Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Political Science in 1996"

Learning and Change in the British Columbia Forest Policy Sector: A Consideration of Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework*

Abstract: This article uses British Columbia forest policy to test our ability to distinguish between policy change and policy learning using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) developed by Paul Sabatier. The authors find the ACF a useful way of approaching policy change in this sector, but argue that finer discriminations are needed to detect policy learning. They argue that Sabatier underestimates the extent to which the legitimation function of key ideas forces dominant advocacy coalitions to respond to criticisms in ways that promote learning. They conclude that, in this case, adaptive strategies undertaken by a dominant advocacy coalition in response to criticism has resulted in policy-oriented learning that may cause a major policy shift without an externally induced crisis in the forest policy sector.

Two-level games and third-party intervention: Evidence from ethnic conflict in the Balkans and South Asia

Abstract: One of the most challenging developments for students of international relations is the resurgence of ethnic strife. While it may be true that there have been few recent interstate wars, it would be incorrect to assume that ethnic turmoil will remain an isolated domestic problem. Recent interventions by individual states, either in support of, or opposition to, ethnic challenges, raise important questions about the validity of conventional perspectives on interstate conflict: Why do some states intervene in ethnic strife while others do not? Why do some third-party states rely on violence to support ethnic conflicts while others support norms of peaceful mediation? This investigation uses Putnam's two-level game to examine the impact of ethnicity on third-party intervention. Evidence from the Balkans war and Indo-Sri Lankan conflict show how heads of state must coordinate actions at two bargaining “tables,” which correspond to domestic politics and international negotiation. By monitoring strategies and tactics at each, it becomes possible to understand superficially puzzling developments. More specifically, initiatives in one domain may be a function of constraints or opportunities imposed by the other. These insights appear as propositions related to commitment, autonomy, domestic costs and manipulation of perceptions

The Dynamics of Women's Representation in the Canadian Provinces: 1975–1994

Abstract: This article presents evidence concerning women's representation in Canada's provincial legislative assemblies over a 20-year period (1975–1994). Data from 3,755 elections and over 11,000 candidates are analyzed to inspect trends in representation. The authors find there has been a gradual increase in both female candidates and legislators. The New Democratic party has clearly been the leader in putting women on the ballot and into legislatures at the provincial level. In addition, hypotheses are tested to see if there are differences across provinces in parties' willingness to nominate and elect women, and whether women are more likely to be nominated primarily in districts where a party does not expect to win. The study finds that the Atlantic provinces lagged behind the rest of Canada as representation increased markedly everywhere else in the late 1980s and the 1990s. There is also evidence that the major parties nominated female challengers in ridings that were inferior to the ridings where the party's male challengers ran in the mid- to late-1970s. By the mid-1980s, however, evidence that women were treated as sacrificial lambs had disappeared.

Losing Common Ground: Feminists, Conservatives and Public Policy in Canada during the Mulroney Years

Abstract: This article examines relations between organized feminism and the federal Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, focusing on elements of the Canadian women's movement that targeted federal policy change from 1984 to 1993. In questioning the main priorities of both sides and the potential for conflict between them, the discussion uses the conceptual literature on social movement evolution as a base. It assesses formal decision making across five major policy sectors identified by Canadian feminism and presents the perspectives of movement activists on the Mulroney period. Although comparisons with policy action under the Thatcher and Reagan governments indicate a more pro-feminist record in Canada than the United Kingdom or the United States, Canadian materials suggest a narrowing of common ground between the organized women's movement and federal elites during the Mulroney years.

Direct Election of Provincial Party Leaders in Canada, 1985–1995: The End of the Leadership Convention?

Abstract: Between 1985 and 1995, 12 provincial parties in Canada elected their leaders by a direct vote of their membership. This article examines the motivation behind the switch to direct election, the direct election procedures used and whether the expected benefits have been realized. Claims that direct elections are more democratic than traditional conventions and that they can revitalize a party membership are scrutinized.

The Ambivalent Potential of Cultural Identity

Abstract: Despite the overwhelming prevalence of democratic ideals in contemporary political relations throughout the world, a potent ideological challenge to liberal democratic norms is the recent claim that “differential” rights are essential to foster and protect the identity of individual rights within culturally distinct groups. This article examines the claim that cultural identity confers sufficient normative force upon which to base distinct political rights for specific groups. In what, precisely, does the normative force of “cultural identity” lie? The article challenges the claims that individuals' sense of personal identity can only arise through a “secure cultural context”; that a passive sense of group identity is a “primary good” that equals or even precedes the importance of universal human rights; and that this “politics of inclusion” based upon differential rights for different groups will lead to greater equality and tolerance within the larger political community.

The Regulator's Dilemma: Regulation of Pulp Mill Effluents in the Canadian Federal State*

Abstract: The disclosure in 1987 that dioxins were present in pulp mill effluents prompted governments throughout the world to revise their environmental standards for the pulp and paper industry. This article uses the pulp and paper case to examine the dynamics of environmental standard setting within the Canadian federal state. Provincial regulatory incentives are analyzed using two-player games as a heuristic. The article then considers the federal government's role in establishing national standards. Many authors have emphasized the importance of federal involvement to overcome provincial reluctance to regulate unilaterally, lest jobs be lost to jurisdictions with weaker environmental standards. However, few have considered whether the federal government has incentives to do just that. It is argued that those incentives are weak at best, in light of resistance from both the regulated industry and jurisdictionally defensive provinces. In environmental regulation of the Canadian pulp and paper industry, federal reluctance resulted in a two-tier system of environmental standards with strict standards for the largest provinces, and weaker ones for smaller provinces that rely more on the federal government.

Contending Interpretations of Bentham's Utilitarianism*

Abstract: This article illustrates the contours of the continuing debate over Bentham's utilitarianism through an analysis of the secondary literature. It assesses the persuasiveness of the principal contemporary “authoritarian” (despotic, totalitarian, collectivism behaviouralist, constructivist, panopticist and paternalist) and “individualist” (facilitative and liberal) interpretations of Bentham's thought, indicating where they are consistent with his writings and where they are not. Distinctions and conflicts between contending perspectives are found to be rooted in a reliance on different elements of Bentham's vast corpus and emphasis on different components of his utilitarian theory. An examination of the contending perspectives underscores the tensions in Bentham's thought, including the most characteristic tension between, on the one hand, the axiomatic commitment to the individual and, on the other hand, the greatest happiness principle.

L'analyse politique de la décentralisation*

Abstract: There are many works on decentralization, but few of them have studied in a systematic way the power relations that are associated with the transfer of attributions from a superior level to an inferior level of government. In order to compensate for these shortcomings a conceptual framework and two research proposals are formulated about the different components of decentralization and the power relations pertaining to them. The model is then applied to various decentralization policies which were adopted since the 1980s in different countries. Two main conclusions can be drawn from this study. First, in the power relations between the actors of the different levels of government, those of the superior level are maintaining their domination by controlling the more important resources in the new relationships created by the decentralization policies. Second, the actors of the superior level of government are seeking to present their domination as plausible with reference to some values generally associated with centralization or decentralization.

Do Canadian Political Parties Form a Cartel

Abstract: This article summarizes the cartel model of party structure and tests it against the experience of the Canadian party system in the 1990s Four claims are evaluated: that the three dominant parties in the House of Commons before 1993 colluded to exclude new parties; that they used state subsidies in their own interest; that the 1993 election result was a backlash against the cartel parties; and that Canadian parties are adopting new leadership selection methods in order to allow their leaders greater autonomy The article concludes that the first two claims are valid while the latter two are not, and discusses some of the implications of these findings for Canadian parties and for the cartel model itself

Aboriginal Peoples and Electoral Reform in Canada: Differentiated Representation versus Voter Equality *

Abstract: Arguments advancing the merits of Aboriginal Electoral Districts (AEDs) for Canada are informed by the view that the democratic integration of Aboriginal peoples into the institutions of the state ought to occur on the basis of their group-differentiated citizenship. This study advances the thesis that the attempt to fuse the conventional concern for democratic equality with a model of representation based on difference such as that offered by AEDs is to try to harmonize objectives that strain significantly against one another and thus are largely incompatible. AEDs are unsustainable as vehicles for the representation of Aboriginal peoples within Parliament because they are too tightly bound to a representational norm linked to a commitment to voter equality which, when measured against the normative thrust of differentiated representation, imposes a high degree of homogenization upon the citizenship of Aboriginal peoples.

Burkean “Descriptions” and Political Representation: A Reappraisal

Abstract: The theoretical literature on representation tends to read the work of Edmund Burke as a defence of a functional-corporatist conception of society, in which the groups relevant for political representation are stable and objective economic “interests” whose cooperation in and contribution to the life of nation and empire are essential for the status of Britain as a pre-eminent commercial power. This article presents an alternative, contractarian Burke that emerges out of his defence of the interests of non-economic “descriptions” of citizens such as Irish Catholics, a Burke who offers us an illuminating perspective from which to assess the claims of historically marginalized groups in contemporary liberal democratic societies.

Fédéralisme et identités collectives au Canada et en Belgique: des itinéraries différents, une fragmentation similaire*

Abstract: The end of the twentieth century is marked by tensions between universalism and particularism which are particularly glaring in plurinational and pluriethnic countries. This article attempts first to demonstrate the importance and the difficulty in reaching a balance between unity and diversity in pluralistic countries. Even in the cases of Canada and Belgium, where conditions are among the most favourable, federal solutions adopted since the 1960s have not achieved the desired balance. A comparison of the evolution of federalism and collective identities in both Canada and Belgium reveals that opposing federal solutions have led to a similar fragmentation of identities. Pierre Trudeau's pancanadianism and the constitutional linguistic and cultural cloisonnement in Belgium have inhibited the realization of balance between unity and diversity. These choices have further contributed to the fragmentation process already in progress, the first through excessive universalism, the second through excessive particularism. The last part of the article seeks to evaluate the implications of these results for the debates on citizenship in political philosophy.

Political Science and Democratic Governance

Abstract: This address examines the relationship of political science and democratic governance by considering changes in both the political world and the discipline in Canada since the 1960s. It argues that the developing dynamics in political life, as significant as they have been, have not fundamentally altered the essential features of democratic governance in Canada. It suggests that a number of factors account for the diminished capacity of the discipline, as a collective scholarly and teaching enterprise, to contribute to democratic political life. On the one hand is the relative paucity of institutional mechanisms in Canada to link political science to democratic governance; on the other is the discipline's own fragmentation that lessens its focus on questions central to democratic governance. Resum6. Ce discours traite de la relation entre la science politique et la gouverne d6mocratique, i la lumiere des changements qu'ont connu le monde politique et la discipline au Canada depuis les ann6es soixante. On y allegue que la dynamique de la vie politique, aussi importante f~ft-elle, n'a pas modifi6 de fagon importante les caract6ristiques fondamentales de la gouverne d6mocratique au Canada. Un certain nombre de facteurs ont plut6t r6duit l'appartenance de la discipline a la politique d6mocratique, vue comme entreprise de savoir et d'enseignement collectifs. Ce ph6nomene s'explique, d'une part, par la p6nurie relative de m6canismes institutionnels au Canada susceptibles d'assurer le lien entre la science politique et la gouverne d6mocratique et, d'autre part, par le morcellement de la discipline, ce qui contribue ' affaiblir sa position sur les questions d6terminantes en matiere de gouverne d6mocratique. Zealand and Australia and eventually the federal and provincial governments of Canada. By the mid-point of the present decade, austerity in government spending, and a good deal of liberalization and deregulation in national economies, had spread to all the OECD countries, even to the European social democratic regimes which initially tried to stem the tide.9 The political and economic forces of globalization, combined with the introduction of new technologies, especially information technologies, have had much to do with the ways in which national governments have responded to this new world order. But that is not the whole story. While governments sought to trim the state in the pursuit of greater economies in public spending and improved efficiencies in the management of government resources, they also sought to reassert political control over the state apparatus. With neo-liberalism came bureaucracy bashing on a scale not previously exhibited in Western democracies. Politicization in the upper echelons of the state apparatus was thus pursued on a new scale, even in the United States.'0 One reason for the bureaucracy bashing that accompanied the rise of neo-liberalism was the extent to which the state bureaucracy had come to be regarded as a principal determinant of the growth of government, especially government spending. It is not surprising in this context that a tract by public-choice theorist William Niskanen, whose 9 See Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Public Management Developments: Survey 1993 (Paris: OECD, 1993). 10 Peter Aucoin, "Politicians, Public Servants, and Public Management: Getting Government Right," in Peters and Savoie, eds., Governance in a Changing Environment, 113-37. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.159 on Fri, 09 Dec 2016 05:23:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Cultivating Liberal Virtues

Abstract: This article criticizes a group of contemporary political theories that describe the virtues appropriate to liberal citizens, the ills that result from a waning of these virtues and the kinds of public policies that would renew the traits of character necessary to the healthy functioning of a liberal polity. While enumerations of broadly liberal virtues can seem relatively uncontroversial, these pieties provide insufficient warrant for the concrete policy recommendations made in their name. Theoretical and practical discussions of citizen virtues need to take seriously the diversity of liberal “citizenship stories,” and to consider how legitimately to conciliate these perspectives in particular cases.

Hobbes, Harsanyi and the Edge of the Abyss*

Abstract: The authors present a new game-theoretic interpretation of Hobbes's state of nature that, unlike existing rational-choice models, questions the possibility of individually rational decision making. They provide a general formulation of the two-player two-strategy game applied to the state of nature and derive existing models as special cases. A nonstandard version of Chicken under incomplete information, that interprets “death” as infinitely bad, provides an explanation for important and hitherto unaccounted for claims by Hobbes. The authors suggest that rational choice in Hobbesian political philosophy ought to examine not so much the mechanics of rational action in natural conditions, but rather the means whereby citizens already living in civil associations can be persuaded of the irrationality of civil war.

The Consistency of Inconsistency: Tracing Ontario's Opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement

Abstract: Employing a rational choice perspective, this article seeks to explain the shift in the trade policy position of the Canadian province of Ontario during negotiations that led to the North American Free Trade Agreement. In doing so it highlights an important, though often overlooked, phenomenon: issue linkage in public policy construction. Early in 1993, Premier Bob Rae's New Democratic party government significantly shifted its position on the proposed agreement. While never actively supportive of the accord prior to 1993, the provincial government maintained close contact with federal trade negotiators as a means of advancing its core trade objectives. By February 1993, however, the government's position hardened perceptibly. Specifically, the government actively undertook to derail the proposed agreement. This article suggests that this shift cannot be understood in terms of growing dissatisfaction with the impending trade agreement, nor solely to a change in Ontario's trade policy preferences. Rather, it suggests that a broader perspective is needed, and argues that Ontario's position on NAFTA was linked to other priorities of the Rae government: namely, those in the fiscal policy arena.

On the Place of Ideas: A Reply to George Hoberg

Abstract: In “Putting Ideas in Their Place,” George Hoberg raises some important and persistent questions about the explanation of policy change. In particular, he suggests that our attempt to demonstrate the role played by ideas in changing forest policy in British Columbia using Paul Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) gives excessive weight to ideas at the expense of more traditional concerns with power and interest. Although it is unclear whether he places the blame on the ACF itself or merely on the way we have employed it, the burden of his critique is that we fail to live up to our commitment to show how ideas and interests can be combined in a more comprehensive form of explanation than one which appeals to interests alone. Worse still, by our reckless overstatement of the case for ideas, we risk creating a “straw monster,” thereby warping the judgment of an entire generation of political scientists.