We present the results of a 2014 survey of Canadian parliamentarians, journalists and bloggers in which respondents were asked to rank competing definitions of open government. Overall, respondents preferred to define open government in terms of access to information and sources. However, controlling for age, ideology and language, we also found that respondents in the different positions ranked definitions of open government differently. Journalists are more likely than any other group to define open government in terms of access to information and sources. In contrast, parliamentarians who were members of a governing party were as likely to choose definitions of open government that emphasized public participation as they were to choose definitions that emphasized access to information. Opposition parliamentarians share more similarities with government parliamentarians than with journalists. These results suggest that key actors in the Canadian policy landscape define open government in ways that are consistent with their institutional interests. We suggest that these results reflect ways in which open government operates more like a buzzword, which helps explain the common pattern whereby opposition parties make promises to be more open and, after taking power, operate in less open ways. Moreover, these results raise questions about the extent to which open government can actually operate as an organizing principle.

The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (C.C.F.) movement in Saskatchewan is the first avowedly socialist group to win an electoral majority in any province or state of Canada or the United States. Many have expressed surprise that a socialist party should have won office in the most rural province in Canada. This paper is an attempt to throw some light on this question through a study of the leadership of the C.C.F. as compared with that of other community groups and political parties in that province.

The significance of the growth of the C.C.F. party can best be expressed in economic class terms. The movement has two important aspects. Essentially, it represents the latest historical phase of the almost continuous conflict of the western grain farmers of the United States and Canada with eastern business interests. Secondly, within the province, success of the movement has resulted in a political transformation in which the representatives of the rural majority supported by the working class of the cities and towns rejected the political control of the urban middle-class business and professional groups which dominated the Liberal and Conservative parties and the government of the province.

Since 1901, the farmers of the West and of Saskatchewan in particular, have been attempting to reduce the hazards of a one-crop wheat economy which is perennially subject to extreme fluctuations in income, as a result of the variability in grain prices and climatic conditions. At the turn of the century, Saskatchewan farmers organized the Territorial Grain Growers' Association (later the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association) to force the Canadian Pacific Railroad to provide loading platforms and freight cars for their wheat.

Hobbes is as renowned a name in political science as is Adam Smith in economics. Accordingly, prevailing notions of what Hobbes meant to say have varied from time to time. While his materialist utilitarianism has been a strong current since he propounded it, Hobbes's modern reputation dates from the re-emphasis on sovereignty and utilitarian morals by the Benthamists. The reaction against Benthamism led to strong criticism of Hobbes by English idealists such as T. H. Green. Their criticism of his materialist metaphysics and of his behaviourist ethics set the tone of the standard treatment of Hobbes, and seemed to have rendered his political views harmless. As long as Hobbes was regarded as primarily a materialist and his political doctrines were seen as consistent deductions from his materialist position, it was relatively easy to dispose of his unpleasant theory of the state, for materialism has had little standing in English political thinking since the eighteenth century when the historical materialism of Millar, Ferguson, and Robertson enjoyed some prestige.

Hobbes's stature, however, was too great for his political ideas to be tidied away in this fashion. Later generations of scholars set out to detach Hobbes's political theory from his materialism. Croom Robertson in 1886, John Laird in 1934, and Leo Strauss in 1936 have taken the position that Hobbes's political philosophy was not derived from his materialism or decisively influenced by his concept of science. While it is possible to show that Hobbes might have reached his political conclusions from certain moral attitudes and preconceptions unrelated to materialism or science, this position raises other difficulties. In view of the emphasis which Hobbes placed on his materialism and in view of his insistence on the scientific nature of his method it seems unsatisfactory to dismiss these attributes of his thought as merely his share in the current intellectual fashion, especially when the result is to say, as does John Laird, that his thought is mediaeval, or, as with some current text-book writers, to leave his theory rootless and unexplained except as the reaction of a timid man to the disturbed political conditions of his time.

Although the doctrines of Social Credit have been systematically and extensively promoted throughout many parts of the British Commonwealth and the United States for nearly thirty years, it is only in Alberta that there has emerged a Social Credit movement sufficiently strong to win and maintain political power. It is proposed, in the present paper, to trace the historical development of this movement with specific reference to those data that are essential for its interpretation as a phenomenon of mass psychology. Such an approach must be restrictive and selective: data of primary importance to the economist, the political scientist, and even the sociologist must necessarily be omitted.

The Social Credit upsurge in Alberta was essentially a people's movement which sought to reform, but not to revolutionize, the existing social order by changing the pattern of certain existing institutions. It has passed through the four stages which constitute the natural history of a social movement—social unrest, popular excitement, formalization, and institutionalization; and it has exhibited, in the course of its evolution, the five mechanisms of reform movements—agitation, esprit de corps, morale, ideology, and operating tactics. From the perspective of social psychology, the movement may best be understood if, taking its more general sociological aspects for granted we consider its appeal to the people of Alberta in terms of its leadership, its philosophy, and its techniques of organization and promotion. In analysing this particular social movement, the social psychologist is faced with two serious methodological difficulties: he must be careful not to confuse the evolution of the movement with the political history of Alberta, especially after 1935; and he must, as far as possible, present the movement as a dynamic rather than a static social phenomenon.

Investigations with respect to proposals for government intervention generally deal with values, ideologies or strategies of party leaders. Theoretical studies predict that, in an environment where information is imperfect and costly, politicians have incentives to formulate interventions, the benefits of which are concentrated while their costs are diffused. The authors elaborate a theory of supply of government intervention which predicts the characteristics of interventions that increase the number of votes as well as the characteristics of actions that lead to vote losses. The predictions of this theory are tested by using the proposals for government intervention in the official programmes of the political parties of Quebec during the 1960–1981 period. The two basic findings are that (1) the prediction relative to the anti-consumer and anti-taxpayer bias of the political market is not supported by the facts, and that (2) the party leaders prefer to finance the cost of their proposals of government intervention through the mode of fiscal illusion instead of hoping for inattention on the part of consumers and taxpayers.

L'orientation culturelle des Canadiens-français est devenue une des questions les plus importantes de l'analyse sociologique de ce groupe ethnique. Ainsi une des tâches principales des sociologues qui se sont intéressés à la question a été le développement d'une définition de la culture canadienne-française. Cependant, malgré l'ampleur et le nombre des travaux publiés, il n'existe pas de synthèse permettant une vue d'ensemble de la question. Notre but dans cet article est de formuler les étapes nécessaires à une présentation synthétique de la culture canadienne-française du point de vue de ses fondements sociologiques. Ce que nous allons dire ne prétend pas être une analyse complète de la question. Nous avons voulu retenir dans notre présentation, et de l'ensemble des situations et des problèmes susceptibles d'être examinés, seulement ceux qui nous semblent soit particulièrement importants, soit nettement révélateurs. Nous avons donc conscience d'être incomplet, mais nous pensons pouvoir présenter l'essentiel de la question.

Pour les fins de la présentation nous avons divisé notre article en trois parties que nous jugeons d'égale importance. Les deux premières parties consistent en une analyse: premièrement, de la tradition culturelle de la Nouvelle-France; et deuxièmement, des traditions culturelles nées après la Conquête de 1760. La troisième partie consiste en une analyse de la conjoncture culturelle actuelle. Il existe une raison fondamentale à faire précéder l‘analyse « synchronique » par une analyse « diachronique »: sans l'analyse des traditions culturelles il est pratiquement impossible de saisir la conjoncture sociologique actuelle, et ceci en raison des ambiguités qui existent aussitôt que l'on veut définir ce qu'est le Canada français du point de vue politique ou géographique, ou même purement sociologique. Mais, en partant de l'analyse des traditions culturelles il est possible d'établir les grandes lignes de ce qu'est présentement le Canada français du point de vue de la culture canadienne-française. Nous procéderons de la même manière dans l'analyse de chacune des parties de la présentation. Nous essaierons de faire le point sur la documentation en existence et nous émettrons des conclusions.

Disaffection of youth from politics is a well-documented phenomenon in many countries. In this article, we consider whether the social networks of young people have the same influence on political engagement as they have been found to have for older adults. We use a single dataset to test the effects of discussion and disagreement on the political engagement of young people (30 and under) and older adults. We find that social network discussion has a stronger effect on the engagement of young people but that disagreement has no clear differential effect.

Major energy policy decisions are usually based in part upon forecasts of energy supply and demand. However an examination of the Canadian National Energy Board's forecasts of natural gas supply and demand over the last decade indicates that these forecasts were not a reliable basis for policy decisions. An analysis of the policy context underlying those forecasts reveals that they were not neutral “best guess” estimates of future supply and demand, but instead closely reflected the policy context and major project proposals of the time. The reasons for this are rooted in the nature of forecasting techniques and the way that they are used by decision-makers. This, it is argued, has important implications for the use of energy forecasting in policy planning.

As a recent instance of transnational cooperation and governance, encompassing a novel combination of international and supranational legal properties, the International Criminal Court provides an instructive forum for considering increasingly complex sovereignty. This paper considers why Canada and the United States have pursued such divergent policies toward the Court. I argue that these postures are informed by their subjective conceptions of state sovereignty, a reflection of varying interests, values and capacities. As such, this case study illuminates factors that may influence patterns and limitations of transnational cooperation by states.

Résumé. L'apparence des politiciens, leur représentation visuelle pendant un débat télévisé a-t-elle un impact sur l'évaluation que font d'eux les électeurs? Le contexte d'écoute joue-t-il sur l'identification du gagnant de la confrontation? Le niveau de sophistication politique et la fermeté de l'identité partisane de l'électeur limitent-ils l'effet de la représentation visuelle des politiciens dans son évaluation de leurs performances oratoires? S'inspirant du débat théorique qui secoue la discipline depuis la diffusion du premier débat Kennedy-Nixon en 1960, cet article présente les données tirées d'une expérience menée auprès d'électeurs québécois lors de la diffusion du débat francophone de l'élection fédérale canadienne de 2000. L'analyse démontre que la représentation visuelle des politiciens et le contexte d'écoute du débat amènent les participants à évaluer différemment la performance des politiciens et agissent également sur la capacité des électeurs à identifier clairement le vainqueur du débat télévisé. Les données indiquent de plus que la fermeté de l'identité partisane agit comme rempart aux effets de la représentation visuelle sur l'évaluation des politiciens par les téléspectateurs, alors que le niveau de sophistication des électeurs, contrairement aux attentes théoriques, ne joue pas ce rôle. Tout comme le contenu de leurs interventions verbales, les composantes de la représentation visuelle des acteurs politiques représentent des pistes d'information qui alimentent également la réflexion des électeurs lors de l'écoute d'un débat télévisé.

Abstract. Does a politician's appearance, visual representation, during a televised debate influence voters' evaluations of her performance? Does the listening context of the debate impact a voter's capacity to identify a clear winner? Are political sophistication and partisanship strong barriers to the potential effects of politicians' images on voters' evaluations of their performance? Adding a Canadian perspective to the ongoing theoretical debate on the actual impact of leaders' visual representation in televised debates on voter preferences, launched in 1960 by preliminary assesments of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, this article presents data collected during an experiment conducted with a sample of Québec voters during the broadcast of the French language leaders' debate of the 2000 Canadian federal election. The study shows that the leaders' visual representation during the debate and the listening context of the event bring voters to evaluate politicians participating in the broadcast differently and play on voters' capacity to easily identify a clear winner of the televised confrontation. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that partisanship is a strong barrier to the effect of visual representation in voters' evaluations of the leaders but that political sophistication, contrary to theoretical expectations, is not. Like verbal arguments brought forward by the politicians in a televised debate, their visual representation also carries information cues that help define voters' evaluations of the leaders participating in the broadcast.

I who am about to address you, salute you as the seventh President of our Association—and the first statistician in that honourable office. Our Association is called “The Canadian Political Science Association”. I well remember how we boggled over that name, when the Association was a-borning twenty-odd years ago (characteristically in Boston); it was meant to designate the polyglot omnium gatherum which we remain—economists, sociologists, political scientists proper, publicists, statisticians. As to the last, it is the fact that in countries which can afford to organize their social sciences by species (which Canada cannot), the statisticians have always shown the way. The Royal Statistical Society of Great Britain celebrated her centenary the other day, and the American Statistical is celebrating hers to-morrow, years and years before their sisters. Even in Canada, a statistical association was born, gasped, and died before our own got on its feet. Thus, in all delicacy, speaking for my statistical confrères, we feel that after six political economists for president all in a row, it is fitting we were called up higher. In the twitter of the moment, we might even wonder if we are Cinderella, who from her ashes was once invited into the parlour. She came, you remember, in all meekness, with nothing of the kitchen fire in her eye, yet I feel sure in some consciousness of merit, for it was Cinderella who finally married the prince.

The rise and electoral success of the Confederation of Regions Party (CoR) in New Brunswick was seen as a major surprise in the context of provincial politics. The first reaction was to analyze the new party as mainly a party opposed to official bilingualism. In this article the author looks at another aspect of importance that is the populist dimension behind the CoR party. Four aspects are studied: the period of emergence (1989–1991), party organization and structures, ideology, attitudes of the membership.

This article argues that provincial government units for Aboriginal affairs in Ontario and British Columbia have ''double identities'' stemming from contradictory mandates anchored in two different policy communities. Aboriginal policy agencies act as Crown negotiators with Aboriginal nations over land claims and self-government, but are also responsible for co-ordinating government policies affecting Aboriginals. Consequently, they interact with two different policy communities. One involves economic and resource ministries, which engage in a pressure pluralist relationship with Aboriginal groups. The second involves social policy ministries who engage in more clientele pluralist relationships with Aboriginals. Consequently, Aboriginal policy agencies display different identities and play different and sometimes contradictory roles. These ''double identities'' illustrate the complexity and contradictions of provincial-Aboriginal relations in Canada.

Eighteenth-century British Whig and Tory accounts of mixed government and the balanced constitution are examined together with the similar doctrine favoured by British liberals of the Great Reform Bill period, among them Lord Durham. Durham's Report of 1839 is particularly interesting, it is argued, since it purports to demonstrate the superiority of mixed government to the kind of majoritarian democracy put forward in those years by British and colonial radicals. Durham's proposal to curtail the powers of the democratic branch of government in Lower Canada—the Legislative Assembly, he wrote, had “endeavoured to extend its authority in modes totally incompatible with the principles of constitutional liberty”—is compared to the eighteenth-century “court” party argument for a strong political executive. It is suggested that Durham and the eighteenth-century thinkers together provide grounds for supposing that even today the egalitarian aims of modern societies are furthered by a political system that recognizes man's natural inequalities.

Dans l'étude du comportement des groupes d'intérêts, il est courant d'analyser les processus par lesquels les demandes de ces groupes atteignent ceux qui détiennent le pouvoir de décision politique; on tient aussi compte de la formulation de ces demandes et de leur influence sur les actions gouvernementales. Cette perspective d'approche se fonde implicitement sur le postulat suivant: pour tel groupe donné, les demandes les plus importantes expriment les besoins et les aspirations des membres de ce groupe. En d'autres termes, plus telle demande répond essentiellement aux besoins du « membership » d'un groupe, plus on suppose qu'elle constitue une variable importante de l'analyse du comportement de ce groupe d'intérêt.

La présente étude se propose d'examiner si, dans le cas des groupes considérables et bureaucratisés, les pressions qu'ils exercent, en réponse aux besoins de leurs membres, ne sont pas subordonnées aux demandes que font leurs dirigeants relativement à leur organisation. Du moins, aux yeux de ces derniers, les demandes de reconnaissance organisationnelle sont-elles les plus importantes qu'ils tentent d'imposer au gouvernement. Le manque d'unité de la structure du travail organisé au Canada, de même que la compétition active entre les différentes centrales syndicales, nous ont permis de vérifier cette hypothèse.

Les résultats de cette analyse sont les suivants: (1) toute forme de reconnaissance susceptible d'être accordée par le gouvernement suscite une vive compétition entre les centrales établies; (2) celles-ci cherchent à susciter, pour elles-mêmes, de nouvelles occasions où elles seront reconnues par le gouvernement; (3) les plus amères disputes éclatent entre ces groupes et le gouvernement lorsque ce dernier leur refuse la reconnaissance à laquelle, aux yeux de leurs dirigeants, ces groupes auraient droit. Par exemple, le gouvernement Diefenbaker ayant posé un tel geste vis-à-vis du Congrès du travail du Canada, leurs relations se gâtèrent au point d'être décrites, par les dirigeants du CTC, comme « les plus mauvaises qui se puissent trouver entre une centrale nationale et un gouvernement, parmi les nations occidentales hautement industrialisées ».

The representation of Canada's two main linguistic groups in the teaching of Canadian politics is crucial, but we know little about it. In this article, we analyze the systemic underrepresentation of francophone authors in Canadian political science by examining the research that students are exposed to. Based on data from 351 syllabi across 42 Canadian universities, as well as data from the reading list of the doctoral qualifying field exams in Canadian politics, our findings show that francophone authors are systemically underrepresented (when not totally absent). About 38 per cent of Canadian politics courses include no francophone authors in their reading lists. Our findings suggest that Canadian politics is not an inclusive and comprehensive field. This result entails important implications not only for current professors and students but also for the profession more generally, given that the students who will make up tomorrow's faculties in Canadian universities are shaped by these biases.