problemes de justice sociale et d'autre part parce que l'ensemble des connaissances scientifiques concernant l'etre humain et son environnement ne peuvent fonder des principes generaux de justice sociale dans la mesure ou elles demeurent encore aujourd'hui au cœur de la problematique normative. Deuxiemement, Craig considere que l'argumentation employee par Rawls pour defendre son principe d'optimisation de la liberte n'est pas tres persuasive puisqu'elle repose sur un suppose consensus concernant la liberte de pratique religieuse, consensus qu'elle erige en paradigme applicable a toutes les libertes. Enfin, l'auteur souligne que, dans la structuration des circonstances deliberatives de ses principes, Rawls ecarte a priori toute consideration des theories non liberates de la justice.

The Reform of the Standing Committees of the Quebec National Assembly: A Preliminary Assessment

Abstract: The study of the standing committees of the provincial legislatures of Canada has been consistently neglected.1 It may well be, as Professor C.E.S. Franks suggests, that "the small size of the legislatures and the small amount of business reduces the need for referral of bills and estimates to committee,'2 but this can hardly be accepted as a valid explanation for the situation in the two largest provinces, Ontario and Quebec. Canadian legislatures, both at the federal and at the provincial level, have followed the example of Westminster in resisting the idea of extensive use of standing committees. They all have displayed a strong attachment to the sacred notion that parliamentary business should be conducted as much as possible on the floor of the House without appreciating that this reliance can only contribute to the "decline of Parliament," so often bemoaned by members of Parliament and of provincial legislatures. After much heart-searching, the Canadian House of Commons recently accepted the idea that committees can serve a useful purpose without destroying certain traditional concepts of parliamentary control. Since 1968, the standing committees of the House of Commons have been completely overhauled. Although they are still far from perfect, almost all commentators agree that the referral of more and more business to these committees has had a beneficial effect

Marx's Theory of Classes: Science and Ideology

Abstract: Science et ideologie dans la theorie des classes de MarxCet article vise a demontrer l'articulation des principes qui fondent la theorie des classes sociales chez Marx de facon a permettre une meilleure comprehension de la continuite fondamentale qui lie l'humanitarisme du jeune Marx au materialisme scientifique des œuvres plus mures. En reponse a ceux qui considerent l'humanisme « ideologique » des Manuscrits de 1844 comme etant pre-scientifiques ou radicalement differents du materialisme historique, l'auteur soutient que le concept de classe, qui est au cœur meme des ecrits consideres comme scientifiques, trouve sa source dans la conception que Marx se faisait de la nature humaine lors de ses premieres œuvres. Il suggere de plus que la distinction entre science et ideologie n'est pas aussi evidente que certains le voudraient, Marx etant considere comme scientifique, non pas en depit, mais precisement a cause de son engagement partisan et revolutionnaire.

La fonction tribunitienne et la députation créditiste à l'Assemblée Nationale du Québec: 1970–3

Abstract: Apres 35 ann6es d'endoctrinement et d'action politique, le mouvement du Cr6dit social, inspir6 des th6ories du major 6cossais CH Douglas1, r6ussissait pour la premiere fois en avril 1970 & s'implanter sur la scene parlementaire qu6b6coise, en 61isant 12 d6put6s sous la banniere du Ralliement Cr6ditiste du Qu6bec Cette experience revet une importance particulibre, par suite des valeurs repr6sent6es au Qu6bec par ce mouvement depuis 1935 Avant que le temps n'efface les signes de ce premier passage cr6ditiste au sein de l'Assembl6e Nationale, nous croyons int6ressant de cerner et de fixer ce chapitre de l'histoire du Cr6dit social, analyse par ailleurs susceptible de nous 6clairer sur le ph6nomene cr6ditiste dans son ensemble

Developmental change and electoral cleavage in france: government and opposition in the fifth republic

Abstract: Le developpement socio-economique et le clivage electoral dans la Cinquieme Republique francaiseApres avoir rappele l'impact des recents changements socio-economiques sur l'alignement politique des masses dans les democraties industrielles de l'Europe occidentale, les auteurs construisent deux indices a partir d'un grand nombre de donnees ecologiques pour 87 departements francais: un indice de developpement (variable independante) et un indice de clivage electoral (variable dependante), ce dernier comportant une dimension structuree et une dimension non structuree de la protestation electorate sous la Cinquieme Republique. Divers modeles d'interaction entre les clivages sont explores et certaines hypotheses reliant les deux variables verifiees.

Social Articulation and Aggregation in Political Party Organizations in a Large Canadian City

Abstract: L'articulation des composantes sociales de la clientele electorate et de la structure organisationnelle des partis politiques a une grande ville canadienne La presente etude traite de la facon dont les partis politiques s'organisent dans les circonscriptions electorales socialement heterogenes. A l'aide des resultats d'un sondage effectue aupres des electeurs de trois comtes lors des elections federales de 1968 et d'une enquete sur les caracteristiques sociales des membres des comites executifs des partis dans ces comtes, les auteurs entendent verifier l'hypothese selon laquelle les partis politiques ont des assises electorales et organisationnelles qui sont etroitement reliees a certains agregats socio-economiques fondes sur l'occupation, l'education, le revenu, l'origine ethnique et la religion. En general, il appert que de tels rapports existent et qu'ils soient plus prononces en ce qui a trait a la composition sociale des organisations executives qu'a celle des electorats. De plus, il n'apparait pas possible, sauf dans le cas de la religion, d'ordonner simultanement les trois partis politiques sur une seule dimension sociale. Ainsi, la classe sociale (i.e., l'occupation et le revenu) ne permet d'etablir une distinction qu'entre les Neo-democrates (les pauvres) et les Conservateurs (les plus riches), l'origine ethnique qu'entre les Liberaux d'une part et les deux autres partis d'autre part, et l'anciennete de migration qu'entre les Conservateurs d'une part (plus de deux generations) et les Liberaux et Neo-democrates d'autre part (moins de trois generations).

Les développements et problèmes de la pensée stratégique contemporaine

Abstract: Developments and problems in contemporary thinking about strategy The purpose of this analysis is to review the most important changes in contemporary thinking about strategy and to draw certain conclusions. Beginning with the different stages in the evolution of “classical” theories and the coming of “academic” ideas developed as explanations of a strategy of deterrence between the two super-powers, the analysis emphasizes the relation between the new explanations of conflicts among social groups and the new categories for defining strategy. It also stresses the relation between a theory of the multiple causes of conflicts and wars and the development of the interdisciplinary interpretation of the analysis of strategy. In conclusion, it is argued that the current stage of research into a “qualitative” change in the analysis of strategy also implies new objectives for strategy that are required for the problem of the survival of mankind.

Le logement public à Hull

Abstract: L'analyse qui suit vise a expliquer la politique du logement pour les bas-salari6s g Hull. Elle se situe done A l'int6rieur d'un champ de la science politique de plus en plus ' la mode, celui de l'6tude des politiques, au sens de c public policies . 11 est enfin reconnu que l'une des fonctions les plus importantes (sinon la plus importante) du politicologue est d'expliquer pourquoi les gouvernements font (ou ne font pas) ce qu'ils font (ou ne font pas). Parmi les secteurs d'intervention gouvernementale, le logement en est un dont I'importance s'accroit de jour en jour. C'est devenu un clich6 de parler de la ( crise , du logement. II n'est done pas surprenant que la politique du logement ait 6t6 une des rares politiques quelque peu 6tudi6es au Qu6bec.1 I1 ne sera trait6 ici que d'un aspect particulier de la politique du logement, ceci ' cause du sujet meme de notre recherche. D'une part, nous nous int6ressions aux politiques du logement s'adressant aux bas-salarids. D'autre part notre 6tude portait sur la politique hulloise du logement. La dimension de la politique du logement qui s'inscrit le mieux ' l'int6rieur de cette double contrainte est sans contredit le programme de logement municipaux. Les criteres d'61igibilit6 ' ces logements attestent que la clientele vis6e est celle des bas-salari6s. Meme si l'on souhaite une certaine diversification de la population habitant

Generational Differences in the Bureaucratic Elite of Italian Communist Party Provincial Federations

Abstract: Communist functionaries certainly seem to have an image problem. Few studies have failed to treat them either as amoral subversives or, more recently, as dull, plodding party hacks.' Neither image is very flattering to people still known as "professional revolutionaries" within their own movement. More importantly, the forbidding nature of both stereotypes has contributed to the paucity of systematic knowledge that we have about this key group of politicians. And, while students of political parties may disagree on many aspects of modem communist parties, most would agree that much more information is needed concerning this group. Functionaries are of extreme importance in all political parties, but their role is especially critical in mass organizations with radical aims, as Roberto Michels argued more than six decades ago.2 These observations are obvious with regard to the Italian Communist party (pcI). The largest non-ruling communist party in the world, it has over 1.6 million members and it obtained nine million votes in the 1972 general elections, 27.2 per cent of the total. This kind of organization requires a veritable army of full-time workers. The PCI itself admitted to 6000 functionaries in 1959, and other sources, supported by my own observations, put the number at at least twice this figure, which gives the Italian Communists more fulltime workers than all of Italy's other parties combined.3 Such an imposing apparatus is not simply bulkier than its counterparts in the Italian political system; it also penetrates much closer to the grass roots. All Italian parties are staffed by professionals in their national headquarters. Only the largest parties (the Christian Democrats, the Communists, and the Socialists) have even a skeletal permanent staff in Italy's 94 provinces, however. In the PcI one always

Political Philosophy and Political Obligation

Abstract: Philosophic politique et obligation politiqueL'auteur examine la these selon laquelle la notion d'obligation politique constitue la question centrale de la philosophie politique. Apres avoir clarifie l'enonce de cette these, il en fait une triple evaluation : premierement, en regard de l'histoire de la philosophie politique, deuxiemement en tant que concept logique de la philosophie politique et, troisiemement, en tant qu'enonce normatif. Il lui apparait que la these ne saurait tenir sur aucun de ces trois plans. Par contre, il soutient que l'on sous-estime l'importance de la notion d'obligation politique en en confinant la pertinence au seul liberalisme, puisque toute philosophie politique d'importance doit en tenir compte.

Politique et science politique

Abstract: The political use of political sciencePolitical scientists claim for science and for themselves, as scholars, a maximum of independence in their dealings with government and Parliament. At the same time, science finds itself so inextricably bound up with the actual political process that it has become an “establishment” as strong and formidable as religion was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Liberal political scientists put themselves into a contradictory position when they demand for themselves, in the pursuit of their task as scholars, a political status which would protect them from the scrutiny of the elected representatives of the people, a condition which, they would refuse to grant to any other social group, and yet simultaneously in their teaching and writing set themselves up as the ardent defenders of representative and responsible democracy. What must one sacrifice, science or democratic responsibility? Is it necessary to aim at excluding science from the democratic process, at the risk of seeing our society regress towards a pre-industrial age, or should one regard representative and responsible democracy as relevant to questions of minor importance while significant issues which concern the present and future of society are to be dealt with by other political methods?

Land and Politics in Mexico

Abstract: In the many volumes written on the “agrarian question” in Mexico, probably no subject has received as much attention as the ejido , village communal land. Whether polemical or objective, most of these works have been concerned with the ejido primarily in economic terms. Questions have been raised about its importance as an economic unit, government action to improve its output, and its reform or even abolition for economic reasons. Related studies have been concerned with the ejido in terms of social justice, that is, the extent to which and the ways in which the ejidatarios , members of the ejido, have benefitted from the revolution. A few studies have been sociological or anthropological in nature, examining the ejido in terms of how it reinforces or breaks down traditional social and cultural patterns. While utilizing the data presented in these various studies, this note is concerned with the political aspect of the ejido or more specifically, how the ejido is a device which, both alone and in conjunction with a subculture of poverty, allows political control to be exercised over a vast peasant population engaged for the most part in primitive agriculture while urban Mexico proceeds with industrialization. In the early 1920s George McCutcheon McBride insisted in his major study of Mexican land tenure patterns that the Indians had to be kept on the land.

L'action communautaire: diversité et ambiguïté

Abstract: Community action: diversity and ambiguity The present article tries to outline the diversity and the internal tensions in community action by examining various forms of community consciousness (revolutionary, radical, defensive, reformist) and various kinds of leadership activity (protest, organizational, pragmatic). The existence of several kinds of leadership combined with multiple possibilities of action produces splintered activity which is reinforced by its dependence in the political arena and by political restraints. Community action in the process of political decision-making has little impact on the determination of the rules of the game, which are controlled by the government, and on the legitimate and public definition of the issues, which are set, in part, by the mass media. Concerted community action is thus held to be a precarious social movement whose particular conditions of origin, situation, and the peripheral position in society of its community agents determine its heterogeneous, critical, and Utopian dimensions.