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Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper begins the analysis of complex multi-actor, multi-round decision-making processes in Canadian public policy formation. After setting out the notion of a decision-making style and its constitutive elements, the paper identifies research into complex multi-actor, multi-round decisions as a serious lacuna in the literature on public policy decision-making, despite the fact that this type of decision-making is very common in public policy-making circumstances. The paper advances research in this area through the analysis of several hypotheses raised in recent European studies concerning the conditions under which such processes are likely to successfully conclude in a decision, rather than an impasse. These hypotheses are tested against evidence taken from five cases of multi-round decision-making in Canada over the period 1995-2005: amendments to the Indian Act, the creation of Species-at-risk legislation, alterations to the Bank Act, the extension of Privacy legislation to the private sector and efforts to develop a Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA). Data on actor interactions in these five areas gleaned from on-line newspaper and media index services reveals that Canadian results do not match those arrived at in European studies, showing both different patterns of government and non-governmental activity and less volatility in actor behaviour as rounds evolve over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian political parties have been using the Internet as a campaign tool since the 1997 election. Rebuilding Canadian Party Politics by Carty, Cross and Young (2000) presents one of the first analyses of Internet-based communications during a Canadian election. It is also one of the most important assessments of Canadian party systems. The book outlines the components that characterize the fourth party system, which they argue, began after the 1993 election. Regionalization is the defining characteristic of this emerging system. The book argues that the Internet, like other communication technologies, is important in this latest party system. Consistent with the notion of regionalized campaign communications, the authors suggest that Canadian political parties use the Internet to target campaign messages to different regional and sociodemographic groups and enter into private conversations with voters. Using original data collected from the 2004 federal election, this paper reflects on these claims. The paper builds the case that the use of the Internet as a campaign tool is not consistent with their argument. Internet-based campaign communications in Canada by the major parties is neither regionalized nor targeted. Rather, this technology makes campaign communication more transparent and centralized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Governments and Indigenous groups bargain under the shadow of the law, and this paper pushes the judicial politics research agenda by examining empirically whether flickers in law's shadow systematically affect the implementation of the Canadian government's negotiation choice in the Indigenous land rights context. Through interviews and a time series analysis of Canada's specific claims policy, I find that judicial uncertainty increases the federal government's propensity to accept specific claims for negotiation. However, there is evidence that Indigenous protest action during the Oka crisis and Elijah Harper's role in scuttling the Meech Lake constitutional accord, more than other factors, greatly impacted the federal budget allocated towards negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature on gender effects in the electoral process offers little evidence of significant gender vote share differentials. In this paper it is shown that for the 2006 Canadian federal election, once candidate campaign spending is introduced into the model with appropriate flexibility in the vote share responsiveness across genders, significant differences are found to exist between male and female candidates. The findings suggest that, for equal levels of spending, male incumbents have a vote share advantage relative to female incumbents, though this vote share advantage is found to diminish with increased expenditures. Female non-incumbent candidates, on the other hand, have a vote share advantage over male non-incumbent candidates for higher levels of expenditure and this advantage was found to increase with increased expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health care has arguably been the most important issue in Canadian politics in the past decade. This paper focuses on the extent to which the media affect public perceptions of "the way things are" in the Canadian health care system. Individual perceptions of the state of health care are analyzed as being a function of personal experience with the system, loyalty or pre-formed opinions and the information that the individual receives through the media. Results indicate that media use has a significant effect on the likelihood of negative perceptions regarding the state of health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While an important component of incumbent support, the effect of economic conditions on vote choice (economic voting) can be undermined by the presence of multilevel institutions; voters are faced with the prospect of evaluating economic conditions and governments at different levels simultaneously. This paper tests the applicability of a model which seeks to account for how and how well voters cope with the complexity of multilevel governance. The accountability-centred model suggests that federal and provincial governments should only be evaluated for those actions and outcomes that they can reasonably be seen to have influence over. Additionally, it is asked whether high information respondents are better able to navigate some of the complexities of Canada's multilevel system. Analyses are conducted using data from the 1993 and 1997 Canadian Election Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the confidence convention's central part in Canadian parliamentary government, little attention has been paid to what exactly constitutes a vote of confidence. This uncertainty was highlighted in May 2005, when the opposition parties in the House of Commons passed a motion which they claimed was a confidence motion but the government did not. This paper examines the episode, and the motion at the heart of the controversy, to determine whether it should have been considered a confidence vote. Historical precedents from 1926 to 2005 provide the context for the analysis and conclusions about what signifies a test of confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)