This article examines the position taken by Michel Foucault regarding the Iranian Revolution. Contrary to certain analysts who view his writings pertaining to Iran as an occasion to question Foucaltian politics, the authors maintain that his work constitutes more of an analysis of outright support for the Islamic government. How can we then explain the interpretation made by many analysts who see in these same writings support for Khomeiny? The authors find in Foucaltian analysis a polity of the intellectual. Inspired by Kant's essay on the Age of Enlightenment, Foucault's approach examines the way to surmise History's moments of rift and transformation through the very notion of revolution. In other words, Foucault tries to assess those value systems which lend sense and meaning to revolts. That some may not recognize themselves in this particular approach should not be too surprising as it suggests a form of political praxis which does not necessarily entail a “for or against” position, but rather an understanding of the way in which its discourse partakes in society's governmental inner workings.

No country had been engaged in macro-constitutional politics so intensively for so long as Canada. Macro-constitutional politics, unlike ordinary constitutional politics are about the very nature of the political community on which the constitution is to be based. When constitutional politics is at the macro level, the constitutional question tends to dwarf all other issues. Except for a few short intervals Canada has been engaged in constitutional politics since the mid-1960s. Through this experience and most recently. Canadians have adopted a new constitutionalism requiring popular participation in constitution-making. Thus, as Canadians enter the fifth, and what they hope will be, the final round of macro-constitutional politics, they will find out whether they share enough in common to constitute themselves a single sovereign people.

This article argues that imperialism and the Crown have determined the development of Canadian federalism. It maintains that the prominence of the provinces, the most distinctive feature of this country's federal system, is traceable, first, to the empire's evolution in the last century and its dissolution in this and, second, to the capacity of the Crown to endow the provinces with unlimited potential for action in areas of jurisdiction not assigned to Parliament. The structuring effect of these primary influences is examined from several perspectives: geographic, economic, social and constitutional. The article concludes that the provinces have been the true beneficiaries of Canada's heritage of empire and Crown.

This article uses the case of toxic substance regulation to examine the process of governmental agenda-setting. Two kinds of comparisons are employed: across-national comparison of Canada and the United States, and a comparison of two toxic substance controversies. In the case of dioxins from pulp mills, the issue emerged on the two Countries' agendas at approximately the same time. In contrast, the issue of indoor air pollution from radon reached the US regulatory agenda in 1986, but as of mid-1990 had yet to emerge as a significant regulatory issue in Canada. The comparative case analysis yields four major conclusions: (1) changes in science and technology can be important driving forces behind the emergence of an issue, but as necessary, not sufficient conditions for agenda-setting; (2) the interdependence of the two countries produces an interdependence of their regulatory agendas; (3) policy entrepreneurs play a fundamental role in forcing issues onto the governmental agenda; and (4) the incentives and influence of policy entrepreneurs is shaped by the institutional structures and political cultures of the two countries.

Monetary policy in Canada is formulated and implemented in a state-directed policy network dominated by the Bank of Canada. State-directed networks embody a tension between democratic accountability and legitimacy on the one side and maintaining support from the business community on the other. This article assesses this tension in Canadian monetary policy, focussing on the relationships between the Bank of Canada and other actors. As a central bank, the Bank of Canada possesses a unique constitutional status, being tied to the government through a directive power of the minister of finance. The Bank has also developed close working relationships with financial institutions for the implementation of monetary policy. In reviewing these relationships, the article identifies problems related to the Bank's political accountability and its ability to maintain legitimacy. The article then reviews some reforms that might address these problems: making the Bank more independent, subjecting it to closer control by the minister of finance and endowing it with a council-based internal governing system.

This article compares the lexical performances of Canadian political leaders in the French-language leaders' debate broadcast during the federal election of 1988, in order to test some hypotheses concerning the relations between the communication strategies adopted by the leaders and their respective role in the party system. The author shows that the political discourse of the leader of the government party does not follow the same line of argumentation as those developed by the leaders of the opposing parties. To do so, the study employs indicators like tenses clauses, name-dropping, frequency of numbers, self-presentation and criticism of the adversaries. The author also identifies the most significant words and compares the issues developed by each leader to test the relevance of the political mimesis thesis and to estimate the importance granted to the critiques of the respective adversaries and specific propositions for the future.

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.

In this article the author proposes a schema conception of belief system structure, and employs confirmatory factor analysis, to investigate the connections between Left/Right Orientation and a range of policy-centred and operation-of-government attitudes. Contrary to the results of some earlier research, this study finds that Canadians' morality beliefs are moderately consistent with their evaluations of left and right. The examination includes education and class differences in the ideological integration and range of political belief systems. The major difference between workers and other classes is congruent with the notion that workers possess a dualistic political consciousness.

Government in the Northwest Territories (NWT) of Canada is structured on the cabinet-parliamentary model and follows most of the principles of British-style “responsible government.” The territorial assembly, however, differs in two fundamental ways from the traditional parliamentary model: it has no political parties, and a majority of its members are natives, whose political culture is far removed from the tenets underlying British parliamentarism. This article examines the interplay of structure and culture in the NWT Legislative Assembly, through an evaluation of the so-called “consensus government” system. Although cabinet is clearly pre-eminent, private members have unusual influence in the NWT. More generally, distinctive Northern adaptations to the British model—unique parliamentary structures and procedures—are central to the workings of the legislature. In its internal operations, the NWT Assembly is found to have successfully adapted important elements of British parliamentarism to Northern circumstances, though its legitimacy within the native population remains problematic.

Political coalitions have been studied by many authors, but few of them have shown that the presence or action of rivals or neutrals, outside the coalition, is an important factor in its formation or evolution. A structural approach is proposed, which underlines the cohesion requirements in the coalition formation and evolution. Then five research propositions are formulated, the last three of them bearing upon the political usefulness of rivals. The propositions are applied to the events related to the failure of the electoral system reform in Québec. This application leads to conclude that the propositions have a certain heuristic capacity but that some of them have to be altered for more appropriateness in future research.

From recent debates about the performance of the Canadian federal system, two images of processes of intergovernmental relations can be extracted: a “competitive” and a “collaborative” image. Differing propositions about the effects on processes and outcomes of the framework of rules and institutions of intergovernmental relations are embodied in these contrasting images. Elinor Ostrom's framework for institutional analysis is applied to the investigation of these effects. Using Fritz Scharpf's analysis of the “pathological” effects of a specific set of collaborative arrangements in West Germany as points of departure and contrast, the working rules underlying Canadian intergovernmental relations are elaborated. The author concludes that a competitive dynamic underpins a high degree of flexibility in these arrangements. Proposals to implement a more collaborative set of arrangements through constitutional reform are critically evaluated in this light, and the author makes suggestions about the course constitutional reform might take following the failure to adopt the Meech Lake Accord.

Students of political debating in both Canada and the United States have generally concluded that national debates do little more than reinforce viewers' prior preferences. This article considers the Canadian leadership debates of 1984, and asks two major questions. First, would the presence of relatively unknown party leaders make these debates more influential than expected? Second, would the French-language debate have special effects on francophone Canadians? The author finds that the debates, unlike their 1979 counterpart, had a significant effect on voting behaviour. Moreover, that effect was especially strong among people for whom French was the first language, and worked in favour of the candidate most fluent in that language. The author concludes by considering the importance of these findings.

This article analyzes the internal communications between interest group leaders and their memberships. The case is Bill C-22, which increased patent protection for Pharmaceuticals in Canada. The object was to test for differences between “material” groups seeking benefits for their members and “purposive” groups pursuing policies which will benefit others. Significant differences were found in the kinds of appeals made by group leaders. This implies that it can be realistic and useful to distinguish between types of group according to their purposes and the motivations of their members. The findings also provide some insight into the language of policy debates and allow some speculation about the perennial question of why people adhere to large public-interest groups.

The speakers in Thucydides who give voice to the sophistic thesis that might is right do not generally think that what they are releasing upon the world is a war of all against all. On the contrary, they are hopeful, like the modern utilitarians they anticipate, that their realistic assessment of human motives can serve as the foundation of an inter-state order based not on justice but on clear and certain power relations. The most perceptive of these speakers is Diodotus, who addresses his theory of imperial management to the difficult problem of the rise and fall of states. But the psychology upon which this theory rests points toward confederation in place of empire and toward constitutional government in place of democracy, run by demagogues. It also implies a reasoner, perhaps Diodotus himself, who is master of his own desires. In the end Diodotus seems somewhat at odds with the sophistic rationalism he so ably espouses.

Social movements are conceived of as networks that provide structures within which organizations negotiate meaning through the construction of collective identities. Network analysis is applied as a method for mapping the relationship among 33 national Canadian women's organizations. Results show that these diverse groups form an expansive, but loosely coupled, network that is bound by a collective identity of “liberalized” feminism. However, minority women tend to be marginalized within the movement and there are surprisingly few linkages with other core social movements. Intra-movement position has significant extra-movement consequences as demonstrated by the finding that network position is a highly significant predictor of the perceived effectiveness of a social movement organization.

A traditional focus on the collective, institutional operation of the Supreme Court of Canada has obscured the practical impact on the Charter of Rights of the personal views held by the individual members of the Court. A study of all the Charter cases decided by the Supreme Court from 1983 to 1989 reveals a profound divergence of opinions within the Court. The differences are seen not only in each judge's overall support for Charter claims but also in the patterns of agreement between bilateral pairings of judges who have heard the same cases. The use of subsets of judges to sit on panels to hear Charter cases has meant that both the outcome of Charter cases and the content of our rights have depended to a large extent upon which judges happened to sit on the panels that heard the cases.

The Constitution Act, 1867, contained what were intended to be strong protections of property ownership. These protections gradually eroded, as property was subordinated to democratic will and legislation. The “property rights” debate took place in this context. Those provinces which opposed the property rights clause wanted to safeguard the supremacy of democratic institutions from the potential ramifications posed by such a clause. The federal government, the proponent of the clause, did not intend that such supremacy be usurped. However, the clause was never crucial to the Charter and the federal government abandoned the clause in order to achieve provincial agreement on patriation of the constitution.

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.

The article defends the classical version of ministerial responsibility against recent initiatives to implement a form of direct accountability for administrators. Constitutional convention and ministerial resignations from active cabinets in the Canadian federal government and in Britain are described: in neither country do ministers resign for maladministration by their officials, nor does doctrine suggest they should. Rather, the pattern of resignations indicates the importance of collective responsibility, as well as the relative unimportance of ministerial misbehaviour. The conclusion sets out the negative implications for democratic government of substituting a kind of direct “accountability” of officials, extracted in political forums, for the responsibility of ministers.

This article is a study of the first recorded text of political philosophy, the Debate on the Regimes in Book III of the untitled work by Herodotus. The central methodological postulate of this study is that the Debate must be approached as one approaches the other stories in the work: the reader has to reflect on the arguments made here in light of the dramatic context in which they are made. In particular, the author suggests that the Debate is essentially a story about democracy since the discussion takes place within the framework of what are clearly democratic institutions: there is a sort of assembly where resolutions are debated and decision are taken by majority vote. The drama surrounding the Debate thus conveys to us Herodotus' own thoughts about the character of democracy.