The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the politics of separatism in multinational federations. Switzerland, Canada, and India are investigated in detail. Switzerland is a multinational federation that has not experienced a separatist movement for more than one hundred and fifty years. In Canada, there is a significant separatist movement in the province of Quebec. India has experienced a number of violent secessionist crises in a number of states over the past two decades. The cases thus exhibit a range in the dependent variable (presence or absence of secessionist movements). This study adopts a legal-institutional approach to the problem of secession in multinational federations. This approach marries the classical understanding of federalism as a system of government with divided sovereignty to the more recent state-society and new institutional approaches in political science. Federalism is operationalized around three core institutions: constitutions, intergovernmental fiscal relations, and party systems. These three institutions are situated as the independent variables in the study. The dissertation argues that the institutional structure of federalism is a critical determinant of stability or instability (the presence or absence of secessionism) in multinational federations.

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This study examines ideological discourse in contemporary Egypt. It investigates a number of discourses in terms of the meanings they generate and the role or function they play in the maintenance or transformation of relations of power in society. The analysis is guided by a semiotic view of ideology, that is, ideology understood as a system of representation which operates through language and other signifying practices. / Central to our understanding of the effects of discourse on power relations is the conception of representation as an autonomous level of 'reality' in relation to other levels. The implication of such a conception is that meanings produced in discourse are not to be validated or adequated against the 'real', but are to be analyzed in terms of their interrelations with socio-economic and political structures, and in terms of their appropriation by social forces in positions of struggle. In this sense, it is relevant to look at the rules which govern the formation of the systems of representation; rules which are specific to the discursive formations. Within the framework of this study, the key mechanisms operative in discourse and ideology are validation and interpellation. Throughout the project, attention is paid to the role these mechanisms play in the production of subjects and the construction of subject positions. That is, particular emphasis is put on how ideological interpellations construct or constitute positions of resistance, struggle, domination, acquiesence which are validated or rejected by the receiver. This returns to the process of appropriation of meanings and the functionalization of discourse. / The analysis proceeds through an examination of the narrative and discursive structures of the various discourses under study. It is also concerned with the narrative programs which underlie the discourses as an act or intervention, focusing on the positions of speakers and receivers, the modalization of subject positions and their inscription in relations of power. In treating the Egyptian case, discourses from two socio-political conjunctures are analyzed: one a juncture of populist rupture marked by the consolidation of the revolutionary program, the other a juncture of socio-economic disintegration. / The study examines how the conjunctures manifest themselves in discourse. In this way, an attempt is made to see how the particular conjunctures are marked in the functionalization of certain terms and the imposition of certain ideologemes. The work seeks to demonstrate how this is linked to the appropriation of discourse by social forces. With regard to the first juncture, the discursive and narrative structures which underlie the nationalist discourse are identified. Within the later conjuncture, these structures are revealed in relation to the Islamist discourse, while an analysis of the secular discourse is also carried out. The general objective is to situate the process of the construction of meanings in relation to the socio-economic and political conditions which exist in the particular junctures of discourse production.

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The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the politics of separatism in multinational federations. Switzerland, Canada, and India are investigated in detail. Switzerland is a multinational federation that has not experienced a separatist movement for more than one hundred and fifty years. In Canada, there is a significant separatist movement in the province of Quebec. India has experienced a number of violent secessionist crises in a number of states over the past two decades. The cases thus exhibit a range in the dependent variable (presence or absence of secessionist movements). This study adopts a legal-institutional approach to the problem of secession in multinational federations. This approach marries the classical understanding of federalism as a system of government with divided sovereignty to the more recent state-society and new institutional approaches in political science. Federalism is operationalized around three core institutions: constitutions, intergovernmental fiscal relations, and party systems. These three institutions are situated as the independent variables in the study. The dissertation argues that the institutional structure of federalism is a critical determinant of stability or instability (the presence or absence of secessionism) in multinational federations. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

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This study investigates the phenomenon of ethnic interest groups as domestic sources of influence on the making of foreign policy on a cross-national basis. The attempt is made first to develop a framework for comparing theoretically the role of ethnic groups in various governmental systems. Once completed, the various conceptual assumptions are applied to the activities of domestic ethnic interest groups in the United States and Canada concerned with policy for the Middle East and the Arab-Israel conflict. The focus is primarily on the American and Canadian pro-Israel lobbies during the period between October 1973 and September 1982. Data for domestic Arab ethnic constituencies are also considered where relevant, but more as logical counter-points to the North American Jewish communities than as bases for full and complete cross-ethnic comparison. The principal objective of this study is to compare the political influence of two interest groups of the same faith and fundamental purpose but of different systems of government and political cultures.