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.

Progress in the debate over rational deterrence has always depended on the ability of scholars to identify a body of evidence that would be appropriate for testing a wide range of propositions derived from the theory. Notwithstanding the tremendous amount of time and energy spent on producing a suitable list of cases, and several noteworthy surveys of the literature, cumulative knowledge about deterrence, both as a theory and as a strategy, remains elusive. It still is unclear whether decision makers have acted according to the logic derived from standard applications of the theory. Moreover, the most prominent testing strategy, originally designed by Paul Huth and Bruce Russett, and later criticized and revised by Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, continues to be plagued by ongoing disputes over methods and case listings. Although debates over the accuracy of historical accounts are constructive, lingering divisions over coding of deterrence successes and failures have become counterproductive, primarily because each side has produced evidence to support their interpretation of events. Very little effort, by comparison, has been directed towards (a) developing alternative testing strategies that lie outside the success/failure framework, or (b) looking at a wider range of propositions derived from the theory. This analysis attempts the task, analyzing in the aggregate 28 cases of superpower rivalry.

Referendums are rare events in most parliamentary democracies, and when they do occur they present an analytical puzzle. Are they such unusual events that they fall outside of the theoretical frameworks familiar to students of elections? Or, even though they enter political life infrequently, can they be understood as something not entirely foreign to our thinking about electoral politics? Here, we argue that voting in referendums such as the constitutional referendum of October 26, 1992 is driven by many of the same factors that are present in elections—parties, leaders, issues, a campaign timetable, the interplay between long- and short-term forces and the dynamic of the campaign itself. In spite of their unique features, referendums can be understood in terms of models of voting behaviour familiar to students of elections in Canada and elsewhere. But, devoid of some of the long-term partisan and social anchors which play a role in elections, their outcome is even more dependent on the short-term elements of the campaign. As such, referendums are subject to greater volatility and uncertainty than that typically found in ordinary parliamentary elections.

This article considers John Rawls's recent turn to “political liberalism.“ Rawls has revised his argument from A Theory of Justice in order to establish a more realistic account of a “well-ordered” society; that is, creating legitimate political stability amidst a plethora of conflicting yet reasonable conceptions of the good. The aim here is to consider the extent to which Rawlsian theories are at once open to the deep diversity of late-modern political communities, and yet seek to manage and constrain the liberty of “difference” for the purposes of maintaining a distinctive liberal political order. This involves trying to persuade people to comply with liberal norms despite themselves. But it has been the claim of Rawlsian liberalism that citizens be presented, without pretence, with reasons they can accept and live by in the course of establishing a well-ordered society. The drive for transparency here—through seeking out agreement on first principles of justice—obscures the “arts” of political liberalism and prevents us from thinking about the diversity of political communities in other ways.

The demise of the Cold War and greater cooperation among the Security Council's permanent members have created a situation frequently characterized as a New World Order at the United Nations. This study examines whether that characterization can also be applied to the politics of the UN General Assembly. Using descriptive analysis of roll-call votes, the authors find that recent sessions, and in particular the 46th session, witnessed the end of a fairly stable decade of voting blocs in the General Assembly. An indicator of vote changing is developed which documents the rapid movement of the former Warsaw Pact members and Baltic states towards more western European positions. Hierarchical cluster and multidimensional scaling analyses are employed to identify the emerging voting alliances. The results suggest that the accommodation has not been as widespread in the General Assembly and that our longstanding conceptualizations of east/west/north/south polarizations are in need of revision.

Why are Quebeckers favourably disposed or opposed to sovereignty? This choice partly depends upon the prospective evaluation of the costs and benefits of sovereignty and federalism. What are the relative contributions of economic and linguistic expectations in this choice? Does the impact of these expectations vary according to the time horizon in which they are set? The authors approach these questions from the perspective of the economic theory of voting and with the help of original measures of the determinants of support for sovereignty. They compare expectations of what would occur to the economy and to the French language were Quebec to become a sovereign country with expectations of what would occur if Quebec remained a province of Canada. These measures are taken from a survey of university students. Our logistic regression analysis shows that the implicit calculation of costs and benefits plays a significant role in the choice between sovereignty and federalism, and that economic expectations influence the formation of opinion to a somewhat greater degree than do linguistic expectations. Moreover, medium-term expectations are more important than short-term economic expectations and more important than long-term expectations about the situation of the French language in Quebec.

The 50 texts which make up Max Weber's “Early Writings” have been largely ignored by analysts of his works. Yet there are important differences between Weber's positions in those texts and the more familiar positions he exposed later. In the Early Writings, there is a nearly complete absence of epistemological preoccupations on themes which will later become central. One also notes the essential primacy of the political sphere over the scientific, in the form of the German Nation's transcendence as the condition for the protection of ethical ideals. This article argues that Weber's nationalist aggressiveness in his Early Writings is conditioned by the relative poverty of their theoretical basis.

This article compares various indicators in order to establish the weight of linguistic considerations in the constitutional choices of francophone Quebeckers. This comparison is made within a model which also takes into account the respondents' feelings of attachment to Quebec and Canada and their expectations of sovereignty's economic consequences. The results show that an adequate measure of the expected linguistic gains associated with sovereignty must take into account both the comparative and prospective dimensions of these expectations. The use of one such measure confirms the often-stated but previously unproven thesis that linguistic considerations play a crucial role in Quebeckers' constitutional choices.

Canadian broadcasting is characterized by a tradition of public debate over policy issues that takes place through a range of formal and less formal consultation mechanisms. In a study of the broadcasting policy review process of 1985–1991, the transparency of public debate was seen to be essential in giving access to social groups who would otherwise have little influence on the process.

This article examines two contrasting views of Quebec block voting in federal elections. One view has it that the Quebec electorate tends to behave in a monolithic fashion; the other, put by Cairns in 1968, claims that this phenomenon is “a contrivance of the electoral system, not an autonomous social fact.” The evidence shows that block voting, namely, the degree to which an electorate mobilizes behind the largest party, is much more pronounced in Quebec than it is in other provinces, and especially when compared to that in Ontario. Quebec is also more likely than Ontario to determine which party forms the government. The tendency of the electoral system to magnify seat allocations to the largest party, however, is only marginally greater in Quebec relative to Ontario. At the same time, the composition of the Quebec “block” vote has varied considerably over time; it has not always been a distinctively francophone phenomenon. The article further challenges the assumption that the single-member plurality system is inherently inferior to proportional representation as a means of securing the protection of minorities in ethnically diverse societies.

Multiple regression analysis is used to test the existence of a link between the programmes of the Progressive Conservative, Liberal and New Democratic parties and subsequent government spending priorities. The analysis shows that the programme of the governing party is a poor predictor of government policies. Instead, public expenditures have been sensitive to changes in the programmes of opposition parties. The analysis also shows that government spending priorities in some important policy areas have been more sensitive to opposition party programmes when the popularity of these parties was rising. While public support has favoured the Liberals for most of the period of analysis, the fragile nature of this support has left the governing Liberals uncertain about their prospects of subsequent victory at the polls. This uncertainty has led the governing Liberals to compromise with the Progressive Conservatives on some issues and to mirror the proposals of the New Democratic party on other issues.

This article examines the linkages by which time pressure influences national decision makers to initiate wars. It is argued that time pressure matters most significantly as an intervening variable at the decision-maker level in conjunction with system and subsystem level variables, such as changes in relative strike capability and alliance relationships, and state level variables like military strategy and doctrine. Most studies treat time pressure as having relevance during an acute crisis; in this article, time pressure is viewed as having an intermediate-term significance, that is, prior to the escalation phase or during the early phase of a crisis. It is shown that independent variables such as relative capability, alliance relationships and military doctrines are most likely to be associated with war initiation when they are mediated by time pressure. The article also distinguishes between immediate time pressure—that occurs during the escalation phase of a crisis—and intermediate time pressure, which can happen prior to, and at the onset phase of a crisis.

Theories of hegemonic leadership often begin with a constraining assumption: that international structure can explain both a state's capability to provide leadership and its interest in doing so. By conflating these explanations, traditional theories, even those from quite different approaches, share common problems. These problems are illustrated by examining three well-known models, and comparing their applications to the eighteenth century. This period provides difficult cases for all three, since countries with power did not provide political or economic leadership, and those which were attempting to provide leadership were not powerful. An alternative theory of leadership is then offered, using structural factors to explain capabilities, but domestic political economic factors to explain interests. The ability of this model to handle the historical cases with greater accuracy suggests that domestic factors could offer fresh insight into theories of leadership.

Most treatments of the problem of dirty hands in politics assume that merely holding a position of great political power will require a political actor to violate important moral standards. They assume that the successful political leader must inevitably be morally corrupted by the iniquitous choices that must inevitably be made, and, further, that this casts a shadow upon political life as a moral enterprise. This article argues, instead, that the conventional dirty hands problem is not particularly significant and that a much more serious test of the moral quality of public life in a given polity is how it makes its arrangements for formal public retrospection upon and judgment of the inevitable episodes of unwise, intemperate or immoral political action by leaders. In short, it is the deliberate corruption of democracy that should attract our scrutiny, not the condition of the soul of the supra-ethical or maverick leader.

Although North American integration has been the topic of heated public debate, it has not yet received adequate theoretical attention from the field of international relations. This article reviews the movement to codify North American integration, and explores the implications for integration and international relations theory. The first section reviews the intellectual history of integration theory as it developed in the European context. The second considers the North American experience of codifying integration, 1982–1994. The third part returns to integration theory and international relations, offering some amendments and suggestions considering the North American experience. The article argues that the clearest understanding of regional integration in the 1990s can be achieved through an approach which stresses developments in the global political economy as catalysts for change, and looks to national and transnational institutions and social forces to explain variations in integration projects. Because other international relations theories such as neofunctionalism and interstate bargaining are unable to integrate these levels of analysis, they offer an incomplete view of present dynamics.

What explains the action of United States legislators in matters of international trade? Do they only respond to protectionist pressures or are they also responsive to pressures from groups favourable to free trade? Is their vote primarily influenced by diffuse or concentrated interests? What is the role played by ideology and partisanship in determining their vote? Given the increasingly important share of exports in the US economy in recent years, the presence in their constituencies of industries potentially hurt by more protectionist policies should influence the voting patterns of members of the US Congress to a similar extent as would the presence of import-sensitive industries. The analysis of a composite index of support for free trade suggests that US senators are not sensitive only to the protectionist demands of import-sensitive industries, but also to exporters' demands for the maintenance of policies consistent with a liberal trade regime. In sum, the political responsiveness that leads legislators to defend industries in their constituencies is not a one-way street. Interdependence means that it can also work to foster the maintenance of existing liberal policies.

In this investigation of civil society in China, the authors develop a new concept: “critical citizenship,” defined as the propensity of citizens to discriminate in their support for the political community, the regime and the authorities. Critical citizenship is employed to indicate the presence of civil society in contemporary China. Using survey data gathered throughout China by Min Qi, the authors test hypotheses about the propensity of Chinese citizens toward critical citizenship. They conclude that the Chinese indeed discriminate in their support for the three objects of political attention, and that youth are particularly likely to manifest critical citizenship.

The Valour and the Horror is a series of three documentary films describing Canadian participation during the Second World War which were aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 1992. The series aggressively challenged “official” war history, arguing that while ordinary soldiers served with dignity and bravery, the incompetence and immorality of senior British and Canadian commanders produced terrible blunders and losses and grotesque assaults against civilian populations in Germany. This article analyzes the controversy that surrounded the series, a controversy that mushroomed into a political struggle over who had the right to control “memory” and who had the right to produce and interpret “reality.” The struggle produced a Senate subcommittee investigation, placed the CBC under intense pressure and scrutiny and evoked strong reactions from veterans' groups and the journalistic and artistic communities. Three frameworks are used to assess the forces that contend against each other in media production: the hegemonic view (that the media celebrate and reinforce the dominant interests in society); the organizational or institutional perspective (that media organizations pursue their own interests even if these interests do not necessarily coincide with those of other dominant groups in society); and the journalist-centred framework (that journalists as professionals exercise considerable discretion over their own work). The article suggests that each of these perspectives can provide valuable insights, but that each by itself fails to provide a satisfactory explanation for the events. By utilizing multiple perspectives for the analysis, a wider range of questions is addressed.

In his examinations of the ecological parties of Belgium and West Germany, Herbert Kitschelt argues that he has found a new form of political representation that defies patterns of behaviour outlined for political parties by all previous scholarly work. These parties, which Kitschelt calls “left-libertarian,” are unique because they lack the organizational structures common to traditional parties, and include in their membership constituencies that are normally more comfortable in social movements. This article compares the political platforms of these parties and the sociological characteristics of their activists with those of the Montreal Citizen's Movement (MCM) and concludes that the MCM is indeed a left-libertarian party. However, an examination of the MCM reveals that although Kitschelt has found a new form of political representation in the left-libertarian party, this new form does not actually defy the developmental patterns outlined by the classical studies of political parties.