The extent of differences in mass-elite political opinion and their theoretical implications have long been a source of interest to democratic theorists. Early classical democratic theorists saw education as the solution to mass-elite political differences, with an educated mass public displaying the same support for democratic institutions as their elite counterparts. By contrast, the later democratic elitists saw little that would reduce mass-elite differences. More recently, modern elite theorists have argued that elites are more polarized on political issues than mass publics, and that political conflict can be moderated by the ability of elites to downplay potentially divisive issues. Using Australia as a case study, these three approaches to mass-elite political differences are analyzed using a matched survey of voters and candidates conducted at the Australia 1987 federal election. The results show little support for education as a factor reducing mass-elite differences and point to the democratic elitists' argument that mass-elite political differences are fixed and enduring. In line with modern elite theories, the results also confirm the existence of more intense issue polarization among elites than among voters, and elites' ability to control the issues that reach the political agenda.

Abstract. Sachs and Warner (1995) found a negative relationship between natural resources and economic growth, concluding that natural resources are a curse. This explanation for poor economic growth is now widely accepted. We provide an alternative econometric framework for evaluating the resource curse. We focus on resource rents and rent-seeking behaviour, arguing that rent seeking affects corruption and that, in turn, impacts well-being. Our measure of well-being is the Human Development Index, although we find similar results for per capita GDP. While resource abundance does not directly impact economic development, we find that natural resources are associated with rent seeking that negatively affects well-being, with results robust to various model specifications and sensitivity analyses.

Résumé. Sachs et Warner (1995) ont observé une relation négative entre les ressources naturelles et la croissance économique et ils en ont conclu que les ressources naturelles étaient une malédiction. Cette explication de la faible croissance économique est maintenant largement acceptée. Nous offrons un cadre économétrique pour évaluer différemment cette malédiction des ressources. Nous nous concentrons sur les rentes tirées des ressources et sur la recherche de rente, en faisant valoir que la recherche de rente affecte la corruption, qui à son tour nuit au bien-être. Notre mesure du bien-être est l'indice de développement humain, même si nous trouvons des résultats similaires pour le PIB par habitant. Bien que l'abondance des ressources n'ait pas d'impact direct sur le développement économique, nous constatons que les ressources naturelles sont associées à la recherche de rente qui a une incidence négative sur le bien-être, comme en attestent nos résultats empiriques selon les diverses spécifications du modèle et des analyses de sensibilité.

The growth phenomenon is found in practically all the sciences and even in most of the arts, because almost all the objects of human study grow—crystals, molecules, cells, plants, animals, children, personalities, knowledge, ideas, cities, cultures, organizations, nations, wealth, and economic systems. It does not follow, of course, from the mere universality of the growth phenomenon that there must be a single unified theory of growth which will cover everything from the growth of a crystal to the growth of an empire. Growth itself is not a simple or a unified phenomenon, and we cannot expect all the many forms of growth to come under the umbrella of a single theory. Nevertheless all growth phenomena have something in common, and what is more important, the classifications of forms of growth and hence of theories of growth seem to cut across most of the conventional boundaries of the sciences. In addition there are a great many problems which are common to many apparently diverse growth phenomena.

“The wages fund theory is the crowning instance of an untrue abstraction … and it has probably done more injury to the reputation of economic theory than any other generalization ever received into economics textbooks and then expunged from them.” These words, by James Bonar, fairly well express the view that has dominated economic thought on the wages fund doctrine for the past century. Writing forty years after Bonar, Paul Samuelson claims he has been impressed by the “falseness and emptiness of the wage fund doctrine,” stating that the controversy it inspired “constitutes one of the most sterile chapters in that dreary gap between the classical age and the revolutionary neoclassical discoveries of that last third of the nineteenth century.”

Abstract. Canadian provinces have long been considered as “small worlds,” each with its own cultural distinctiveness and province-building dynamics. This article examines whether these same provincial specificities are observed in terms of attitudes toward immigration intakes and racial diversity. Three questions are asked. First, are there important variations in views toward immigration and racial minorities across Canadian provinces within the native-born white Canadian population? Second, have the differences and similarities changed between 1988 and 2008? And third, do specific provincial economic, demographic, and cultural realities shape provincial public opinion on these matters? The findings indicate that there are significant differences and commonalities in how all provinces react to immigration and racial diversity, that native-born white Canadians have grown increasingly accepting of immigration and racial diversity over time and that views toward immigration and racial diversity are distinct from each other and each responds to a specific set of provincial realities.

Résumé. Les provinces canadiennes constituent de “petits univers,” chacune possédant sa propre culture et sa propre dynamique politique. Cet article explore si de telles spécificités provinciales peuvent être également observées en ce qui a trait aux attitudes par rapport à l'immigration et à la diversité raciale. Nous posons trois questions. Premièrement, y a-t-il des différences d'opinions quant à l'immigration et aux minorités raciales entre provinces canadiennes au sein de la population blanche née au Canada? Deuxièmement, est-ce que les similarités et les différences entre les provinces ont changé entre 1988 et 2008? Et troisièmement, est-ce que les réalités économiques, démographiques et culturelles provinciales influencent l'opinion publique provinciale sur ces questions? Les résultats de l'étude indiquent qu'il y a à la fois des similarités et des différences quant aux attitudes des différentes provinces sur l'immigration et la diversité raciale, que la population blanche née au Canada s'est montrée de plus en plus ouverte à l'immigration et à la diversité raciale au cours de la période à l'étude, et que les attitudes par rapport à l'immigration et la diversité raciale ne sont pas identiques et qu'elles répondent chacune à leur façon à un certain nombre de réalités provinciales.

Despite an extensive dialogue on the subject of immigration, there has been little systematic cross-national investigation into the framing of immigration in the news media. Understanding the evolution of frames is an important piece of how we conceive of the link between the public's political priorities and policy makers’ responses. While the multi-directional relationships that exist between media, public policy and public opinion often pose challenges to precisely extracting media effects, there is still much that can be said about how the content and tone of immigration frames change over time in response to major policy changes or focusing events. Using automated content analysis (ACA) of print news data from Canada and Britain, I examine immigration framing from 1999 to 2013, identifying immigration-related frames in print news coverage and identifying trends in the volume and tone of frames over time. Results offer insight into striking commonalities in the frames used by each country's print media, and the divergent evolution in the emphasis on certain frames over others, largely predicated on coverage of focusing events.

William Livingston's idea of "federal society" is one of the leading sociological approaches to federalism. This article applies Livingston's approach in the opposite direction. It is argued that the unitary German societal structure, or the "non-federal" German society, has exerted centralist pressures on the federal system. In particular, the article examines the changes within the policy area of education. Despite explicit constitutional clauses that place education under the exclusive jurisdiction of the German Länder, an all-German educational policy has emerged. A process that started with harmonization and standardization has eventually led to the "nationalization" of education. This has largely come about through public demands for a Germany-wide public policy. Empirical research shows that political actors have differed over the contents of educational policy but have shared an all-German frame of reference.

Abstract. This paper examines the usefulness of Canadian political party labels as information shortcuts. We supplement survey data analysis with the results of an experiment that tested whether knowing a party's position on an issue influenced opinion expression. We find that, contrary to findings in other countries, among our subject pool, Canadian political parties are not consistently useful as information cues. The Liberal party cue is hardly useful, and while the Conservative party cue can be effective, it appears to push partisans toward a more liberal stance on selected opinions. Only the NDP cue appears to influence opinions in the expected direction. These mixed findings run counter to foundational works on party labels as information shortcuts (mostly focused on US politics) and, instead, are consistent with previous scholarship on Canadian politics.

Résumé. Cet article examine l'utilité des étiquettes politiques des partis canadiens comme sources d'information sommaire. Nous analysons des données d'enquête ainsi que les résultats d'un sondage visant à déterminer si le fait de connaître la position d'un parti sur une question donnée influençait l'expression des opinions. Contrairement aux résultats obtenus dans d'autres pays, nous constatons chez les sujets observés que les étiquettes des partis politiques canadiens ne sont pas uniformément utiles comme sources d'information sommaire. L'étiquette du Parti libéral s'avère à peine utile, tandis que l'étiquette du Parti conservateur, peut-être plus efficace, semble inciter les partisans à une position plus libérale. Seule l'étiquette du NPD semble influencer les avis dans la direction prévue. Ces conclusions mixtes contredisent des travaux fondamentaux sur le même sujet (portant pour la plupart sur la politique aux États-Unis) et confirment plutôt les études antérieures sur la politique canadienne.

Studies of bloc voting in the United Nations have appeared periodically since the early 1960s. This article examines the evolution of UN voting in its first four decades using multidimensional scaling, which is compared to factor analysis and found to be superior for representation and interpretation. UN voting is important for showing how world politics is reflected in that body, hence the frequent use of UN votes as a dependent variable in the analysis of foreign policy behaviour.

This article examines the conditions under which policy discourses can serve as contributing factors to policy change, even in the absence of changes in institutions and interests. It begins with a discussion of the role of ideas in policy analysis and how they can play a "constitutive role" as frames for policy. Drawing on a distinction between "augmentative" discourses that serve to reinforce an existing policy framework and "transformative discourses" that seek to persuade various publics of the need for significant policy change, four types of policy discourse are defined and a methodology is suggested for identifying these types. Two of these types, "challenging" and "truth-seeking," are hypothesized to be more conducive to the occurrence of significant policy change. Drawing then on case studies of policy change in Canada and Germany respectively, the article shows that a "challenging" discourse emerges in both countries, but leads to significant policy change only in Germany. Based on the comparison of the two cases, it is argued that three factors are relevant to whether a challenging discourse is successful or not: a broad consensus among core policy actors on the nature and gravity of the policy problem; the consistency of the discourse with broadly held normative values; and the persuasiveness of the "social facts" brought to bear in favour of proposed new solutions.

Abstract. This paper examines the apparent contradiction between the current tendency of many Indigenous groups and their political institutions to embrace the capitalist economic model as the one and only solution in establishing contemporary Indigenous self-governance, on the one hand, and on the other, the detrimental force of the market economy on Indigenous societies, past and present. The starting point is the following question. If the global market economy historically played a significant role in the loss of political and economic autonomy of Indigenous societies and women, how meaningful or sustainable is it to seek to (re)build contemporary Indigenous governance on the very economic model that was largely responsible for undermining it in the first place? Shouldn't this history be taken into consideration when discussing and shaping models and policies for contemporary Indigenous governance and hence be more critical of the standard economic development frameworks hailed as the path toward self-governance?

Résumé. Cet article examine l'apparente contradiction entre la tendance actuelle de nombreux groupes autochtones et de leurs institutions politiques à adopter le modèle économique capitaliste contemporain en tant que seule et unique solution pour constituer une autonomie gouvernementale autochtone d'une part, et de l'autre, les forces néfastes de l'économie de marché dans les sociétés autochtones, passées et présentes. Au départ, se pose la question suivante : si l'économie de marché mondiale a historiquement joué un rôle important dans la perte d'autonomie politique et économique des sociétés autochtones et des femmes, jusqu'à quel point est-il pertinent ou viable de chercher à bâtir ou à rebâtir l'autonomie gouvernementale contemporaine des peuples autochtones sur le même modèle économique qui a été largement responsable de la saper en premier lieu? Cette dimension historique ne devrait-elle pas être prise en considération lors de l'examen et de l'élaboration des modèles et des politiques de gouvernance autochtone contemporains et, par conséquent, inciter à une vision plus critique des cadres de développement économique convenus qui sont salués comme le chemin vers l'autogouvernance?

Political participation is central to liberal democracy, yet there are substantial variations in the levels of participation observable among different social groups. Empirical theories explain these variations by the different socio-economic resources individuals possess and by their resulting levels of trust and efficacy in the political system. By contrast, social learning theories see these differences in participation as stemming from the values that individuals absorb from the political culture. This article uses Australia—an established liberal democracy with a large immigrant population—as a case study to evaluate these two theories. The results show that immigrants socialized in countries lacking continuous democratic traditions have greater political trust, but also display more authoritarian values. Differences emerge not only in the type of participation being analyzed, but among ethnic groups. The findings support the view that the resource and social learning theories are complementary rather than exclusive explanations for political participation.

The intensive use of paid time and space in mass media by political parties and candidates during electoral campaigns in Western democracies has given rise to the widespread opinion that advertising expenditures can and do influence the outcome of the voting process. If this were indeed so it could be argued that parties and candidates with rich coffers might, at least in some measure, buy their way into seats of power by lavish outlay on advertising. The continuous debate in Canada and other democratic countries on the desirability of limiting campaign funds attests to the importance of this issue.

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).

This article considers the degree to which characteristics of the ideological model of political parties are evident in the Canadian party system. Four questions are considered: are members attracted to parties on the basis of their policy positions; is there a structure to party members' issue attitudes; is there significant attitudinal space between the parties; and is there cohesion within the parties on the identified attitudinal measures? Data collected through a national mail survey of members of the five federal parties are used to answer these questions. The article finds there is substantial evidence of the ideological model in the Canadian party system and concludes by considering the effect this may have on the brokerage traditions of Canadian parties.

Abstract. Everyone familiar with the study of Canadian politics knows the joke about how a French national, an Englishman and a Canadian were asked to write an essay about an elephant: the French national wrote about the culinary uses of the elephant, the Englishman wrote about the elephant and imperialism, and the Canadian wrote a paper entitled, “Elephant: Federal or Provincial Responsibility?” Though simple, the joke conveys the essence of Canadian politics: always defined by jurisdictional disputes. The joke misses the boat, however, by ignoring the fact that indigenous people are now (as they always have been) engaging in jurisdictional debates in an attempt to challenge the Canadian constitutional order and to reaffirm their own constitutional order and autonomy. This paper examines one such dispute—the Mi'kmaw claim of rights and responsibilities for the salmon fishery—and presents it as a case of contested sovereignties and a resulting jurisdictional dispute. In so doing, I pose the question: Is salmon a federal, provincial or Mi'kmaq responsibility? In seeking an answer, this paper proceeds in an exploratory manner to map both constitutional orders, and the interrelation between these orders that results in the debate over responsibility for the salmon.

Résumé. Dans le milieu de la science politique au Canada, tout le monde connaît la blague du Français, du Britannique et du Canadien qui doivent écrire une thèse sur l'éléphant. Le Français disserte sur les usages culinaires de l'éléphant, le Britannique traite de l'éléphant et de l'impérialisme et le Canadien écrit une thèse intitulée : “L'éléphant : responsabilité fédérale ou provinciale?” Cette blague, dans sa simplicité, évoque l'essence même de la politique au Canada, car la politique canadienne a toujours été définie par des conflits juridictionnels. Mais, si elle illustre bien la nature de la politique au Canada, elle n'est cependant pas satisfaisante parce qu'elle ignore qu'aujourd'hui (comme autrefois d'ailleurs) les peuples autochtones s'engagent dans les débats juridictionnels pour contester l'ordre constitutionnel du Canada et pour réaffirmer leur propre ordre constitutionnel et leur autonomie. Cet article examine l'un de ces conflits : la revendication par les Mi'kmaq de leurs droits et responsabilités concernant les pêcheries de saumon – et le présente comme un cas de souverainetés contestées, et, par conséquent, un exemple de conflit juridictionnel. Je pose donc la question : “Saumon : responsabilité fédérale, provinciale ou Mi'kmaq?” En répondant à cette question, l'article explore les caractéristiques des deux ordres constitutionnels et leur connexions, ce qui mène à un débat sur l'attribution des compétences dans le domaine du saumon.

Abstract. This paper investigates how people form perceptions about corruption. By combining survey data with system-level indicators in 30 countries, the author first explores the relationship between elite and mass evaluations of corruption. Furthermore, the author tests a series of hypotheses pertaining to how individual-level factors, such as political allegiances, personal economic conditions and education may influence people's perceptions. The findings reveal that mass assessments of corruption track closely those of the elites. In addition, more economically fortunate individuals and those who supported the government in the previous election tend to be less critical of corruption. The effect of education is contingent on a country's level of corruption. Specifically, more educated citizens in “cleaner” countries do not see as much corruption as their less educated counterparts. However, this difference is substantively modest.

Résumé. Cet article étudie la façon dont le public établit sa perception de la corruption. En utilisant conjointement les informations données par les enquêtes d'opinion et par les indicateurs de pointage de 30 pays, l'auteur va d'abord explorer les évaluations de la corruption des élites et celles de la masse populaire. De plus, l'auteur va tester une série d'hypothèses concernant la façon dont la perception du public est influencée par des facteurs personnels, l'appartenance politique par exemple, ou par la situation économique personnelle ou l'éducation. Les résultats révèlent que les jugements de la masse sur la corruption suivent de près ceux des élites. De plus, les individus plus fortunés ou ceux qui ont voté pour le gouvernement aux dernières élections ont tendance à se montrer moins critiques au sujet de la corruption. L'effet de l'éducation est aléatoire quant au niveau de corruption d' un pays. En particulier, dans les pays considérés comme les plus « propres », les citoyens plus éduqués constatent moins la corruption que ceux qui sont moins éduqués. La différence cependant est extrêmement modeste.

In his widely discussed stage theory of economic growth Professor W. W. Rostow has attempted to reach a level of historical generalization somewhat similar to that essayed by the pioneers in the discipline of economic history. Herbert Heaton observed that early economic historians were interested in a search for “the laws of social development” and for conclusions “as to the character and sequence of stages through which the economic life of society has actually moved.” Their valiant attempts to put historical generalization in the place of economic theory, concluded Heaton, were not successful. One purpose of this paper is to show that Rostow's analysis, while relying more on economic theory than its predecessors, is no more successful in understanding specific cases of economic development and, more widely, contains many difficulties as a general theory of development.

Abstract. Building upon the theoretical framework of new-institutionalism, this article concentrates on electoral management commissions (EMCs), which, though the raison d'être of political battles in many African countries, have attracted very little analysis in academic literature. The sample includes seven countries and I concentrate on the issue of forging institutional autonomy. I propose five modes of institutional forging that produce different levels of autonomy. At the same time, I argue that autonomy refers less to legal provisions than to the empirical self-reinforcing and lock-in processes, which may or may not take place depending on power relations in the political arena. In turn, however, these differences may explain the contrasting trajectories African states have taken vis-à-vis democratization.

Résumé. Alors qu'elles sont au cœur des luttes politiques dans plusieurs pays africains, les commissions électorales sont peu étudiées dans la littérature sur la démocratisation. Cet article utilise un cadre théorique néo-institutionnel pour analyser les commissions de sept pays en se concentrant spécifiquement sur la question de l'autonomie institutionnelle. Il met à jour cinq modes de création institutionnelle correspondant à différents niveaux d'autonomie qui, en retour, expliquent les trajectoires divergentes des pays en matière de démocratisation. L'autonomie est à rechercher moins dans les prérogatives juridiques que dans les rapports de forces entre acteurs au moment de l'émergence de l'institution et dans les processus subséquents d'autoreproduction institutionnelle.

Résumé. Cet article jette un regard original sur les débats contemporains en Relations internationales (RI) à la lumière de la sociologie de Pierre Bourdieu. Sa riche théorie sociale permet d'établir des ponts entre les approches conventionnelles et celles qui sont issues de la mouvance critique en RI. Plus précisément, nous identifions six contributions que pourrait apporter une approche bourdieusienne. Sur le plan métathéorique, cette approche se caractériserait par une épistémologie réflexive, une ontologie relationnelle et une théorie de la pratique, trois axes qui s'inscrivent à la jonction des grands débats théoriques en RI. D'un point de vue plus centré sur l'application, la sociologie de Bourdieu permet l'étude de la politique mondiale en tant qu'imbrication complexe de champs sociaux, l'ouverture de l'État comme champ de pouvoir, de même qu'une meilleure prise en compte de la nature symbolique de la puissance.

Abstract. This article takes a fresh look at current debates in International Relations (IR) in the light of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology. We argue that Bourdieu's social theory could help build bridges between conventional and critical approaches in IR. More specifically, we identify six contributions that a Bourdieusian approach can make. At the meta-theoretical level, such an approach would be characterized by a reflexive epistemology, a relational ontology and a theory of practice – three dimensions that address key theoretical debates in IR. On a more applied level, Bourdieu's sociology enables us to study world politics as a complex of “embedded social fields”, to open up the state's field of power, and to factor in the symbolic nature of power.