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The article looks at the methodology of sociologist Harold Innis, with a particular focus on its applicability to 21st-century Canadian sociology in the areas of environment and resource extraction. It references the essay "Committing Canadian Sociology" by sociologist Ralph Matthews. The author supports Matthews's arguments that Canadian sociologists should review Innis's Staples Thesis of the Canadian economy. It is also suggested that sociologists should follow Innis's example of seeking to understand the perspectives of specific groups and building new frameworks in addition to offering critiques.

A diary study tracked the paper documents received by nine UK informants over one month. Informants gave simple ratings of individual documents' attractiveness and the ease of understanding them; more detailed reactions to the documents were gathered through informant diaries and follow-up interviews. The detailed reactions extended beyond the feedback gathered through the rating task. Informants showed sensitivity to the content, language, design and circumstances of receipt of documents, with indications that they developed opinions of originating organizations based on their experience of using their documents. Documents that failed to provide all the information needed, that failed to make their intentions clear (or obscured their intentions) or that were perceived as miss-targeted received negative comment. Repeat experiences of receiving either well- or poorly-conceived documents strengthened informant reactions to individual originating organizations. The paper concludes with recommendations for steps document originators, writers and designers need to take to prepare documents that enhance organization to consumer communication. We recommend that organizations evaluate and act on consumers' reactions to their documents, beyond user testing in document development or scorecard ratings in use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the special section of articles on topics of Canadian political sociology is presented.

Prevailing explanations of the increase in collective action surrounding victims’ rights in early 1980s Canada generally follow the precepts of political process, resource mobilization, and framing approaches in social-movements research by depicting the movement as a corollary of contemporary organizational, political, and cultural conditions. We find that the increase in activism, while certainly influenced by such factors, also required that victim-advocate groups properly manage, display, and frame the strong emotions associated with the victim experience – grief, fear, injustice, and anger – to maintain the internal integrity of the group as well as its external or public legitimacy. Our analysis contributes to social-movements analyses of how understandings of movement dynamics can be deepened by paying attention to how emotions play out in the process of collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The‘Irish question’ encompassed negotiations leading to the partition of Ireland in 1921. The paper considers factors that contributed to the growing tendency for the major players involved in the struggle– Irish nationalists, unionists and British officials– to adopt postures that were mutually irreconcilable. Conceptualising the problem in terms of Rogers Brubaker's‘triadic nexus’ model of nationalisms reveals that the rigidity was encouraged by the dynamic interaction of nationalist representations employed by the three parties in response to the postures adopted by their rivals. Further, international factors– specifically, the prevailing international definition of nation and the position taken by the authority in place to adjudicate claims of nationhood– combined with regional pressures to consolidate Irish, Ulster and British nationalisms in such forms that militated against a compromise solution. By amending Brubaker's model to include international as well as regional forces, the analysis shows how understanding of the Irish contest can be enhanced if conceived as issuing from the continuous and reflexive interaction of three distinct nationalisms with and within an international context that itself was structured with respect to questions of nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The following attempts to clarify the origins and character of the “movement” toward Catholic emancipation in the British empire by examining the negotiation of two early relief measures, the Quebec Act (1774) and the Irish Catholic Relief Act (1778), from an institutional perspective. It explores how institutions structuring Anglo-Quebec and Anglo-Irish political relations affected policy outcomes in each case, and what influence the Quebec case had on the Irish act four years later. While the Quebec Act offered a response to the Catholic question that was to assist supporters of the Irish bill, both were hard won against the inertia of institutional precedent. Neither act was accompanied by indications that greater freedoms were forthcoming. An institutional analysis thus challenges leading approaches that can represent the “movement” toward Catholic emancipation as more spontaneous and less contested than is sustained by actual events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the literature on master frames has drawn attention to the crucial role of ideas in cycles of protest, reliance on the creation of frame resonance to account for the success or failure of a social movement within a cycle can be problematic. Applying propositions adapted from McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald (1996), this article traces how political opportunities interacted with framing processes during the emergence and development of the Åland Islands secessionist movement of the post-WWI period. The Ålanders aligned their claims with early representations of the "selfdetermination master frame" that underlay the cycle of protest that emerged after the war in a way that resonated with the Allied leaders adjudicating their case. Shifts in political conditions, however, helped to foster an intense "framing contest" among contenders that in the end undermined the Ålanders' representation of the master frame and their ability to achieve desired ends. Although the case reveals certain shortcomings in the propositions, they nevertheless provide a useful starting point when documenting the complex interplay of political conditions and framing processes in an instance of collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]