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Our paper examines public opinion towards the restriction or expansion of immigration in Canada, using data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study (CES). The paper is largely modeled on Citrin, et al (1997)’s Public Opinion Towards Immigration Reform: The Role of Economic Motivations, though we make a methodological improvement that increases both the confidence of our results and our understanding of what drives not only opposition to immigration, but also support for more immigration. Our methodological improvement is simple. Rather than using an ordered probit, we choose to use a multinomial logit. Because our three choices are exhaustive, we do not have to consider the irrelevance of independent alternatives. Thus, we can harness the principal advantage of the multinomial logit; namely, the independent measurement of the effect of each variable on each outcome. Our model includes approximately 1200 respondents. As best possible, we follow the model of Citrin et al. and include a battery of individual demographic factors, constituency level data of immigrants as a percentage of the population, and attitudinal factors. Our initial results find that economic insecurity, negative feelings towards major immigrant groups, and negative retrospective economic evaluations are the principal factors causing opposition to immigration. This last significant result contradicts the American findings of Citrin et al. according to which personal economic circumstances play little role in opinion formation. In addition to challenging their main finding in regards to restriction, we generate a number of findings on the factors influencing support for increased immigration. Most importantly, we demonstrate that these factors are not entirely symmetrical with the factors influencing support for decrease in immigration levels. Indeed, we find that national economic evaluations have little effect on support for increased immigration. Furthermore, we find that ideological placements farther away from the centre (in either direction) positively predict support for increased immigration, net all other factors. Therefore our results demonstrate the value of employing a multinomial logit instead of an ordered probit in understanding public opinion towards immigration expansion or restriction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Awareness of voter dissatisfaction has prompted various attempts at institutional reform in Westminster political systems. Such reforms have attempted to increase the influence of backbench members, strengthen the role of committees and improve opportunities for public participation. Those pushing for change argue that such changes will have a positive impact on popular estimations of politics and the political system. In the absence of a clear understanding of the predictors of voter dissatisfaction, however, it is not clear what reformers are reacting to, nor what voters see as the source of their malaise. This paper examines voter satisfaction with democracy in Westminster systems in an effort to determine which factors can best account for declining confidence, satisfaction, efficacy and trust in politics. It pays particular attention to the influence of electoral systems, the role of politicians, and other civic institutions to determine whether the Westminster system itself is producing citizen malaise, or whether certain design features can be held responsible. In its analysis the paper relies on data from election studies in Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walleye management can be contentious on Lake Erie because the fish is valuable economically to both Canada and the U.S. On Lake Erie, five state and provincial jurisdictionsâ€"Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Yorkâ€"must work together to establish an annual walleye harvest limit known as a “total allowable catch” or TAC. To facilitate cooperation, the jurisdictions formed the Lake Erie Committee, which operates pursuant to a multijurisdictional agreement called A Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries. Most of the time, members of the Lake Erie Committee can agree on and adhere to the annual walleye TAC. However, the committee failed to maintain consensus on the 2004 TAC after consensus was achieved and announced. The committee could not resolve the dispute on its own and invoked the Joint Strategic Plan’s dispute provisions, a rare occurrence. This paper discusses cross-border walleye management on Lake Erie, describes how the jurisdictions handled the dispute, and reflects on how the Joint Strategic Plan can help jurisdictions overcome conflict. The paper argues that the plan can address distributional issues like TACs, despite being non-binding. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the legislative abilities of Canadian prime ministers under conditions of minority and majority government. It notes a lack of engagement with this matter from the scholarly literature in Canada and uses insights from American and comparative works to build expectations about minority government's effects on both legislative productivity and executive success. It finds that minority governments do in fact create an impediment to a prime minister's legislative agenda, reducing his level of productivity as well as his rate of success. The paper further raises, but does not answer, questions about why some minority sessions of Parliament have been more successful than some majority sessions. It concludes by posing a broader question about the factors that influence the passage of legislation and suggests some ideas for factors that might be useful in pursuing the question. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers some of the factors that determine whether a political party can achieve electoral success. Utlilizing the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party in the 2007 provincial election as a reference point, this paper will examine the importance of such determinants as leadership and ideas in shaping electoral outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with the suggestion that Protestant theological interpretation and religious practice are important, although thoroughly under-analyzed, factors in the emergence and structure of early political populist movements in Prairie Canada. Specifically, Protestant Christian theology originating in the United States, which is so often mentioned as a factor in the evolution of that country's democratic theory and practice, has also significantly influenced the development of a general, "pre-ideological" populist political spirit that exists in the Canadian Prairies. This paper provides a working definition of populism, with specific focus on its anti-establishment and anti-elite characteristics, before reviewing relevant literature related to religious influence on populist political sentiment in both the United States and Canada. This paper concludes with the suggestion that, although it is reasonable to expect a similar connection in Prairie Canada as one finds in America between religion and populism, further research is required to establish an empirical link. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Cold War, a variety of actors embraced the concept of “human security” in an explicit effort to redefine security policy in the international system. Defined in a 1994 UNDP report as “safety from chronic threats…[and] protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life.” Using content analysis of international news media from 1992-2006, this paper examines the trajectory of an idea through the international system. This analysis compares the development, diffusion and usage of human security within Canada â€" an early adopter and promoter â€" against the behavior of other actors in the international system. To examine this overarching trend, I analyze the sources and geographic regions of articles discussing human security, the actors articulating the concept, and the issues and actions labeled with the human security frame. By employing the language of “human security,” actors signal a shared analytic frame, an alternative to the conceptualization of security as national security. This paper offers a novel empirical study of how Canada’s use of, and focus on human security has changed, shedding new light on the prospects for one central concept among observers and policymakers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom holds that governments matter. That a new government, particularly one of a different political party, will make substantial changes to the policies of the state they were elected to lead. The focus of this paper is on whether party affiliation matters in determining Canada's priorities and policies in its trade relationship with the United States (US). It will compare policy statements and performances of Liberal, Progressive Conservative, and Conservative governments from 1968 to the present and it will argue that party affiliation has had little impact on Canada's US trade policy over this period. The analysis will proceed in four parts. In the first part, the role of political parties in Canada will be outlined briefly. This will be followed by an overview of Canada's exports to the US. The third section of the paper will examine the economic priorities of Canadian governments concerning the US from 1968 to present as gleaned from major policy statements (e.g. white papers and speeches). The final part of the paper will set out some of the reasons why party affiliation has had little substantive impact on Canada's trade policy with the US over the last forty years. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

: This paper is an investigation of the judicial norm of consensus in four national high courts: the High Court of Australia, the Supreme Court of Canada, the South African Supreme Court of Appeals (and Constitutional Court) and the House of Lords (Law Lords) in the United Kingdom. Research on consensual norms in the U.S. Supreme Court is outlined first. Then, after reviewing the methods of cointegration and suggesting an alternative to the Caldeira and Zorn (1998) procedure, this paper will explore the applicability of these methods to the location of consensual norms in different institutional contexts. Specifically, the importance of opinion-writing tradition and institutional legitimacy will be highlighted. Finally, aggregated opinion-writing data for each court will be analyzed. The results illustrate the importance of considering institutional variations when searching for evidence of consensual norms cross-nationally. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jean Chretien was the first Canadian leader since Laurier to win three consecutive majorities. This paper analyzes aggregate election data from before, during, and after the Chretien era to assess Chretien's personal impact on the electoral process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a comparative framework, this paper explores the parallel rights revolutions in Canada and the United States, particularly as they relate to the implementation of federal fair employment policies during the 1940s and 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the Chretien legacy by examining key policy debates and changes within the Canadian party system during the 10 years Chretien was prime minister and the 13 years he was Liberal leader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do changes in finance laws impact development of fundraising? This paper examines how party finance laws, such as contribution limits, have encouraged fundraising on the national and sub-national level in Canada and the U.S. from 1980 to 2003. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a vast literature on the possible causes of low and declining turnout in Western democracies. Most of these studies explicitly or implicitly argue that we should be concerned that fewer citizens go to the polls. The argument tends to be that low turnout is a problem because rich and better educated citizens are far more likely to vote than poor, less educated citizens and that this makes for unequal influence and representation. There are two related underlying assumptions here. The first is that rich and poor citizens in fact differ significantly in their policy preferences. The second is that if these non-voters were to turnout, election results would be significantly different from what they are at present. However, while the view that low turnout constitutes a democratic dilemma is widely held and oft stated (Piven and Cloward 1988; Verba et al. 1995; Lijphart 1997; Putnam 2000), few if any of these studies provide empirical evidence for the accuracy of these assumptions; even fewer examine the question outside the American context. We test these propositions using data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study. Our analysis entails two steps. First, we analyze differences in opinion between voters and non-voters across a wide spectrum of policy areas covering economics, social policy, national unity and others in order to assess the extent of divergent views between voters and abstainers. Next, we test the hypothesis that the outcome of the 2000 Canadian Federal Election would have been appreciably different if all citizens were to have voted by simulating universal turnout. The paper will make a significant contribution by providing an empirical assessment of some widely held but seldom tested propositions and also by extending the analysis of the consequences of low turnout beyond the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effect of macroeconomic conditions on incumbent vote in Canadian federal elections during the 1953-2000 period. Building on the extant literature, it proposes an improved model of economic voting that takes into account party politics, suggesting that it affects the extent to which incumbents are punished for economic deterioration. The results of the analysis indicate that party politics does matter, as incumbent governments can (and do) manage to convince the electorate that they can effectively deal with rising inflation or unemployment, and be re-elected in the context of deteriorating economic conditions. We argue that Canadian political parties obtain such prospective support through efficient campaigning, but also as a result of their reputation at managing the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adults have since long been identified as a group of the electorate least likely to vote. Recent research suggests, however, that turnout among young cohorts is declining rapidly in some countries. It does so at a much faster pace than the turnout among older age groups. In sum, today's youth turns out at lower levels than their parents or grandparents did when they were young. Consequently, the turnout gap between younger and older voters enlarges. The trend towards a widening generational divide has been particularly well documented in Canada and Great Britain. In other countries, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, the turnout difference between younger and older citizens is however stable through time. This paper contributes to the literature on youth participation by assessing the age gap in voter turnout in a longitudinal and comparative way. After observing patterns in the age gap in turnout, competing hypotheses explaining trends are put to the test. Using time-series cross-sectional analysis, the impact of both characteristics of elections and characteristics of voters on the age gap are assessed. The focus is exclusively on Western democracies for which the age gap can be estimated through election survey data. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper applies a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo estimation methodology to scale division votes in the 35th and 38th Canadian Parliaments over a multidimensional policy space. The results clearly demonstrate that policy debates are two-dimensional in Canada. The first dimension represents the classical division between the governing and the opposition parties that has been found in similar Parliamentary systems (Hix and Noury 2007). We also find a relevant second dimension which captures the opposition between Quebec and the Western provinces of Canada. Our results show that there is a clear separation between the Reform Party (and later the Conservatives) and the Bloc Quebecois in both Parliaments; whereas the Liberals and the NDP occupy the center on this regional division issue. We also note that the newly created Conservative Party has moved closer to the center and the governing Liberals in the 38th Parliament. This results is explained by the recent party merger between the right wing political formations in Canada. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian and American Supreme Courts have both adjudicated cases concerning the rights claims of suspected terrorists. While the Canadian Supreme Court adjudicates these cases asking whether the government actions violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Court, in the American tradition, does not look to its Bill of Rights for answers, but rather adjudicates such claims based on a separation of powers framework. This paper examines the judicially-created reasoning used to decide security cases in a post-911 world in Canada and the United States. I show that while the Canadian experience looks like it is more rights-based, the Court, like its American counterpart, looks at the procedure of how the law goes about limiting rights over the substance of the legitimacy of the limit in the first place. I conclude that the two courts end up using similar legal reasoning, despite the differing in approaches, resulting in each state providing a delicate balance between security and liberty. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past work suggests that environmental attitudes have been driven by post-materialist values in Canada. Recently, the environment has been given a more prominent position in Canadian politics; in the 2008 federal election, 3 of the 4 national parties made environmental policies a key part of their platforms in the 2008 federal election. Does the prominence of environmental issues in political party platforms mark the entrance of environmentalism into the mainstream of Canadian politics? In this paper we flesh out the parameters of the environmental issue in Canada in three ways. First, we update our understanding of the distribution and correlates of environmental attitudes among the Canadian electorate. In so doing, we examine whether environmental attitudes remain linked with postmaterialist values. Second, we extend the literature by investigating how the environmental issue maps onto the ideological spectrum in Canada. Is the environment a left-right issue or one that cuts across ideological positions? Finally, we analyze how environmental attitudes contribute to party preferences. We use the Canadian Election Studies from 2000-2006 to address these research questions empirically. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern representative democracies face particular challenges, particularly when it comes to reinvesting public money. Political tensions are both managed and fostered through an interaction between the heterogeneity of citizens' preferences and the rigidity of institutional rules. Using Canadian budgetary data, this paper tests if recent Liberals governments have tended to favour public spending in policy domains beneficial to their natural constituencies. A parsimonious Bayesian linear model suggests that this is not necessarily the case. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, how common is the citation of non-Canadian authority generally, and of each of three sub-sets (English, American and “other”)? Does it increase or decrease over time,? Which judges use them (and which do not)? .x000d..x000d.Second, what types of cases use non-Canadian authority? Are the ideas impacting public law, or criminal law, or private law, or Charter law? Can we identify legal matters where foreign citation is particularly common (for example, American sources for insurance cases)?.x000d..x000d.Third, what do non-Canadian citations look like? Do they focus on particular countries or courts or judges? On national high courts? On recent cases, and if so, how recent?.x000d..x000d.Fourth, what does the citation of foreign authority look like? Is it discussed at some detail, or relegated to American-style “string citations”? I will examine this by focusing on a dozen or so cases that use the largest number of non-Canadian cases..x000d..x000d.I intend this paper to be an exploration of the idea of judicial globalization, zeroing in on the extent to which the increased interaction between judges and increased accessibility of current decisions make a difference, such that a specific case is clearly handled differently because of these foreign ideas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has generally been framed as a global problem warranting an international policy response. But the growing reality of climate policy development suggests enormous variation among nations and surprisingly large roles for sub-national units. Ironically, both Canada and the United States took similar bargaining positions into Kyoto but only the former ratified this treaty. However, Canadian emissions growth has far exceeded American trends and neither its federal nor provincial levels have been active in policy development. In contrast, individual states and regional clusters have taken an ever-expanding role in this area. This paper examines key factors that explain this divergent pattern, considers whether provinces are beginning to engage in policy learning with neighboring states, and explores early signs of formal collaboration that cross the 49th parallel. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Canada prides itself on its universal and comprehensive public health insurance system, is the only country that provides widespread public health benefits but does not provide similar pharmaceutical benefits. This presents both an empirical puzzle and a theoretical challenge, which cannot be accounted for by the literature on variation among national health insurance systems. Canada's outlier status suggests that pharmaceutical benefits cannot simply be subsumed into health insurance policy, and more generally, that closely related aspects of social policy might be subject to quite different dynamics. In this paper, I demonstrate that Canada's failure to provide nation-wide public coverage of pharmaceuticals is a product of its earliest decisions about how to approach health policy, and that over time, ideas and public expectations interact to set strict limits on the opportunities for policy development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike any other U.S. ally in the struggle against terror, Canada is militarily engaged in defense efforts with the U.S. both in North America and overseas, above all in Afghanistan. This paper will assess both. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, using the recent debate over same-sex marriage as a case study, concludes that Canadian conservatives have re-committed themselves to winning office and so overcome the 'Tory Syndrome'. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whistleblowing in Canada. It traces the growing body of whistleblower legislation in Canada over the past several years, assesses some of the shortcomings of these efforts, and compares them to American approaches. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how different approaches to national identity and ethno-racial diversity bear on the political commitments of immigrants in Canada, the United States and France . ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at testing whether there exist spending interactions between Canadian provinces by estimating a dynamic panel data model. We show that there are strategic spatial interactions between provinces with regards to health, education, regional development and total spending. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper outlines patterns of visible minority representation in the Canadian House of Commons, assessing whether visible minorities elected to Parliament substantively represent ethnic minority issues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines why the relationship between private and public benefits in health insurance and pensions in Canada was the reverse of the U.S., with public benefits in Canada coming to dominate where private benefits were already well established. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the history of the relationship and concludes that while there have been some fundamental changes to it there is also a strain of consistency and invariability that continues to serve as its foundation and structure over time. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The judge initially assigned the responsibility of writing the judgment of the Court has lost the votes 150 times since 1984. This paper will consider this block of cases, name the winners and losers, and identify the most significant cases. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies typically find that women know less about politics than do men. This gender gap in political knowledge has defied explanation. Feminist scholars have argued that these findings reflect gender-biased measures that implicitly treat politics as synonymous with the traditional arenas of electoral and legislative politics, and thus underestimate women's political knowledge. This paper provides a more encompassing evaluation of women's political knowledge by introducing a novel series of items that tap practical knowledge of government services and benefits as well. We use data from a telephone survey of residents of Canada's two largest cities to address three key questions. First, how do women and men compare on this type of practical political knowledge? Does the gender gap reverse, as the feminist critique would imply? Second, how is practical political knowledge distributed: are the women who most need this information the most likely to possess it or is it subject to the same social biases as conventional political knowledge? Third, does expanding our notion of what constitutes political knowledge also broaden our understanding of who is knowledgeable? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties are often portrayed as having a limited ability to influence policy-making. This paper examines the policy capacity of political parties in Canada in relation to their ability to propose distinct policies of their own choosing and design to the electorate and in relation to the concept of the electoral mandate. It demonstrates that decisions as to what to include in election policy platforms are shaped to some degree by existing institutional arrangements and the policy environment, but that the key factor influencing policy content is the strategic actions and decisions of parties themselves. In particular, parties have established the key boundaries of policy debate in Canada and have altered the focus of electoral policy debate through tactical considerations, by what they perceive as the appropriate course of events or by attempting to position themselves in such a way so as to appeal to the broader electorate, including through the use of "wedge" politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine the ways justices of the Supreme Court of Canada address and decide cases that specifically impact women. Non-unanimous gender-related cases decided by the Lamer III Court (1992-1997) are analyzed using principal components analysis in order to determine the number of dimensions underlying the justices' decisions in this area of case law. Then, non-unanimous gender-related cases decided by the Court between 1984 and 2000 are examined using logistic regression. I compare judicial behavior using a traditional liberal-conservative model with behavior using a gender-outcome model. In both models, legal variables as well as attitudinal variables as influences on decision-making are examined. The findings suggest that a traditional liberal-conservative approach does not fully explain decision-making by justices in this particular issue area. A gender-outcome approach performs slightly better in explaining the primary dimensionality of decisions. Decisions in gender-related cases are best explained not by traditional measures of ideology, but rather, by justice gender, legal approach, and victim status. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, growing interest has been shown toward the identification of political and economic determinants of Canadian provincial public expenditures and deficits. Public revenues on the other hand have received much less attention. The objective of our paper is to address this issue. We will undertake a cross-sectional time series empirical analysis of revenue variations observed in the ten Canadian provinces. We test a number of hypotheses, including the effect of partisan and the electoral cycles, globalization, demographic structure, public debt and federal transfers. We examine total revenues as well as taxes levied on personal and corporate income and consumption taxes. Our analysis covers the 1965-2003 period. We find support for the partisan and electoral hypotheses as well as the impact of federal transfers, but mixed results for the effect of globalization and demographic needs. We find no evidence that the public debt influences public revenues variations. Our results also show that the influence of some explanations is not constant over time. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares recent court decisions regarding alien detention in three countries. It is a case study that explores the effects of international forces on courts, and examines ways in which comparative constitutionalism can illuminate the dynamics of immigration policy. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been considerable debate within federal states about the appropriate role of the federal government in setting national standards. The question of jurisdiction has been a prominent issue with respect to environmental policy, and drinking water, more specifically. For example, concerned citizens and environmental organizations such as the Sierra Legal Defense Fund (2001) have called on the Canadian federal government to issue national standards pointing to the American Safe Drinking Water Act as a benchmark. The centralized American system wherein the federal government effectively regulates states through coercive legal and financial threats is in sharp contrast to the Canadian decentralized model of each province setting its own standards. This important difference between the Canadian and US federal systems presents an opportunity to empirically examine the implications of these two contrasting federalisms. What happens when governments regulate governments within a federal state? The study of regulatory federalism with respect to drinking water policies can shed new light on intergovernmental relations as well as implementation challenges. This paper examines intergovernmental relations at both federal-state and federal-municipal, as well as state-municipal levels. Using a public choice framework and comparative case study methodology the paper examines the hypothesis that while intergovernmental relations will be worse in a top-down model, a regulatory federalism framework in which one level of government regulates another offers better protection for public health. The expectation is that when governments regulate governments, the government being regulated behaves akin to a private actor facing unwanted regulation evidenced, for example, by a focus on economic costs rather than social benefits. As state governments have more resources to protect and more votes to lose, they can be expected to act more adversely to regulation than local governments, though local governments may take on some characteristics of private actors. Finally, safe drinking water quality outcomes depend on the degree to which governments are held accountable in a principle-agent relationship. The six case studies involve three paired Canada-US groupings: (1) Vancouver, British Columbia and Seattle, Washington; (2) Nanaimo, British Columbia and Longview, Washington; and (3) Abbottsford, British Columbia and Whatcom County, Washington. Cases have been paired based on their source waters, population sizes, industries, etcetera, and their variation in governance model with the border as the point of difference via differing federal and provincial regulations. The six case studies fit within a larger research agenda that examines safe drinking water policies in two federal states, Canada and the United States of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate and compare the impact of the autism narrative construction on federal autism policy in the United States and Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the role of issue ownership in individual vote choice in the 1997 & 2000 Canadian federal elections. As a correction to the original model, we find that issue ownership's effect on vote is conditional upon the salience of the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that the value of party labels as heuristic devices depends on individual perceptions of party reputation, including cognition and affect. We test our theory using data collected from university students in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prime Ministers use counter-cyclical reshuffles of ministers and bureaucrats to undercut a variety of agency losses. This argument is tested against data on the Canadian cabinet and civil service from 1950-2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart have recently theorized that post-industrial societies are experiencing a gender realignment: where women were once to the right of men, they are now to their left. Canada is a prime example of the emergence of this “modern gender gap”. In the two most recent federal elections, women were more likely than men to vote for the party of the left, whereas men were more likely than women to vote for the party of the new right. As such, Canada provides a particularly suitable site for examining the impact of social networks on the gender gap in vote choice. There are at least two reasons to anticipate that the composition of women’s social networks will affect their choice of party. First, Susan Carroll has pointed to the importance of women’s autonomy for the expression of their political difference from men. Women who enjoy psychological independence from traditional sex-role socialization are more likely to vote for parties of the left. Psychological independence tends to go hand in hand with economic independence, but even women who are economically dependent may enjoy enhanced autonomy if they have access to networks that include a range of women who do enjoy such independence. Second, the composition of social networks may influence political preferences. Those with ties to a relatively wide range of women are more likely to get messages reinforcing the sorts of views that women tend to favour. Conversely, men with diverse ties to other members of their own sex are more likely to take positions that tend to be typical of men. Accordingly, we should expect to find the widest gender gaps among women and men who have the largest number of same-sex social ties. These hypotheses will be tested using data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study. The study includes measures of network diversity, as well as a wide range of attitudinal and social background variables. It will thus be possible to determine whether the composition of social networks has an influence on the gender gap in vote choice, net of other structural and situational variables that have been associated with the emergence of the modern gender gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1994, the Canadian government was one of the most responsive in the world in terms of responding to the problem of violence against women. Over two decades, the government adopted many innovative and proactive policies that have become models for other nations looking for ways to address such violence. This distinctive pattern of response to violence against women was a product of a dynamic relationship between strong, autonomous, women’s movements and well-positioned and funded women’s policy agencies (Weldon, 2002) After 1994, however, a key women’s policy agency was dismantled, an agency that had worked as a critical link between women’s movements and government. This move signaled a symbolic and substantive movement away from a government policy focused on equality and citizenship rights for women as defined by women themselves, to a more top-down, gender-neutral model of service provision and maintenance of law and order. This shift has been largely driven by a neo-liberal economic agenda that has motivated governments to cutback on spending for social programs, privatize government programs, and translate entitlements into services for needy clients. In the last ten years, this shift has undermined many of the important improvements that the federal and provincial governments made in the area of combating violence against women. Although this policy shift can be detected in the language and focus of the policies themselves, it is most evident in the way these policies are implemented. All women, but especially poor women and women of colour, are having an increasingly hard time obtaining fair treatment from the criminal justice system and social service agencies. Indeed, many women increasingly experience such agencies as punitive, controlling bodies, who are likely to re-victimize them with insensitive questions and insulting attitudes, take their children, arrest them, and invade their privacy The emerging evidence suggests that women are increasingly less likely to leave abusive situations and that this policy shift may actually be resulting in increasing violence against women. International agencies have gone from citing Canadian programs as models to expressing concern about recent trends. This trend can be reversed by moving towards a model that places government action on violence against women at the center of a comprehensive, participatory program for working towards women’s substantive equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the problem with the current visa policy, which is the lack of a third type of temporary resident visa for international tourists. The six months single-entry visa and the longer period multiple-entry visa have become obstacles for international visitors to Canada from Detroit. The application fee is too expensive for tourists who wish to stay in the country for a short period of time. Thus, there is a need for a new type of tourist visa, which can be issued only in border cities such as Detroit (that allow a single-entry for just a one-week or ten-day visit). Due to its international airport and location adjacent to Canada, Detroit should be more attractive to international visitors. It is a gateway not only to regional tourist attractions, but also to attractions in Canada. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, international tourism to the U.S. is increasing steadily. Detroit can develop its tourism industry and further its revitalization plan by targeting the fastest growing tourism market such as China. Bringing more visitors means more investment in the city, new jobs, and diverse economic sources. This paper also provides the practices of a similar city and discusses cross-border security. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period between 1998 and 2008 witnessed more switches in party affiliation amond elected officials in Canada than any other period in Canadian history. The incidence of floor crossing was not simply the result of the formation of a new political party of the right but is evident across the political spectrum..x000d.This paper examines the causes of this new era of free agency in Canadian politics. Based on data collected on members of parliament and provincial assemblies, the paper argues that key indicators of floor crossing include political ambition, a lack of clear ideological grounding of political parties, and the decreasing role of parties in political life. It is further argued that floor crossing has contributed to the increasing cynicism among Canadian voters. .x000d.The paper concludes by suggesting that rules to limit the timing of floor crossing may go a long way to addressing public cynicism about the more obvious political ambition of elected officials. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade there has been a proliferation of research on the relationship between diversity and redistributive social welfare policy. In conceptualizing the independent variable, diversity, the paper argues for distinctions between diversity as richness and diversity as evenness. In the dependent variable, redistributive welfare policy, the paper argues for looking beyond measures of generalized trust and spending on welfare to measures such as labor market policy and electoral reform. In terms of causal mechanisms, the paper argues for looking as well at the organizational capacity of the minority groups and policy framing. The usefulness of such concepts are demonstrated by looking at the case of Australia in the early 20th century which faced considerable diversity in that 20 percent of its population was Catholic, a minority population stigmatized by many Protestants. Yet up to the 1930s, Australia was one of the most progressive nations in the world, with considerable unionization, electorally successful labor parties, compulsory voting, and high levels of social welfare spending, while simultaneously raising Catholics to levels of political representation never before seen in Australian history. Brief comparisons with the United States and Canada are drawn. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic and political integration are features of North America and European politics. North America integration has evolved since the Free Trade Agreement through NAFTA to the Security and Prosperity Partnership. In post-war Europe, integration has developed primarily through the European Union. Critics have attacked both projects on a number of different levels. At their most extreme, critics oppose the very existence of integration. This paper examines this critique of North American integration in Canada and compares it with British criticism of European integration. The paper examines the critics and their arguments. The paper then seeks to account for differences in the criticism and the critics. The paper argues that in both settings the critics assert that integration threatens their country’s sovereignty and ultimately its continued existence. A major difference, however, is that Canadian critics are found predominantly on the political left. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, the view that the European Union threatens British sovereignty is most often found on the right, as for example in the platform of the UK Independence Party. The paper presents some preliminary explanations for this difference. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Cold War, a variety of actors embraced the concept of “human security” in an explicit effort to redefine security policy in the international system. Defined in a 1994 UNDP report as “safety from chronic threats…[and] protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life.” Using content analysis of international news media from 1992-2006, this paper examines the trajectory of an idea through the international system. This analysis traces the development, diffusion, and â€" over time in some geographic regions â€" the decline of human security’s usage. To examine this overarching trend, I analyze the sources and geographic regions of articles discussing human security, the actors articulating the concept, and the issues and actions labeled with the human security frame. I then examine trends in human security usage in Canada and Thailand â€" two early promoters of the concept. By employing the language of “human security,” actors signal a shared analytic frame, an alternative to the conceptualization of security as national security. This paper offers a novel empirical study, shedding new light on the sources, spread, and ultimately the prospects for one central concept among observers and policymakers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rules governing the choice of Canada's prime minister are obscure; it would seem that the prime minister is simply the leader who holds the most seats in the House of Commons. However, the constitutionality of the choice of prime minister is actually much more complicated, and involves principles such as the rule of law, responsible and representative government, and the need for effective government. Although rarely ever called upon to exercise such judgement, ultimately (and theoretically) the choice is made by Canada's governor general. This paper outlines the constitutional rules governing the choice of prime minister, in particular those that apply when no one party holds a majority in the House of Commons. The paper raises several issues as to whether the current configuration of the office of governor general provides the appropriate political authority for choosing a prime minuster were there ever to be a challenge or uncertainty as to who should be chosen. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]