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This paper approaches the issue of the role of urbanization in American political development from a comparative-historical perspective. By comparing the role of urbanization in Canadian political development with that of the United States, we gain valuable new insight into the different roles cities can and do play in the erection of jurisdictional power between national and sub-national political domains. As centers of economic and political activity, cities play a crucial - but variable - role in national networks of prominence and power. Historically, this resulted in a disproportionate role for urban elites in Canadian and American national development. Given the incremental, local nature of 19th century American state formation, the current provincial-federal relationship in Canada might at first appear surprising, for example. The origins, and ultimate failure of, the American "states' rights" movement is equally surprising. The United States is both a less "urban" and more politically centralized society than Canada. Its origins, too, lie in the past. When Congress "nationalized" the near-west (trans-Appalachia), federal government took jurisdictional reign over what would be the majority of the nation's new state governments. American municipal governments were similarly subjugated to state jurisdiction, often via the Army and state guards. In Canada, city dwellers were both more powerful and their city governments were more autonomous in the scope and size of programs under their purview. In America, in sum, rural constituents exert inordinate power at the federal level via Congress, and particularly the Senate; Canadian federal government is more beholden to the provincial governments, which serve largely at the behest of their urban constituents. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the theory and practice of federalism in Canada and compares it with American federalism. It states that Canada's decision to adopt the Charter of Rights influenced federalism in the same fashion as the U.S.' incorporation of the Bill of Rights into the 14th amendment. It examines the functions of the Canadian Charter and how it transformed unpopular policies to the minority claims.

Due to universal health care coverage, it is hypothesized that Canada will have less of a rural/urban disparity in health outcomes compared to the United States. It is also hypothesized that Canada's decentralized, executive federalism offers more opportunity for public action to address rural health if the political will is present. The evidence reveals that the rural/urban disparity on many health outcomes is just as significant in Canada as in the United States. Regarding public action, Canada has not had a significant federal presence in rural health issues due to the lack of executive will at the federal level. The United States has more public action at the federal level but the policy is fragmented. Subnational governments play an important role in shaping rural health, but more so in the Canadian provinces. It is concluded that the similarities in rural health outcomes and public reaction between the two countries is largely a function of the rural social and economic environment in which the respective federal systems operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the unintended but inevitable consequences of federal constitutions is the creation of transboundary waters, river basins that are shared among multiple states/provinces, and, in some cases, other countries, as well. The existence of transboundary waters creates difficulties for the riparian governments sharing them because they are locked in a common pool situation in which each government faces simultaneous and contradictory incentives: in their own interests, they are motivated to secure access to resource flows, but, in the collective interest, they must also conserve the resource stock. Managing such a situation requires collective action, and much has been written about the factors that are important in facilitating such collective action, such as the importance of shared interests, mutual trust, and the enforceability of intergovernmental commitments. However, in many basins there is a long history of intergovernmental cooperation in water management, and this history, in itself, has become an important factor shaping more recent water management efforts. Early efforts at transboundary water management focused mostly on either water apportionment or dispute resolution, and these early water management regimes have proven strongly path dependent, shaping more recent management efforts that have focused on water conservation. In other words, early institutional choices in transboundary water management, when water conservation was not a priority, have shaped transboundary conservation regimes now that water conservation is a priority, pointing to the importance of institutional path dependency as a factor in shaping intergovernmental cooperation. This argument is explored through a comparison of four distinct transboundary river basins in Australia, the United States and Canada. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How national governments interface with the IT industry can have an important influence upon the delivery of government IT projects, which in most advanced industrial countries will account for at least 1 per cent of GDP. Looking across seven countries (the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and Japan) we characterize the power of the IT industry in terms of three variables: patterns of contractual relations, the largest firms? market and technical dominance, and the extent to which government retains IT expertise or ?intelligent customer? capabilities. We assess the performance of government IT in terms of three factors: the extent of catastrophic project failures or cancellations, indications of the price competitiveness of government IT contracts, and the relative modernization of government IT compared with the private sector nationally. Using a ?fuzzy-set social science? approach we argue that an overall index of corporate power viz a viz central governments shows a clear negative association with government IT performance. Where governments are weakly placed in relation to powerful IT corporations, long-run performance outcomes are less satisfactory. Our cases also illuminate the different ways in which governments can ensure and maintain more balanced relationships with the IT industry, which in turn will foster better long-run results in the design and operations of government IT systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]