In describing the nature of an ethnic minority, the author distinguishes between two concepts: assimilation and acculturation. The former is the end result of a minority's contacts with the society in which it exists and through which it has lost its cultural heritage; the latter can be conceived of as a dynamic process, through which the individual is constantly absorbing, in various degrees, the norms, values and customs of the majority.

On the basis of this notion of acculturation the author has devised a simple instrument permitting the measuring of the degree to which various minorities have adhered to the total (majoritarian) society. Two criteria, a person's educational background and his use of language, are utilized to place an individual on a graph, showing the degree to which he is part of the majoritarian or minoritarian community.

The data required were collected through a questionnaire administered to two samples of Franco-Ontario school children, one in grade eight, the other in grade twelve. There were 2,900 respondents drawn from five different regions of Ontario.

The principal findings are that there are marked differences in the degree of acculturation of Franco-Ontarians in the different regions (the score usually ranged from 20 per cent to 80 per cent), and that over 43 per cent of the school children were in fact undergoing the process of acculturation.

Studies on participation concentrate on electoral and partisan phenomena. They fail to deal with participation through advisory bodies. So far, the latter have been considered mainly from a legalist or administrative viewpoint, or from pseudo-philosophical premises. Such studies are a disappointment to the political scientist because they do not take into account the full political dimension of participation and because they do not use a political system as an analytical framework. Without adopting a rigorous system, the present study in its central section aims at showing how the development of consultative devices has affected the relative position of three major internal components of the political system: legislative assemblies, administrations, and governments. In the concluding section, an attempt has been made to show how consultation, if studied properly, would similarly affect most other levels of the political system. A particular emphasis has been placed on establishing the relationships of consultation as a mechanism of political input with two other such mechanisms: interest groups and, particularly, political parties.

C. B. Macpherson a qualifié d' « Epitaphe au libéralisme » l'ouvrage de Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom. Il rejette l'apologie du marché, faite par Friedman, en allégant que la liberté du marché n'a rien à voir avec la liberté individuelle, que la liberté politique ne postule pas le capitalisme et que la thèse de Friedman sur la valeur éthique du capitalisme n'est pas fondée. Le présent article examine les faiblesses de l'analyse du professeur Macpherson.

Celui-ci conteste que la position de Friedman soit basée sur les postulats de la théorie microéconomique. L'incapacité ou le refus de Macpherson d'admettre ces postulats constitue l'une des principales raisons pour lesquelles il rejette l'argumentation de Friedman. Or, les points essentiels de cette argumentation reposent précisement sur de telles hypothèses, relatives à la perfection des marchés et à la distribution de la richesse. Sitôt que ces hypothèses sont infirmées, alors apparaissent, ainsi que le reconnait Friedman, des raisons d'affirmer le rôle de l'Etat, prenant pour acquis qu'on peut prouver que ce dernier est plus à même que les individus de prendre les décisions appropriées aux circonstances.

Macpherson n'ayant pas centré sa critique sur le degré avec lequel les mécanismes capitalistes, dont la distribution de la richesse, influencent la capacité de décision des individus, il n'a pas louché sauf à la périphérie, les aspects les plus vulnérables de la position de Friedman; plutôt, il a développé des idées connexes, axées sur diverses interprétations de termes et d'affirmations empiriques erronées. Macpherson n'a pas discuté des assises de la pensée de Friedman et sa critique porte à faux: Friedman parlait de critères d'efficacité, Macpherson lui a opposé des considérations d'ordre éthique.