Political scientists have approached the study of administrative organizations with widely divergent purposes and modes of analysis. The early studies in this field were suffused with a desire to improve administrative institutions. Attention was centred on the “problems” of administrative accountability, red tape and inertia, administrative efficiency, and the public's low estimation of government service. Emphasis in these early studies was placed on the description of formal institutions and arrangements, since these arrangements, rather than informal behavioural patterns, were amenable to reform. This approach still characterizes the great body of literature on “public administration” in all western countries.

In the 1930s and 1940s some American political scientists began to focus their analysis on the “leadership” or “political” behaviour of top-level administrators. Rejecting the notion that public administration could be studied or taught apart from the general concerns of political science, this approach viewed administration as simply one phase in the political process. Emphasis was shifted from the internal aspects of administrative organizations to the environmental or “political” problems of these organizations. Emphasis was shifted from reform to value-free, neutral analysis. This “administrative politics” approach developed at the same time as the “behavioural revolution” in American political science and applied many aspects of that revolution to the study of public administration.

The author wishes to show that there is a political dimension to rational action—a dimension which can be expressed in terms of the power which its possessors exert on one another. This power constrains their decisions, and may he said to limit the rationality of their action, in the same way that lack of information and conflict of values hinder rational action. This dimension is absent from economic theories of rationality, especially from the theory of games. But political man cannot be treated in terms of existing notions of economic rationality, even when these are enlarged—that is to say, enfeebled—as in the work of Downs. The reason is that the power of one man over another is inherent in politics. This power must be integrated into our idea of political rationality. The solution can be found through Dahl's formula for the measurement of one man's power over another.

The author extends Dahl's formula to cover cases in which several persons exert power over each other. After identifying sixteen “rules of power” which define all possible positions in a game where each of two persons has two alternatives, he investigates various situations with the aid of these rules, showing that conventional game theory must be modified when some players compete with one another, or when they co-operate.

The ideas of power, and of rules of power, are said to be useful for a more rigorous political science, which could be divided into “macro-politics” and “micro-politics.” The concluding paragraphs of the paper contain definitions and explorations of these two terms.

Canada had a flexible exchange rate from October 2, 1950, to May 2, 1962. Many observers have commented on the stability of the Canadian exchange rate during this period and have discussed the significance of the Canadian experience for the general debate on fixed v. flexible exchange rates. The purpose of this article is not to enter this debate directly, but rather to document the facts on stability and to examine two possible reasons for it.

Using daily data on the US/Canadian exchange rate, measures of the stability of the rate are presented in section I. In section II tests of the hypothesis that speculators were a stabilizing force are conducted, and an affirmative conclusion reached. Finally, in section III the argument is made that much of the stability may have been a result of the generally parallel courses of the Canadian and United States economies in the years from 1950 to 1962.

1965 was one of the worst years for the United Nations. Its prestige was low; its critics were vocal. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, few world leaders were ready to say that the organization was useless or even in real danger of dissolution. President Johnson's appointment of Mr. Justice Goldberg as UN ambassador- and Mr. Goldberg's acceptance of the position-were among many indications of agreement that the United Nations has something more than ceremonial significance. Of course, the mere continuing existence of any international organization, even the most rudimentary and technically oriented kind, may do good and is unlikely to do harm. The more optimistic will see a developing world community, and, if such a thing is emerging, the United Nations surely has some share in the process. This paper would like to suggest that, apart from any hopes for the future, the United Nations performs a unique and important function for the world to today. Such a tough-minded national leader as Lyndon Johnson, concerned before all else with national self-interest, has indicated his awareness that the organization has a real contribution to make for his nation.

One of the most interesting periods of Canadian economic history is that which encompasses the years 1890 to 1929. During this period, the prairie provinces were largely settled, new staple exports emerged, and regional interdependence increased. Any explanation of national economic growth over these years, then, necessarily involves an examination of the different responses among regions to these new sources of growth. In essence, we are asking the question: what is the relation between the spatial reallocation of economic activity and the growth of the Canadian economy over this period? To answer this question and to look at some of its implications, regional (provincial) gross-value-added estimates for selected years were made.

Regional estimates of gross value added were made for the years 1890, 1910, and 1929. These three years were chosen to satisfy, as closely as possible, the condition that they represent a similar level of economic activity at each point of time. These years were chosen since they are all years of relatively high economic activity. The first two years faced the additional constraint that they had to coincide with census dates. The choice of years of high level economic activity was made in order to avoid biases in the trend rates of growth which would arise if the initial and terminal dates were at different phases of the business cycle. For example, if the initial year coincided with a year of high unemployment and the terminal year low unemployment, then an upward bias in growth rates might have occurred. Initial and terminal dates chosen at the trough of business cycles would also have avoided this potential slope bias.

On March 9, 1964, the Hon. J. W. Pickersgill moved in the House of Commons the second reading of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Bill, a step of major constitutional importance which not only made provision for the first redistribution of Canadian federal constituencies since 1952, but provided that, for the first time, this task of redistribution would be taken out of the hands of parliamentary committees and entrusted to independent representation commissions. All this was long overdue and there was broad, if not unanimous, agreement that the creation of impartial representation commissions was a desirable reform. As Mr. Pickersgill said in the House next day:

The first and by far the most important of these [principles] was that we should not follow the pattern that had been followed in the first ninety years since Confederation, of having the readjustment of representation in this place done in this place by its members directly, but that it should be done by some body which would be as impartial as we in our collective ingenuity could provide and who would be as competent as we could find means to provide through legislation and subsequent appointment.

In an earlier article, it was noted that a change in automotive policy might possibly meet the approval of both protectionists and free traders: the change might lead both to an increase in the volume of domestic production of the item in question, and to a decrease in the total excess costs of production. (In the event of both these results being achieved, the percentage decrease in per unit excess cost would of necessity be greater than the decrease in total excess costs.) This paper evaluates the probable effects of the US-Canadian automotive agreement of 1965 on the basis of these two criteria. In addition, the distribution of efficiency gains from this agreement will be discussed. Equity is an obvious consideration here, and there is also some question whether the division of gains may jeopardize the competitive position of the Canadian industry after 1968.