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Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Political Science in 1993"




Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper applied party capability theory to the performance of Canada's highest court, and compared the findings with similar studies of American and British courts, using a data base derived from all reported decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada between 1949 and 1992.
Abstract: Now that the advent of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has made the fact of judicial power so obvious, it is important to develop the conceptual vocabulary for describing and assessing this power. One such concept that has been applied to the study of United States and British appeal courts is the notion of “party capability theory,” which suggests that different types of litigant will enjoy different levels of success, as both appellant and respondent. Using a data base derived from all reported decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada between 1949 and 1992, this article applies party capability theory to the performance of Canada's highest court, and compares the findings with similar studies of American and British courts.

73 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a simple model to explain election outcomes in Canadian federal elections and found that the share of the vote obtained by the Liberal party depends on deviations from the average rate of unemployment, inflation and income growth, and on the presence or absence of a party leader from Quebec.
Abstract: The article proposes a simple model to explain election outcomes in Canadian federal elections. The model hypothesizes that the share of the vote obtained by the Liberal party depends on deviations from the average rate of unemployment, inflation and income growth, and on the presence or absence of a party leader from Quebec. The results confirm the hypotheses regarding the impact of unemployment and party leader, but inflation and income growth prove to be nonsignificant. The evidence also suggests that the model may be less satisfactory for elections involving governments that had been in place for less than a year (1958 and 1980).

57 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The analysis of the political impact of nine federal high courts on the division of powers clearly indicates that such courts are best characterized as centralist and nationalist as discussed by the authors, which is largely the result of the strong institutional factors that link the federal high court to the political institutions of the central government.
Abstract: Constitutionalists and political scientists often claim that federal high courts are neutral and impartial arbiters of federalism disputes. However, analysis of the political impact of nine federal high courts on the division of powers clearly indicates that such courts are best characterized as centralist and nationalist. This is largely the result of the strong institutional factors that link the federal high court to the political institutions of the central government, notably the process by which federal judges are appointed. The political theory of federalism must thus be modified to take into account the centralist function of judicial review.

53 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the contribution of Canadian political science to an understanding of the phenomenon and its impact on our political life, and critical observations were made about the contribution from Canadian political scientists.
Abstract: Cultural and racial pluralism have increasingly become a “riveting reality” of contemporary Canadian society. Various dimensions of this reality are explored and critical observations are made about the contribution of Canadian political science to an understanding of the phenomenon and its impact on our political life. The increasing polyethnicity of Canadian society has pressured our decision-makers into articulating both a vision and a policy of multiculturalism. However, since the early 1980s both vision and policy have come under siege. The motives of the critics of multiculturalism are questioned, and an endorsement is made of policies which continue to seek answers in pursuit of the democratic ideals of procedural justice, human equality and mutual respect.

33 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Meisel et al. as mentioned in this paper employed national survey data gathered over the past quarter century to analyze the evolution and present state of public attitudes toward Canada's federal political parties and concluded that negative judgments on both dimensions are pervasive.
Abstract: This article employs national survey data gathered over the past quarter century to analyze the evolution and present state of public attitudes toward Canada's federal political parties. A 1991 survey employing new questions on evaluations of party performance reveals that these evaluations are structured in terms of two dimensions, and that negative judgments on both dimensions are pervasive. The significance of the current negativism is assessed using 1965-1991 data on Canadians' feelings about and identifications with the federal parties. Although for a long time party affect has been lukewarm at best, and partisanship has been weak and unstable, negative trends have magnified the disaffection and dealignment. The discontent has accelerated in recent years, as the percentage of Liberal and Progressive Conservative identifiers has plummeted, and the non-identifier group has swelled to record levels, particularly in Quebec. The article concludes by considering the implications of these findings for the future of the federal party system. Resume. Cette 6tude utilise les donnees de sondages nationaux recueillies pendant les 25 dernieres ann6es afin d'analyser l'evolution et l'6tat actuel des attitudes du public envers les partis politiques f6edraux du Canada. Une enquete de 1991 utilisant de nouvelles questions sur l'evaluation de la performance des partis r6evle que ces 6valuations s'expriment en fonction de deux dimensions qui toutes deux comportent a 1'evidence des jugements n6gatifs. L'importance du negativisme actuel est 6valuee en utilisant de donnees couvrant les ann6es 1965 a 1991, sur les sentiments d'identifications des Canadiens envers les partis f6edraux. Bien que le sentiment envers les partis ait 6et marqu6 depuis longtemps, au mieux, par l'indiff6rence, et que l'adhesion partisane ait 6et faible et instable, les tendances n6gatives ont accru la d6saffection et le desengagement. Le m6contentement s'est agrav6 dans les ann6es r6centes, le pourcentage de ceux qui s'identifient aux Lib6raux ou aux Progressistes-Conservateurs a degringole, et le groupe des non-alignes a atteint un seuil record, particulir Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1991), chap. 15; and "The Dysfunctions of Canadian Parties: An Exploratory Mapping," in Thorbum, ed., Party Politics in Canada, chap. 18. 5 Meisel lists the following functions: "(1) the structuring of the vote; (2) the integration and mobilization of the mass public; (3) the recruitment of political leaders; (4) organize a government; (5) the formation of public policy; and (6) the aggregation of interests" ("The Dysfunctions of Canadian Parties," 235). 6 See, for example, Clarke et al., Absent Mandate, chaps. 1, 8; and Alain G. Gagnon and Brian Tanguay, eds., Canadian Parties in Transition (Scarborough: Nelson This content downloaded from 207.46.13.124 on Wed, 22 Jun 2016 05:56:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms HAROLD D. CLARKE and ALLAN KORNBERG knowledge, there are no empirical studies that have attempted to ascertain whether scholarly evaluations of party performance are shared by the public which is directly affected by them. Accordingly, this study presents the responses of a 1991 national sample of the electorate to 11 evaluative statements about Canadian political parties, investigates whether there is an underlying structure to these evaluations, and determines whether they are associated with regional, socio-economic and partisan differences among those doing the judging. The second section of the article addresses the longer-term implications of these findings. For this purpose we employ national survey data gathered over the past quarter century to trace the evolution of public orientations toward the federal political parties. In the conclusion, the results of the several analyses are used to inform a discussion of the future of the national party system. Found Wanting: Evaluating Party Performance In November 1991, the authors included 11 "agree-disagree" statements concerning Canada's political parties in a national survey conducted by Canadian Facts. A sample of 1,817 respondents was invited to make judgments about the performance of the parties in carrying out the kinds of policy (statements A, C, E), representational (statements B, H, J), aggregating-integrating (statements D, F, I) and governing (statements G, K) roles political scientists typically ascribe to them.7 These statements and the responses they elicited are displayed in Table 1. Three findings are particularly noteworthy. First and foremost is the decidedly unflattering images Canadians have of their political parties. Judgments about the disjunction between a party's campaign promises and its performance in office, and about the propensity of parties to engage in rhetorical conflict during and after elections rather than focussing their efforts on governing the country are overwhelmingly negative. By way of illustration, 91 per cent agreed that there is often a big difference between what a party says it will do and what it does if it wins an election, 89 per cent agreed that parties spend too much time bickering and quarreling rather than solving national problems, and 81 per cent agreed that parties are more interested in winning elections than in governing afterwards. Second, there were a relatively large number of "don't know" and "not sure" responses to statements Canada, 1989). Aspects of the thesis of party decline are disputed by James Bickerton, in "The Party System and the Representation of Periphery Interests: The Case of the Maritimes," and Khayyam Z. Paltiel, "Financing Federal Political Parties in Canada, 1974-1986," in chaps. 20 and 14, respectively, of the Gagnon and Tanguay volume. 7 To avoid response set problems, three different orderings of the 11 statements were administered to random subsets of respondents. 290 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.124 on Wed, 22 Jun 2016 05:56:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Public Attitudes toward Federal Political Parties, 1965-1991

29 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A discussion of rationality, romanticism, and the individual in relation to Max Weber's ''modernism'' and the confrontation with ''modernity'' is given in this paper, where the individual is defined as a combination of rationality and romanticism.
Abstract: A discussion of rationality, romanticism, and the Individual in relation to Max Weber's `modernism' and the confrontation with “modernity"

25 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored neo-conservative ideology in the industrialized West through a comparative analysis of the arguments advanced against a strong role for the federal government in regulating child care services in the United States and Canada.
Abstract: This article explores neo-conservative ideology in the industrialized West through a comparative analysis of the arguments advanced against a strong role for the federal government in regulating child care services in the United States and Canada. Existing analyses of neo-conservatism suggest that it is composed of many different elements which may lead to contradictory policy prescriptions; this literature also downplays the presence of a “pro-family” component in the Canadian context. The article illustrates the presence of an “anti-statist,” a “pro-market” and a “pro-family” strand of neo-conservatism in each country, and shows that they converge in opposing federal regulation of child care services. It also suggests that, while there appears to be a shared neo-conservative vision of the appropriate relationship between families and the state across national contexts, discussions of the state and its relationship to the market take on a distinctive tone in each country.

23 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The literature on Canadian Foreign Policy has often been characterized as overly descriptive and theoretically weak as discussed by the authors, and this type of characterization is no longer wholly accurate, as it continues to manifest important gaps and limited cumulation.
Abstract: The literature on Canadian Foreign Policy has often been characterized as overly descriptive and theoretically weak. This type of characterization, advanced most recently by Maureen Molot, is no longer wholly accurate. By reviewing several relatively recent contributions and debates in this literature, it is demonstrated that in pockets, the subfield has advanced substantially in theoretical sophistication. Nevertheless, it continues to manifest important gaps and limited cumulation. The article speculates on why this should be so, and on how the theoretical condition of the subfield can be advanced. Approaches which incorporate the interplay of internal and external influences on policy, which borrow from important developments in the wider fields of International Relations and Comparative Politics, and which engage in comparison across issue-areas, countries and time are advocated. Applications drawing on “historical materialist,” regime, and epistemic community literatures are specifically promoted.




Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Citizens' Constitution Theory, formulated by Alan Cairs, provides a powerful explanation of the changes in Canadian politics during the 1980s as mentioned in this paper, but the linkages between attitudes and behaviour at the core of the theory have never been subjected to systematic tests with attitudinal research data.
Abstract: The Citizens' Constitution Theory, formulated by Alan Cairs, provides a powerful explanation of the changes in Canadian politics during the 1980s. It tackles a research question that has far-reaching implications for the fundamental dynamics of Canadian political life-namely, how does constitutional change affect political participation? Cairns's thesis has gained widespread acceptance in the relevant Canadian literature, but the linkages between attitudes and behaviour at the core of the theory have never been subjected to systematic tests with attitudinal research data. The purpose of this investigation, then, is to make operational the Citizens' Constitution Theory and to evaluate the empirical support for it. The authors outline the central elements of the Citizens' Constitution Theory and discuss how Cairns relates the core concepts to each other. They then suggest that the same concepts and their linkages might also be explained by an alternative theoretical perspective that comes from one variant of New Politics Theory. The empirical section of this analysis uses recently collected survey results to mount three different tests of the two theories. In the first instance, the focus is on the question: how well do both theories predict each set of linkages that can be found in the Citizens' Constitution Theory? The second test treats both theories comprehensively, as causal models, and examines the empirical support for them using path analysis. The final section evaluates the generalizability of both theories. The main finding is that New Politics Theory provides as good an explanation-and by some standards, a better explanation for recent changes in the patterns of Canadian political participation than does the Citizens' Constitution Theory. Resume. La thdorie de la Constitution des citoyens, formulde par Alan Cairns, a une grande force explicative pour comprendre les changements dans la politique canadienne durant les ann6es 1980. Elle va au coeur d'une question de recherche qui a des consdquences importantes pour la dynamique fondamentale de la vie politique canadienne: comment le changement constitutionnel affecte-t-il la participation politique? La these des Cairns a obtenu un large appui dans la litterature canadienne pertinente, mais les liens entre les attitudes et les comportements qui sont au coeur de la thdorie n'ontjamais 6et testes a I'aide de donn6es sur les attitudes. Aussi, le but de cette recherche est de reformuler la th6orie de la Constitution des citoyens de facon h ce qu'elle puisse etre testee et d'en 6valuer la validit6 empirique. Les auteurs soulignent les 6elments centraux de la th6orie de la Constitution des citoyens et discutent la facon dont Cairns relie ces 6elments centraux les uns aux autres. Ils dmettent alors l'idde que les memes concepts et les memes liens peuvent etre expliquds aussi par une autre perspective thdorique tiree d'une variante de la nouvelle thdorie politique. La partie empirique de cet article teste les deux th6ories de trois facons diffdrentes en utilisant des donnees de sondage recemment mises a jour. Tout d'abord, l'accent est mis sur la question suivante: dans quelle mesure les deux theories pr6disent-elles chaque ensemble de liens 6tablis par la thdorie constitutionnelle des citoyens? Le deuxieme test considere chaque thdorie en soi, comme un modele causal, et evalue sa validitd empirique a partir d'une analyse des cheminements de causalitd. L'article se termine par une dvaluation du caractere g6enralisable des deux theories. Le principal constat est que la nouvelle th6orie politique est aussi bonne et, sous certains criteres, meilleure que la thdorie de la Constitution des citoyens pour expliquer les changements r6cents dans les formes de participation politique au Canada. rect in his observation that citizenship is a newly important category in Canadian political life, then it surely must be manifest in public attitudes. 1 In some places, the argument seems to be that the new particiWest (Edmonton: Academic Publishing, 1988); in Disruptions, 159: "The process leading up to the 1982 Constitution Act and much of its content... have transformed the Canadian constitutional culture in a manner that explains much of the hostility that Meech Lake has aroused." 11 We would like to thank one of the JOURNAL'S anonymous reviewers for drawing our attention to this point. This content downloaded from 40.77.167.13 on Wed, 20 Jul 2016 05:52:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms IAN BRODIE and NEIL NEVITTE pant ethic was derived from the specific recognition of particular groups in the Charter.12 Elsewhere the implication is that the participant ethic has a root in the Charter independent of these specific recognitions.13 No clear distinction is drawn between the two possibilities. For example: "The 1982 incorporation of the Charter of Rights into the constitution changed the constitutional culture of English-speaking Canadians by giving various groups linked to the Charter a sense that they were legitimate constitutional actors with stakes in the constitution." 14 Regardless of the ambiguities that understandably arise in the evolution of any new theoretical perspective, Cairns makes at least two significant contributions. First, he draws attention to the important issue of how the dynamics of political participation may respond to constitutional change in Canada.15 On that point, namely, that the new participant ethic is a consequence of the Charter, Cairns is quite unambiguous. He writes of "a constitutional culture that is beginning to take shape as a result of the 1982 Constitution Act, especially of the Charter."16 Sec12 For example, at one point in his introduction to Disruptions the effect is specific to certain groups. "For many of the citizens' groups, however, it [the Charter] was profoundly status-enhancing. For the first time they had a major place in the constitutional order. The constitution spoke to them generally in the language of rights, and often specifically to particular groups by individual clauses that pertained especially to them" (21). He goes on to speak of "the various groups that had been catalysed into constitutional self-consciousness by the Charter" (22). 13 In the first rendition of the Citizens' Constitution Theory, the Charter has a more general effect. Cairns claims it "bypassed governments and spoke directly to Canadians by defining them as bearers of rights" ("Citizens [Outsiders]," in Disruptions, 109). He identifies the same general effect in the introduction to his 1991 collection. "To some extent, the Charter strengthens the civic identity of English Canada. It has generated a much greater sense of connection to the constitution for English Canadians than formerly prevailed...." He then qualifies this statement by referring to a specific effect. "On the other hand, that consciousness of a constitutional connection is often highly particularistic, stronger at the level of women, ethnic groups, and aboriginals (although their linkage is not primarily with the Charter) than at the level of English Canada" ("Author's Introduction," in Disruptions). 14 Cairns, "Author's Introduction," in Disruptions, 19. 15 In the US, similar analyses of the interplay between constitution-level politics and the wider political environment can be found in Charles H. Franklin and Liane C. Kosaki, "Republican Schoolmaster: The United States Supreme Court, Public Opinion and Abortion," American Political Science Review 83 (1989), 751-71; Gregory A. Caldeira, "Neither the Purse Nor the Sword: Dynamics of Confidence in the Supreme Court," American Political Science Review 80 (1986), 1209-26; and David F. Barnum, "The Supreme Court and Public Opinion: Judicial Decision-making in the Post-New Deal Period," Journal of Politics 47 (1985), 652-66. 16 Cairns, "Ottawa, the Provinces," in Disruptions, 160 (emphasis added). He calls the Charter the "most important political stimulus to citizen constitutional participation, at least in English Canada..." ("Author's Introduction," in Disruptions, 238 This content downloaded from 40.77.167.13 on Wed, 20 Jul 2016 05:52:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Evaluating the Citizens' Constitution Theory ondly, Cairns provides an explanation for the political turmoil of the period by fixing on the contradiction between the participant ethic, spawned by the Charter, and the government domination of the amending formula.17 That contradiction, he suggests, fuels "the incoherence at the heart of our constitutional existence."'8 According to Cairns, that incoherence comes from the co-existence of a new citizens' participant ethic and the dominance of governments, and it helps to explain why the process of drafting the Meech Lake Accord created a "Frustrated Culture of Participation."19 Cairns's account of the impact of the Charter, the emergence of a new citizens' participant ethic, and the failure of Meech Lake, is influential and persuasive; it is clearly well tuned for explaining Canadian constitutional disruptions, deadlock and procedural wranglings such as those surrounding Meech Lake and its aftermath.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: However, media intrusion theory holds that the advent of electronic media, especially television, has accelerated or even precipitated party decline, which is evidently borne out by the declining membership of, and weakening support for, the two major Australian parties which each enthusiastically embraced new forms of political communication as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Media intrusion theory holds that the advent of electronic media, especially television, has accelerated or even precipitated party decline. This is evidently borne out by the declining membership of, and weakening support for, the two major Australian parties which each enthusiastically embraced new forms of political communication. However, “media intrusion” has arguably strengthened rather than weakened Canada's already frail brokerage parties. This different experience may be explained by the dissimilar legislative, federal and media environments in which Canadian and Australian political parties operate. Curiously, although the new forms of political communication have had different impacts, these have triggered changes in Australian political parties which have increased their resemblance to their Canadian counterparts.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of social class background on voters' perceptions of most and least favored federal parties, perceived party differences and subjective class voting were investigated. But the results were limited to the 1984 Canadian National Election Study.
Abstract: This article presents tests of effects of social class background on voters' perceptions of most and least favoured federal parties, perceived party differences and subjective class voting. The data were taken from the 1984 Canadian National Election Study. The results show that subjective class voting extended to voters' beliefs about least liked parties. And the greater the perceived differences between voters' preferred parties and their second and third choice parties, the greater the level of class voting. An index which combined respondents' perceptions of the class orientations of most and least liked parties increased the estimate of the level of subjective class voting that takes place. The results suggest that this index provides an improved way of assessing subjective class voting. This index is a useful improvement upon previous measures because it incorporates information on the extent to which voters see Canadian politics as presenting class-based alternatives. This is the conceptual domain of the dependent variable in the literature on subjective class voting, but perceived class-based alternatives are seldom measured directly.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a game-theoretic analysis of the negotiations that followed the National Energy Program (NEP) announcement is presented, including participants, strategies and potential outcomes.
Abstract: Over a decade ago, the federal Liberal government announced one of the most controversial policy initiatives in Canadian history, the National Energy Program (NEP). The bargaining that followed the NEP's announcement on October 28, 1980 is easily recalled; intense disagreements focussed on economic, partisan and, ultimately, constitutional issues. While these events have stimulated a wide range of investigations, a prominent gap exists in the scholarship: very few studies adopt a game-theoretic perspective. In seeking to explain strategic interaction over energy policy, such an approach might increase understanding of the difficult political processes surrounding the NEP in a wider context.These are five stages to the game-theoretic investigation that follows. First, a brief history of the phase of confrontation is provided. Second, the game-theoretic interpretation is presented in general terms, including participants, strategies and potential outcomes. Relevant measurements are derived in the third phase. In the fourth stage, the process of a sequential game is analyzed, in both abstract and operational terms. Fifth, and finally, policy-related implications of the analysis are discussed, along with possible directions for further research.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Citizens' Constitution Theory was developed on the run, as was the linked concept of Charter Canadians as mentioned in this paper, both of which are spinoffs from the recognition of the political purposes of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which explored in several articles that anticipated the Charter's arrival, or followed closely on its introduction in 1982.
Abstract: I thank Ian Brodie and Neil Nevitte for taking my constitutional commentary of the last decade and a half seriously. This exchange of views will remind us that the improvement of our understanding is a collective enterprise sustained by debate and competition between rival schools. Since the adversaries in such debates are often driven by a distorting self-interest, qualitative assessment of the outcome is appropriately left to the academic jury of our peers. The Citizens' Constitution Theory was developed on the run, as was the linked concept of Charter Canadians. Both, no doubt, are subject to the weaknesses that attend ad hoc efforts to interpret a murky, moving reality. Both are spinoffs from the recognition of the political purposes of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which I explored in several articles that anticipated the Charter's arrival, or followed closely on its introduction in 1982.2 These early articles, which were not cited by Brodie and Nevitte, explicitly elaborated the thesis that the Charter was an instrument to change our civic self-conceptions,


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare the United States and Canada in terms of support for state action in social and labour policies and conclude that Canada's institutions allow more creative policy and fostered greater support for government action.
Abstract: The orthodox view that Canada's ideological tradition is more supportive of an active state cannot explain earlier innovations in social and labour policy in the United States. A neo-pluralist and neo-institutionalist synthesis is used to contrast these nations. Organic ideologies of labour, agrarian, business and professional groups reveal no consistent national differences in support for state action. Initial state interventions were similar and limited. But institutional development occurred in different contexts, producing more effective executive leadership in Canada. American policy was constrained by the Congress, with its opportunities for blocking, and by inadequate executive power. Frustration with inaction plus greater social well-being reduced demands in the US for state action. Canada's institutions allowed more creative policy and fostered greater support for state action, especially where the weak economy exacted costs on social groups. But constitutional change could replicate American gridlock, and reduce the capacity for new state action.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, an analysis of the relationship between the cosmology underlying the aboriginal demands on the one hand and three of the main trends in contemporary Canadian liberal political philosophy on the other hand is presented to shed some light on the philosophical incompatibility thesis.
Abstract: The Constitution Act, 1982 recognized certain rights for aboriginal peoples. These rights were to be identified and defined subsequently. Ten years later, after several rounds of negotiations, the question of the recognition and definition of an aboriginal right to self-government remains unresolved. Many specialists claim that the problems faced during these negotiations result from the incompatibility between the main philosophical traditions guiding the actors. Through an analysis of the relationship between the cosmology underlying the aboriginal demands on the one hand and three of the main trends in contemporary Canadian liberal political philosophy on the other hand, this article tries to shed some light on the philosophical incompatibility thesis. While a strictly individualist liberalism rejects outright the notion of collective rights and Will Kymlicka's revisionist liberal individualism limits considerably the scope of an aboriginal right to self-government, communitarian liberalism, like that of Charles Taylor, seems to provide a favourable framework for the integration of cultural co-existence with the First Nations, without repudiating its attachment to fundamental individual rights and freedoms.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the problem of achieving linguistic equivalence in Canada-wide surveys that rely, as they must, on two different questionnaires, one in English and one in French, and applied it to one specific issue, support for electoral democracy.
Abstract: This study examines the problem of achieving linguistic equivalence in Canada-wide surveys that rely, as they must, on two different questionnaires, one in English and one in French. It is argued that this is a crucial problem which needs to be dealt with squarely. Since language does not coincide neatly with territorial boundaries in Canada, there will always be some francophones outside Quebec and some non-francophones within Quebec who are not interviewed in their first language. A comparison of responses given in both languages by members of the same language group enables the investigator to distinguish true cultural differences from mere artifacts of measurement. That methodology is applied to one specific issue, support for electoral democracy.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the impact of divisive contests, the relevance of a party's competitive position, and the regional variance on any leadership convention electoral boost and conclude that the conventional wisdom is wrong.
Abstract: The long-standing centrality of party leaders to Canadian elections and politics, and the use of televised extra-parliamentary conventions to choose leaders, have led parties to believe that a new leader will provide them with an electoral boost at the subsequent election. This article tests this perception using the record of 136 cases of leadership change in Canadian provincial parties over the last three decades. The data allow the authors to consider the impact of divisive contests, the relevance of a party's competitive position, and the regional variance on any leadership convention electoral boost. It concludes the conventional wisdom is wrong. Resume. L'importance centrale des leaders de partis lors des elections et dans la politique canadienne en general, ainsi que la couverture televisuelle des congres a la chefferie, ont amene les partis a croire que le choix d'un nouveau leader etait un moyen sur d'ameliorer fortement leurs r6sultats a la prochaine election. Cet article teste le bienfond6 cette perception des choses en se basant sur 136 cas de changements de leaders de partis provinciaux canadiens lors des trois dernieres decades. Cette base de donnees permet aux auteurs de prendre en compte l'effet des courses serr6es, la position du parti dans la competition pour le pouvoir, et la variation regionale de toute amelioration de la performance electorale du parti. La conclusion est que l'hypoth&se conventionnelle est fausse. cepted by the federal Liberal party. But before the parties rush headlong into such a change we need a better understanding of how the contemporary system actually works.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The moral value that grounds the Canadian experiment is not freedom or diversity, but fraternity as discussed by the authors, and this moral value has its origins in Cartier's vision of Confederation, and provides a vision of federalism that can sustain Canadians in their times of trouble.
Abstract: Federalism is commonly described, in Canada and elsewhere, as a political expedient, or a constitutional arrangement, or a sociological characteristic of some societies. Federalism can also be a moral experiment that seeks to realize a way of life. Canada is an instance of such an experiment. Moreover, the moral value that grounds the Canadian experiment is not freedom or diversity, but fraternity. Federalism as fraternity has its beginnings in Cartier's vision of Confederation, and provides a vision of federalism that can sustain Canadians in their times of trouble.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated whether the entry of a greater number of women into the political arena could transform gender relations and found that women have higher scores on a feminist index than men.
Abstract: This article investigates whether the entry of a greater number of women into the political arena could transform gender relations. The opinions of female and male New Democratic, Liberal and Parti qu6becois candidates in the 1989 Quebec general election were polled, in order to clarify three main questions: Do the female candidates polled have opinions favourable to feminist demands? Do female and male candidates have the same opinions with respect to these demands? Do political party and political philosophy influence the opinions of each sex on feminist demands? The results show that, generally speaking, women have higher scores on a feminist index than men. More specifically, this gap between women and men varies in accordance with the thematics of feminism, and with political party and political philosophy. Resume. Cet article s'interesse a la question si l'accs d'un plus grand nombre de femmes aux institutions politiques peut modifier les rapports sociaux de sexe. Les opinions des candidates et candidats du Nouveau Parti democratique du Quebec, du Parti liberal du Quebec et du Parti qu6becois a l'election generale de 1989 au Qu6bec ont ete examinees, avec l'intention de r6pondre a trois questions: Les candidates sollicit6es par cette 6tude avaient-elles des opinions favorables aux demandes feministes? Les femmes et les hommes ayant soumis leur candidature avaient-ils les memes opinions par rapport a ces demandes? Le parti politique et la philosophie politique influent-ils sur les opinions de chaque sexe par rapport aux demandes f6ministes? Les r6sultats obtenus montrent que, d'une facon g6enrale, les femmes obtiennent un indice f6ministe sup6rieur a celui des hommes. D'une facon plus specifique, cet ecart femmes-hommes s'affirme plus ou moins fortement selon les thematiques considerees, le parti politique et la philosophie politique. Prior Research and Hypotheses Most studies concerning the opinions of female and male politicians with respect to feminist demands come from the United States.4 Results show that women in politics support these demands, and that they do so in a more emphatic way than men. These studies also demonstrate the influence of party allegiance and political philosophy on responses to the demands made by the feminist movement. Although the proportion of women who support feminist demands varies from party to party and according to philosophical preferences, women are always more numerous than their male party and ideological colleagues in endorsing feminist perspectives. Of course, there exists in the United States a political context different from the one which prevails in Canada-notably one in which women's lobbies are organized and influentialwhich can explain these results.5 Moreover, the absence of party disci4 Among many other articles see Pippa Norris, "Women in Congress: A Policy Difference?" Politics 6 (1986), 34-40; Ronald B. Rapoport, Walter J. Stone and Alan I. Abramowitz,"Sex and the Caucus Participant: The Gender Gap and Presidential Nominations," American Journal of Political Science 34 (1990), 725-40; Michelle Saint-Germain, "Does Their Difference Make a Difference? The Impact of Women on Public Policy in the Arizona Legislature," Social Science Quarterly 70 (1989), 956-68; Sue Thomas, "Voting Patterns in the California Assembly: The Role of Gender," Women and Politics 9 (1989), 43-56; and Sue Thomas and Susan Welch, 'The Impact of Gender on Activities and Priorities of State Legislators," Western Political Quarterly 44 (1991), 445-56. 5 In the US context, Carroll demonstrated how exchanges between feminist organizations, women's organizations and women legislators could favour the political This content downloaded from 157.55.39.135 on Sun, 03 Jul 2016 05:21:10 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The public imagination has turned away from those who created Canadian Confederation as mentioned in this paper, and many Canadians now embrace visions of the future that have been shaped by either Rene Levesque or Pierre Trudeau.
Abstract: As founders of a new state, the Fathers of Canadian Confederation imagined themselves to be creating a nation that could take its place among the great nations of the world. "Shall we be content to maintain a mere provincial existence," George Cartier asked rhetorically, "when, by combining together, we could become a great nation?"' Cartier's sentiment was echoed by Macdonald, McGee and Brown, as well as by voices in the popular press. Canada would also be a federal state; yet federalism would not diminish its greatness, because French and English had come together to promote the welfare of all and the glory of the new nation.2 Not only has Confederation not turned out the way Macdonald and Cartier imagined, but the public imagination has turned away from those who created it. Many Canadians now embrace visions of the future that have been shaped by either Rene Levesque or Pierre Trudeau. Levesque's mission was to persuade Quebeckers to erase from their collective memory those aspects of their identity which tied them to other Canadians, and to remind them of the proud nation that they once were and could still become. Pierre Trudeau, on the other hand, dreamed of a Canadian people more united than many of the Fathers of Confederation were able to imagine. What makes the Trudeau