Using official electoral results from provincial elections since 1973, we evaluate the incumbency effect in Quebec by measuring the impact of a combination of characteristics related to candidates and political parties. We verify whether the presence of an incumbent candidate is necessary to ensure that the incumbent party benefits from an electoral advantage. We also compare the magnitude of the incumbency effect between governing and opposition parties. Making use of parametric multivariate statistical tools, we conclude that political parties benefit from an electoral advantage in Quebec. Except for ministers who make a small difference, simple Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) do not improve their electoral performance, while in some cases new candidates with incumbent parties perform better.

Since the Second World War, a public policy on human rights has been put into place in Canada to control discrimination through human rights legislation and human rights commissions. This policy has changed over time, incorporating elements both of expansion in human rights protections and of restraint in the enforcement of the legislation. This study seeks to explain this change by examining the evolution of the policy in the province of Ontario, home of the oldest and largest commission in Canada. The conclusion drawn is that the evolution has been shaped largely by conflicting pressures for reform and restraint, reflecting an underlying conflict between rival liberal ethics which comes into play as consciousness grows of gaps between the principles and practice of rights.

This article examines the impact of issues and the economy in the 1997 Canadian election among voters outside Quebec. The authors show that both factors affected individual vote choice and provide estimates of how much difference the issues and the economy made in the election. It appears that the issues were decisive for 9 per cent of the voters and the economy for 4 per cent. Issues mattered more than the economy for individual vote choice. The net impact of both the issues and the economy on vote support for the different parties was practically nil. The findings indicate that the Liberal victory cannot be imputed to the economy or the issues.

Abstract. There is an emerging consensus that group differentiated rights can protect collective identity, furnishing the state with important tools of accommodation. What happens, however, to the efficacy of these rights as tools of accommodation and their protective capacity if the identity they are meant to protect and accommodate is contested? In addressing this question, this paper explores the intersection of identity contestation and group differentiated rights in the Canadian context with specific reference to aboriginality and existing aboriginal rights. First, the paper offers a presentation of the plurality of meanings shouldered by the term “aboriginality”. Second, it traces the numerous decisions which comprise the Dlegamuukw case and examines the various explanations, descriptions and characterizations of aboriginality contained therein. In the process, it exposes that a particular understanding of this collective identity underpins the Court's ultimate characterization of aboriginal title, the aboriginal right at issue in this case. This represents a problematic interpretation, given that the version of aboriginality selected differs from the one put forward by the aboriginal litigants.

Résumé. Un consensus émergeant s'établit sur l'idée que les droits différenciés en fonction de l'appartenance à un groupe peuvent contribuer à la protection de l'identité collective, en fournissant à l'État d'importants outils d'accommodement. Qu'arrive-t-il, cependant, à l'efficacité de ces droits compris comme des outils d'accommodement, de même qu'à leur capacité de protection, si l'identité qu'ils sont censés protéger et accommoder est contestée? En répondant à cette question, cet article explore l'intersection entre la contestation identitaire et les droits différenciés en fonction du groupe dans le contexte canadien, avec, comme cas d'étude spécifique, l'autochtonie et les droits des autochtones. D'une part, il explore la pluralité de sens que revêt le terme “ autochtonie ”. D'autre part, il retrace les nombreuses décisions que comprend le cas Delgamuukw et examine les diverses explications, descriptions et caractérisations de l'autochtonie qu'elles contiennent. Dans ce cadre, il souligne qu'une compréhension particulière de cette identité collective sous-tend l'ultime caractérisation par la Cour suprême du titre autochtone, soit le droit des autochtones qui est au cœur de ce procès. Ceci constitue une interprétation problématique puisque la version de l'autochtonie sélectionnée diffère de celle que prônaient les litigants autochtones.

Proposals to strengthen regional representation in national institutions are premised on the assumption that representation of (regional) interests and accommodation of conflicts between competing interests are compatible roles, and most likely when national decision makers represent all contending interests. The article argues that the two roles are not necessarily compatible. The behaviour of MPs on the agriculture and transport committees in debating three bills during the 32nd Parliament shows considerable efforts at representation but much less at conflict management. The emergence of specialist interest groups promotes representational efforts by MPs but often at the expense of conflict management. Other factors affecting the joint occurrence of interest representation and interest accommodation include the individual and collective characteristics of members, their partisan incentives, and the diversity of the goals of their client groups.

This article concerns the political ramifications of character-giving, the work we do intensifying our ideals in the environments and populations around us. The premise here is that strategies of character-giving are just as crucial to the construction of a well-ordered society as the promotion of justice or stability. This theme is explored through an examination of the works of Christopher Alexander, a modern urban planner who shares many of the concerns of contemporary political science. Alexander's central project is to learn how to bring a more humane and democratic character to the modern cityscape. This kind of "reconstructive" humanism might be seen as a fitting model for renewal in political science.

The role of interest groups in influencing policy decisions in Canada has received little close analysis, yet it is obviously important. Lobbying is inevitable when government regulations touch everyone's affairs; the only defence for those adversely affected is to seek to influence the government itself. Anti-combines legislation offers a particularly good example of this process because it is the case par excellence in which the interests of business, particularly big business, and those of the public, both as citizens concerned with freedom and as economically self-interested consumers, conflict. The 1960 amendments to the Canadian anti-combines legislation were implemented by a new government whose attitude on the combines question when it assumed office was not clear. Consequently those concerned with anti-combines questions set about converting the new government to their point of view. Fortunately for the researcher, the written submissions to the government on this question were tabled in the House of Commons, and of course the proceedings in Parliament and its committees are part of the public record. Consequently in this instance the general pattern of lobbying and its effects can be pieced together.

I wish to consider how industries exploiting natural resources may be expected to develop. It is not my purpose to consider their entire relation with the economy of which they form a part. Rather, I wish to examine the logic of their own changes in technology and technique in response to stimuli from the rest of the economy. In tracing this development, I shall stress the changing technology itself; the adjustment of property and tenure concepts; some aspects of location and transportation; and the impact of all these changes on industrial and market organization.

As an analytical technique for tracing these changes, I shall make use of a “stages of development” approach. It will be shown that most industries working natural resources may be said to be in one of three, roughly consecutive stages. The precise dating of the transitions between the stages is highly arbitrary, but this defect is unimportant since the chief function of the stages approach in its present context is to bring out the successive impacts on resource exploitation of two outside forces. The first of these is a mechanical, capital-using technology. The second is the application of science to “control” the resource, biological or mineral, in the same sense that agricultural and manufacturing industries have control over their processes.

In the model, stress is laid on the industries that today are still extracting raw materials from nature: fishing, hunting, logging, oil and gas, metals, and water. Agricultural activity also properly belongs with these industries. However, since agriculture has already passed well into the third stage, it is referred to chiefly for purposes of example and comparison. The farmer no longer “hunts” his cattle, nor “collects” wild rice or fruit.

Through his writings, Walter Bagehot gave order and meaning to the institutions of parliamentary government. The English Constitution (1867) acknowledges the Crown as centrepiece but relegates it to the category of symbol. Institutions, Bagehot said, were “dignified” or “efficient” according to their constitutional function, and the Crown was the apotheosis of a dignified element. By contrast, the author argues that the Crown is an integral part of a practical form of government in Canada, and advances as proof three areas of Crown influence: representation, information and participation. The discussion concludes by noting the relevance of the Crown for the study of Canadian federalism.

Here are two sciences—Philosophy and Political Economy—both bankrupt. The one went through the courts at least a hundred years ago and is now a cheery old bankrupt, bright and garrulous in old age. It talks most interestingly about its case, citing a long list of opinions and judgments that go back to the Greeks. The other bankrupt has just been thrown into the receiver's hands, still protesting angrily, still claiming that it has wonderful assets, that everything will be all right. It cites a wilderness, not of opinion, but of statistics and facts, all apparently bearing on nothing, gets confused, breaks down and cries—a very picture of senile collapse.

There are those who dislike metaphor; let us say the same thing in a plain way. Philosophy means the attempt to discover the ultimate nature of existence, of consciousness, of time and space. Has it found it? No. Is it going to? Not a chance of it. Where is it? Nowhere. Some people do not understand this. They read of the work of the Mayos and the Carrels and the Rutherfords and think that they are getting somewhere. In the philosophical sense it is not so. No ultimate dissection of the human body will ever find the human soul. The substitution of Rutherford's atom for Huxley's—replacing a solid particle infinitely small by a huge cavern empty except for centres of force—does not carry us one inch further in our quest of the final relations of mind and matter. Our greatest medical men know no more of the ultimate nature of consciousness than did a horse doctor in Asia Minor B.C. 500. Einstein, as far as the ultimate truth of space, time, and number goes, is no further on than Rodin's “Penseur”—his statue of the primitive man, buried in stubborn thought and trying, let us say, to think out whether two and two is four, or is five.

The predominant view of Marx's communist society is that it is a form of Utopia in which there is complete social harmony, with no private space for individuals, no conflicts, and no politics. The author argues that this “orthodox” view is a misreading of Marx's works, especially of certain key early works. According to his interpretation, in Marx's communist society there is private space, private/particular interests, controversy, politics, and rights. The author discusses the major theoretical/ methodological errors of the “orthodox” interpretation, such as interpreting key statements by Marx at the wrong level of generality.

Abstract. The outcome of the 2007 elections in France raises a number of questions about the current state of democracy in that country. To put these elections into perspective, we examine the evolution of the French party system and electorate throughout the Fifth Republic. We look first at the pattern of party electoral movement over time. Then we evaluate the partisan cycle with respect to certain equilibrium conditions, namely stability, competition, and democratic rule. Based on these patterns, we arrive at a classification of French national elections using the Michigan school's theoretical framework. A key conclusion is that, in general, these Fifth Republic elections are in disequilibrium and often fail to express the majority partisan will. The 2007 results, which represent a return of the traditional right, are examined against the Iowa forecasting model, to see if they depart from these troubling conclusions.

Résumé. Les résultats des élections de 2007 en France soulèvent une série de questions à propos de l'état de la démocratie dans ce pays. Afin de mettre ces élections en perspective, nous examinons l'évolution du système partisan et des inclinaisons idéologiques de l'électorat français sous la Cinquième République. Nous nous attardons d'abord au mouvement dans le temps des appuis partisans. Nous évaluons ensuite l'équilibre du cycle partisan en France sur la base de certaines conditions, à savoir la stabilité, la compétition et la gouverne démocratique. Cet exercice permet d'en arriver à une classification des élections nationales françaises inspirée du cadre théorique de l'école de Michigan. La conclusion principale de cette analyse est qu'en général, ces élections attestent d'un déséquilibre, car le plus souvent, elles n'expriment pas la volonté majoritaire de l'électorat. Les élections de 2007, marquées par un retour en force de la droite, sont enfin analysées à la lumière du modèle de prévision électorale dit «de l'Iowa» afin de vérifier si elles s'inscrivent ou non dans cette dynamique de déséquilibre.

“It appears that aggregation may be pushed much further in inventory analysis than has heretofore been generally felt justified.” Originating with P. G. Darling and confirmed by M. C. Lovell, this oft-quoted assertion has in large measure been responsible for what might be termed a “consensus” (albeit implicit) on the usefulness of aggregation in empirical inventory studies. Professors Eisner and Strotz carry this interpretation to its extreme by declaring that they “prefer, at the theoretical level, to disaggregate by motive rather than stage [of fabrication].”

The purpose of this study is to take a closer look at the role of the inventory components (i.e., finished goods, goods in process, and raw materials) in aggregate inventory behaviour. Paramount among the issues addressed is the Eisner-Strotz assertion: is it meaningful to speak (on a theoretical or empirical level) of motives for holding inventories without reference to the stages of fabrication?