There is mounting evidence that the public's political decisional processes are heterogeneous (Rivers, 1988; Sniderman, Brody & Tetlock, 1991; and Johnston, Blais, Gidengil & Nevitte, 1996). All citizens do not reason the same way about politics: they rely on different considerations, or they give different weights to similar considerations. However, our understanding of this phenomenon remains sketchy, in many regards. I address the conceptual and empirical ambiguity by exploring the nature, the sources, the extent, the consequences, and the campaign dynamics of interpersonal heterogeneity in political decision-making. The analysis relies on Canadian and American public opinion survey data. The evidence reveals that heterogeneity is a very important phenomenon. Relationships between dependent and explanatory variables are rarely stable and consistent across the entire population. Most political decisions (especially the more common ones) and most independent variables exhibit interpersonal diversity in coefficient strength. Hypothesis-testing and explanationbuilding can be led astray if researchers limit their analyses to the whole citizenry. Normatively, heterogeneity is responsible for individual and aggregate deviations from enlightened preferences. Heterogeneity, however, is a very complex phenomenon. One can not deal with it in any simple way. A researcher can not simply capture it, take it into account, and move on to other concerns. Heterogeneity permeates through our models of political behaviour in significant, pervasive and perplexing ways. This research raises concerns about the complexity of political behaviour and our ability to understand citizens, campaigns, elections, and democracy. The world is not a simple, straightforward and easily comprehensible subject. It is much more intricate and difficult to grasp than we currently believe. In order to understand reality, our approaches, theories, and models need to be as complex and multidimensional as reality. Striving for oversimplification can only lead to misconceptions and fallacies.

While Canada is often called a pluralist state, there are no sustained studies by political scientists in which aboriginal self-government is discussed specifically in terms of the analytical tradition of pluralist thought. Aboriginal self-government is usually discussed as an issue of cultural preservation or national self-determination. Aboriginal identity is framed in terms of cultural and national traits that are unique to an aboriginal community and selfgovernment is taken to represent the aboriginal communal desire to protect and preserve those traits. Is such an understanding of what motivates aboriginal self-government accurate, or does it yield an incomplete understanding of the complex phenomenon that aboriginal selfgovernment in Canada represents? The political tradition of pluralism allows for analysis of aboriginal self-government that addresses questions left unattended by the cultural and nationalist frameworks. Pluralism is often viewed as a public arrangement in which distinct groups are given room to live side by side, characterized by mutual recognition and affirmation. At the same time, there are different faces of pluralist theory and each addresses questions about the recognition and affirmation of aboriginal self-government in different ways. Those three contemporary faces can be distinguished by the labels communitarian, individualist, and relational. The major hypothesis advanced is that aboriginal self-government is better understood if an "identification" perspective on aboriginal identity is adopted as opposed to a "cultural" or "national" one and if that perspective is linked to a relational theory of pluralism as opposed to a communitarian or individualist one. The identification approach examines aboriginal identity not in terms of cultural and political traits, but in terms of identification with, and political commitment to, an aboriginal community. Relational pluralism in turn, examines the challenge of aboriginal self-government in terms of power differences within aboriginal communities and between aboriginal and Canadian governments. Applying these approaches to aboriginal politics in Canada confirms their suitability. Contrary to what previous scholarship has assumed, aboriginal self-government should not be seen primarily as a tool to preserve cultural and national differences as goods in and of themselves. The politics of aboriginal self-government should be seen as involving demands to equalize current imbalances in power so that aboriginal communities and the individuals within them can construct aboriginal identities according to their own design.

This paper will attempt to explore the history and function of judical disagreement behaviour using information from both the Canadian Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court. The evolution of national high court decision making, highlights the changing role of courts within the political and public spheres, as well as the increasing authority courts have over policy. This changing role reinforces the need to study the role of courts on law. I will use minority opinions from the Laskin and Dickson courts to study what disagreement reveals about the decision making process. Judicial disagreement has largely been summed up into two deficient stereotypes: the dissent as "serious" disagreement and the separate concurrence as inferior disagreement to the dissent. I will dispel this fallacy by introducing the five categories created to describe a new way of thinking about judicial disagreement and to shatter the old stereotypes. / vii, 149 leaves ; 29 cm.

No description available.

In studying the capacity of Canadian Indians for local government on their reserves two objects are sought. First we wish to show the extent to which Indians are involved in directing the affairs of their communities. Second, we hope to discover where Indians, in comparison with other Canadians, are incapacitated by virtue of their special legal, social and economic status. Research for this study was gleaned from files, publications and records of interviews in the offices of the Indian Affairs Branch of the federal government, provincial departments of municipal affairs and offices of municipal associations in Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver. We begin our study by investigating the reality of local government for non-Indians. Then we look at the capacity of Indians for similar forms of local authority on their reserves. Capacity is examined in terms of legal competence, existing economic and administrative ability to carry out local functions and potential for future development of local government. Non-Indian local government is developed under a complex set of provincial legal and economic controls. Non-Indian municipalities appear to be mainly oriented towards the provision of local services. In contrast Indian local government is developed under the federal legislation of the Indian Act. A flexible interpretation of the Act by federal officials permits the development of local government forms to suit the needs of particular reserves. On the other hand controls exercised by federal officials, along with deficiencies in local economic resources and administrative skills, tend to retard the growth of local government. A possible way for the reduction of differences between Indian and non-Indian capacities would involve the integration of bands and municipalities within a common framework of local government. There is little evidence at present of such integration if measured in terms of transactions between bands and municipalities, common opportunities under federal and provincial programs of grants and joint membership in regional governments and local government associations. A set of alternative courses is considered for Indian communities to follow in the future. We conclude that evolution of local government under the Indian Act seems the most appropriate means by which Indian capacities can be used both to improve local services and to develop non-Indian political skills among Indians. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

While Canada is often called a pluralist state, there are no sustained studies by political scientists in which aboriginal self-government is discussed specifically in terms of the analytical tradition of pluralist thought. Aboriginal self-government is usually discussed as an issue of cultural preservation or national self-determination. Aboriginal identity is framed in terms of cultural and national traits that are unique to an aboriginal community and selfgovernment is taken to represent the aboriginal communal desire to protect and preserve those traits. Is such an understanding of what motivates aboriginal self-government accurate, or does it yield an incomplete understanding of the complex phenomenon that aboriginal selfgovernment in Canada represents? The political tradition of pluralism allows for analysis of aboriginal self-government that addresses questions left unattended by the cultural and nationalist frameworks. Pluralism is often viewed as a public arrangement in which distinct groups are given room to live side by side, characterized by mutual recognition and affirmation. At the same time, there are different faces of pluralist theory and each addresses questions about the recognition and affirmation of aboriginal self-government in different ways. Those three contemporary faces can be distinguished by the labels communitarian, individualist, and relational. The major hypothesis advanced is that aboriginal self-government is better understood if an "identification" perspective on aboriginal identity is adopted as opposed to a "cultural" or "national" one and if that perspective is linked to a relational theory of pluralism as opposed to a communitarian or individualist one. The identification approach examines aboriginal identity not in terms of cultural and political traits, but in terms of identification with, and political commitment to, an aboriginal community. Relational pluralism in turn, examines the challenge of aboriginal self-government in terms of power differences within aboriginal communities and between aboriginal and Canadian governments. Applying these approaches to aboriginal politics in Canada confirms their suitability. Contrary to what previous scholarship has assumed, aboriginal self-government should not be seen primarily as a tool to preserve cultural and national differences as goods in and of themselves. The politics of aboriginal self-government should be seen as involving demands to equalize current imbalances in power so that aboriginal communities and the individuals within them can construct aboriginal identities according to their own design. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

Language has become a central feature of the debate surrounding Canadian identity. The Canadian project is an example of a state struggling to find a means of accommodating linguistic difference. This struggle is epitomized by the language legislation in Quebec as well as by federal bilingualism. Language legislation is ultimately aimed at promoting and protecting identity. An examination of language legislation as promoted by Quebec and the federal government reveals a different orientation toward the concept of equality. Language policy thus presents both a vision of community and a political argument. Federal language policy promotes a vision of Canada in which English and French are juridically equal. Politically, this vision of community denies Quebec is distinct. Quebec's language policy, on the other hand, asserts the importance of protecting Quebecois culture against the majoritarian impulses of a larger Canadian identity. As a result, Quebec's language legislation incorporates Quebec's different position in Canada into a definition of equality. Recognition that Quebec has a right to protect its language is tantamount to an acknowledgement that Quebec is a distinct society in Canada. The language debate thus embodies competing visions of equality that relate to a specific identity. The national unity issue plaguing Canada cannot be resolved through a commitment to equality as similar treatment. The problem of language planning, in Canada, revolves around finding a way to acknowledge and promote the local aspirations of the Quebecois, without creating an inequitable language environment for the English linguistic minority in Quebec. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

There is mounting evidence that the public's political decisional processes are heterogeneous (Rivers, 1988; Sniderman, Brody & Tetlock, 1991; and Johnston, Blais, Gidengil & Nevitte, 1996). All citizens do not reason the same way about politics: they rely on different considerations, or they give different weights to similar considerations. However, our understanding of this phenomenon remains sketchy, in many regards. I address the conceptual and empirical ambiguity by exploring the nature, the sources, the extent, the consequences, and the campaign dynamics of interpersonal heterogeneity in political decision-making. The analysis relies on Canadian and American public opinion survey data. The evidence reveals that heterogeneity is a very important phenomenon. Relationships between dependent and explanatory variables are rarely stable and consistent across the entire population. Most political decisions (especially the more common ones) and most independent variables exhibit interpersonal diversity in coefficient strength. Hypothesis-testing and explanationbuilding can be led astray if researchers limit their analyses to the whole citizenry. Normatively, heterogeneity is responsible for individual and aggregate deviations from enlightened preferences. Heterogeneity, however, is a very complex phenomenon. One can not deal with it in any simple way. A researcher can not simply capture it, take it into account, and move on to other concerns. Heterogeneity permeates through our models of political behaviour in significant, pervasive and perplexing ways. This research raises concerns about the complexity of political behaviour and our ability to understand citizens, campaigns, elections, and democracy. The world is not a simple, straightforward and easily comprehensible subject. It is much more intricate and difficult to grasp than we currently believe. In order to understand reality, our approaches, theories, and models need to be as complex and multidimensional as reality. Striving for oversimplification can only lead to misconceptions and fallacies. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

Canadian foreign policy towards Indonesia during the governments of Louis St. Laurent (1948-57) and John Diefenbaker (1957-63) was conditioned by Canada's place in the North Atlantic alliance, seen as more central to national interests. The most direct Canada-Indonesia connections were forged by non-government "public diplomats." This thesis utilizes the theory of "mental maps" as a way of understanding how diplomats imagined the world. Policymakers1 mental maps gave prominence to Europe and the North Atlantic. Southeast Asia appeared only as a periphery needing to be held for larger "free world" goals. Ottawa viewed Indonesia through the prism of its alliances and multilateral associations. Canadian diplomacy towards Indonesia was often designed to preserve the unity of the North Atlantic alliance. During the Indonesian national revolution, Canadian representatives on the Security Council acted to help their Netherlands allies. They found a compromise solution that helped to prevent splits within the North Atlantic alliance and the Commonwealth. Policymakers were working out a diplomatic self-image: Canada as mediating middle power. This was a process of myth making in which actions taken for alliance reasons were remembered as part of a global peacemaking mission. However, Ottawa avoided involvement in the second Indonesian-Dutch decolonization dispute over West New Guinea (Papua). Development aid also became part of Canada's diplomatic self-perception. Canada sent aid through the Colombo plan, intended to restore global trade and fight the cold war with non-military weapons. Canadian aid to Indonesia was negligible, primarily wheat. While bilateral relations were limited, non-state actors operating within North America-wide networks forged more important connections. Canadian advisers to Indonesia's National Planning Bureau mapped out a development path based on Western models. McGill University's Institute of Islamic Studies promoted the "modernization" of Islam. Indonesia under Sukarno (1945-65) tried to avoid dependence on aid, but welcomed investment by oil companies such as Asamera and bought de Havilland aircraft from Canada. The seeds for the economic policies of Suharto's New Order (1965-98) were sown during this period by Indonesians based in the Planning Bureau and at McGill. Public diplomacy had a more enduring effect than government policy. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

No description available.