The 1981 Kent commission report on newspapers is discussed and contrasted with the MacBride (UNESCO) report. The former assumes that competition is the major safeguard of diversity; the latter, written from the perspective of Third World countries, regards social inequality as the primary obstacle to the free flow of information. Together they reflect contemporary controversies about modernization. Trends toward rationalization, professionalization and autonomy are examined. Neither approach, Kent or MacBride, provides a satisfactory interpretation of Quebec's francophone press. An alternative model based on access is, we suggest, closer to the realities of Canada's changing political culture and class structure.

The widespread adoption of mainframe computers by all levels of governments is a phenomenon that has been seriously neglected by political scientists. While a few isolated, popular issues have been noticed, little academic attention has been paid within the discipline to the effects of computers on our political institutions and processes. The development of a cadre of data processing specialists is introducing a new and powerful set of values into public decision-making. Interest groups and political parties are scrambling to adjust their mobilization strategies. The growing employment of arcane and often questionable decision models diminishes even further the public's already limited ability to monitor their governments' activities. As a discipline, political science has much to do if it is to meet these challenges to its understanding of governments and how they work.

To illuminate the debate about the traditional role of the state in Quebec, the article suggests Quebec's traditional political culture prior to the Quiet Revolution was shaped by the “dialectic of patronage.” Economic need encouraged Québécois to exploit the political process for advancement. The resulting preoccupation of the political process with patronage prompted two contradictory impulses—devotion to, yet suspicion of, the political process—and efforts to insulate “government” from “politics.” This perspective helps to reveal the thematic and chronological continuities in Quebec history, to illuminate the Quiet Revolution, and to evaluate competing theories of Quebec's social evolution.

This article is intended to shed more light on the processes and mechanisms by which the senior civil servants exercise influence and enjoy power. It appears that simultaneously these processes and mechanisms restrain the senior civil servants and therefore limit their range of action and influence. This exchange of resources and constraints results from a complex process of communication between the issuer and the recipient of that influence; the number and diversity of the ways of relaying this communication create the conditions for communication and power strategies. The senior civil servants become and remain as powerful as they are constrained.

This article is a critique of C. B. Macpherson's interpretation of Hobbes's Leviathan. In reading possessive individualism into Hobbes's work, Macpherson assumes two basic theses: a logical claim, that a specific model of society is required to derive a universal opposition among men's powers; and a textual claim, that this universal opposition is implied by Hobbes as an unstated postulate in chapters 10–11 of Leviathan. These basic claims are both unfounded. Logically, the postulated universal opposition of powers does not require Macpherson's model of society for its derivation. Indeed, on premisses preferred by Macpherson, the two are logically inconsistent. Textually, the postulated universal opposition of powers does not occur in Leviathan: a careful sifting of the text indicates that there is no direct evidence at all for this postulate. Notwithstanding the brilliance of possessive individualism as a contribution to modern political understanding, this theory cannot properly be ascribed to Hobbes.

This article is devoted to a study of business interest associations in Canada in the light of the basic question: Why do they exist? The purpose is to demonstrate that business interest associations might be profitably considered distinct from other types of pressure groups. When their organization and activities are considered at length, it also becomes clear that these groups have an importance for their members that is not often perceived. These arguments are developed by drawing upon a case study of business associations representing selected sectors of the Canadian food processing industry.

This article presents the results of a content analysis of the late evening television news during the last days of the 1980 Quebec referendum campaign. The analysis seeks to relate the differences in the political imageries broadcast by the four networks studied: SRC, CBC, TVA and CTV. Previous studies, conducted during periods of political activities less intense than those of the referendum, have already underlined differences between the channels according to their language of broadcast and their ownership. The present analysis allows the networks to be differentiated according to these two factors by considering not only the subjects presented but also some nuances in the presentation of the same theme by different networks.

The Quiet Revolution is commonly regarded as the single most important turning point in Quebec's recent history. This article questions the conventional paradigm that the institutional and structural changes in Quebec during the 1960s were merely symptoms of, and secondary to, the essence of the Quiet Revolution, that is, widespread changes of mentality, attitudes and values. The authors argue that the changes encompassed by the Quiet Revolution are not as complete as many have suggested and that the tension between the forces of tradition and the forces of modernity is still an important focus for understanding contemporary Quebec. More specifically, empirical data confirm that the push for secularization in Quebec, secularization being the cutting edge of the Quiet Revolution, has not run its course and that traditional religious values continue to play an important role in Quebec politics.

The Canada-United States Automotive Products Trade Agreement of 1965 has been a source of controversy between these two countries, yet has also shown considerable resistance to change. An adequate political understanding of the creation, content and history of the Pact requires an examination of the complexes of issues and goals within which the Canadian and American governments approached its negotiation. These influenced not only what issues were dealt with in the APTA but also how and how successfully. Canada was initially favoured, as is demonstrated by the outcome of the talks. However, the Pact postponed, rather than resolved, the differences between the two governments; subsequent controversies between them over the Pact stem in large part from these unresolved differences.

A great power in a dispute with a minor state does not require the weight which a coalition with a peer would provide, and may require peer toleration in order to throw its own weight around. An alliance with the rival is a prudent step fora predatory great power. This article examines nondefense alliances among the European great powers and activist wars with minor states during 1815–1939. Weak commitments favour activist war and strong ones induce such warfare. The strength of the commitment varies with the geopolitical location of the target.

Socialism is often defined in terms of “community,” or, as Professor John Wilson once put it, as a “society of friends.” Thus defined, it is contrasted with the competitive relations of bourgeois society. But in some recent theory and practice, political competition is taken to be a defining feature of a legitimate socialist order. The persistence of political institutions is thus stressed, both by Western socialist theorists and by reformers in Eastern and Central Europe, and the orthodox view that “state” is to be superseded by “community” is sharply rejected. These two critiques differ, however, in one major respect: for Western socialists, the state is to be legitimated by the principles of socialist rationality, while for many reformers of Eastern and Central Europe it is to be legitimated by political life itself. From this second point of view, neither “friendship” nor “rationality” responds to the tensions which a socialist polity, no less than any other, will face: for both these concepts, to the extent that they are taken to set pre-established norms, constrict the “space for political action, ” and thus remove the necessary conditions for legitimacy.

This article examines the constituency results in recent Ontario provincial elections in order to estimate the impact of incumbency on the percentage of the vote received by each party. Regression results indicate that incumbency had a significant impact in the three elections studied, adding between six and 12 percentage points to the popular vote for the incumbent's party in a given riding. Moreover, these results are robust, persisting overtime and across parties, and not varying significantly for a variety of specifications of the underlying model.

The Canadian Labour Congress' abortive corporatist initiative 1976–1978 is examined. Existing interpretations of the episode are reviewed and an alternative posited. CLC policy represented an attempt to extend the existing localized collective bargaining system to the national level in response to the federal government's shift from macro-economic policy management to more direct forms of economic intervention. The initiative's failure is ascribed to a misreading of government intentions and to an inconsistency between proposals for national corporatism and other, noncorporatist, features of the existing collective bargaining system. Emphasis is placed on the state's role, past and present, in shaping interest group behaviour and in establishing or vetoing corporatism.

Cicero's great reputation as a political thinker has sharply declined in the twentieth century. Commentators, if treating him at all, usually focus briefly on his ethical ideas and neglect the significant economic dimension of his thought. In view of the importance of the conception of property in the history of political theory. Cicero deserves to be taken more seriously today by political scientists. An “economic individualist” who recommended the enlightened pursuit of self-interest and defended property differentials, he was the first major political thinker to conceive of the protection of private property as the primary purpose of the state.

Although more and more common, the equality measures in employment have little effect on the structure of double-standard employment (the one, masculine: the other, feminine). After having dealt with the development of the job structure in Canada, this article initiates a reflection on the inherent limitations of catch-up measures, in suggesting that the sexual segregation of jobs is a sociocultural construct recreated, at least in part, at the administrative level. Even if the present measures to achieve equality remain inoperative they are nonetheless useful, especially in the context of the present economic crisis.

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.

The Supreme Court's decisions on constitutional amendment made possible and then sanctioned a political compromise which conflicts with the logic of the only provision of the BNA Act dealing with amendments to the division of powers. The implications of section 94 have been overlooked partly because judges are ill-disposed to arguments based upon the structure of the BNA Act, and partly because of Frank Scott's misleading essay on the subject. Scott's centralist interpretation of section 94 is untenable, largely because that section does not restrict provincial sovereignty or federalism but gives constitutional recognition to them. Section 94 also implies a formal amending procedure of unanimity: neither unilateral action by the federal Parliament nor substantial provincial consent has any application to the division of powers. Since the centralist interpretation of the Canadian constitution cannot be reconciled with a significant provision of the BNA Act, a conception of Canadian federalism is required which gives greater recognition to the constitutional autonomy of the provinces.

After specifying the meanings to be attributed to the analysis of government policies, the author examines in this article the relationships which must exist between the analysis of policies and the analysis of values. Inspired by the works of Rein and Vickers, he concludes that the analysis of policies and of government programmes must necessarily take into account the relationship between the values which underly the collective choices, the instruments reserved for insuring the implementation of these and, finally, the results of applying these instruments. Discussing the particular combination of the decision theories, the author concludes that the policy analyst must consider the rationality of the actor or of the decision-maker within the framework of the steps that the latter takes in order to make choices or reach decisions.

The origins of judicial review in this country have been the subject of debate among legal scholars. This article examines the conflicting accounts provided by W. R. Lederman and B. L. Strayer, and attempts to assess them in the light of the Confederation debate, 1864–1867, and the debate surrounding passage of the Supreme Court Act in 1875. It arrives at these considerations: that the intentions of the founders are of greater significance than has hitherto been suggested; that both the founders themselves and the legislators in 1875 held conflicting expectations on the role of the Supreme Court in constitutional matters; and that this conflict has left its mark on the court. The article concludes that reflection on the origins of judicial review ought to temper the enthusiasm with which many Canadians have greeted the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This note reviews several recent developments in the Marxist “theory of the state” controversies with the hope of clarifying what those theories have to say about the international behaviour of core nations. It returns to the Kautsky-Lenin Debate over Ultra-imperialism and attempts to show its relevance to the recent Wallerstein “World Systems Debate.” The theoretical difference between Kautsky and “neo-Kautskyite” writers is demonstrated by introducing a two dimensional analytic construct of relations among core states. The discussion of “relative autonomy” points out a major ambiguity which now exists in the “instrumentalist-structuralist” controversy. The note should be useful to Marxist researchers on the theory of the state, comparativists interested in the autonomy of the modern state, and international relations scholars interested in the World Systems debate.