The 1981 Kent commission report on newspapers is discussed and contrasted with the MacBride (UNESCO) report. The former assumes that competition is the major safeguard of diversity; the latter, written from the perspective of Third World countries, regards social inequality as the primary obstacle to the free flow of information. Together they reflect contemporary controversies about modernization. Trends toward rationalization, professionalization and autonomy are examined. Neither approach, Kent or MacBride, provides a satisfactory interpretation of Quebec's francophone press. An alternative model based on access is, we suggest, closer to the realities of Canada's changing political culture and class structure.

This article presents the results of a content analysis of the late evening television news during the last days of the 1980 Quebec referendum campaign. The analysis seeks to relate the differences in the political imageries broadcast by the four networks studied: SRC, CBC, TVA and CTV. Previous studies, conducted during periods of political activities less intense than those of the referendum, have already underlined differences between the channels according to their language of broadcast and their ownership. The present analysis allows the networks to be differentiated according to these two factors by considering not only the subjects presented but also some nuances in the presentation of the same theme by different networks.

This article examines the constituency results in recent Ontario provincial elections in order to estimate the impact of incumbency on the percentage of the vote received by each party. Regression results indicate that incumbency had a significant impact in the three elections studied, adding between six and 12 percentage points to the popular vote for the incumbent's party in a given riding. Moreover, these results are robust, persisting overtime and across parties, and not varying significantly for a variety of specifications of the underlying model.

The Canadian Labour Congress' abortive corporatist initiative 1976–1978 is examined. Existing interpretations of the episode are reviewed and an alternative posited. CLC policy represented an attempt to extend the existing localized collective bargaining system to the national level in response to the federal government's shift from macro-economic policy management to more direct forms of economic intervention. The initiative's failure is ascribed to a misreading of government intentions and to an inconsistency between proposals for national corporatism and other, noncorporatist, features of the existing collective bargaining system. Emphasis is placed on the state's role, past and present, in shaping interest group behaviour and in establishing or vetoing corporatism.

After specifying the meanings to be attributed to the analysis of government policies, the author examines in this article the relationships which must exist between the analysis of policies and the analysis of values. Inspired by the works of Rein and Vickers, he concludes that the analysis of policies and of government programmes must necessarily take into account the relationship between the values which underly the collective choices, the instruments reserved for insuring the implementation of these and, finally, the results of applying these instruments. Discussing the particular combination of the decision theories, the author concludes that the policy analyst must consider the rationality of the actor or of the decision-maker within the framework of the steps that the latter takes in order to make choices or reach decisions.

Strikingly innovative developments in brain science during the past two decades, reflecting advances in a dozen different biological disciplines (such as biochemistry, biophysics, endocrinology, neuropsychology, genetics, and human development) have created a new psychobiology that thus far appears to have had only slight impact upon mainstream political science theory and research. This field analysis examines the implications of psychobiology for the study and practice of politics, from the perspective of the founding father of political behaviouralism. The article discusses the psychobiology of mind in terms of human consciousness and memory and then examines the epigenetic and recursive relationships between brain structure and political perception; between brain lateralization and dynamics, and political thinking and decision-making; and between brain development and political equality, with particular regard to sex, age, health, race, and intelligence.

This note argues that, widespread opinion to the contrary, Marx did not make a distinction between a class in itself and a class for itself but between a class against capital and a class for itself. Marx's formulation of a “class against capital” exhibits a political dimension lacking in a “class in itself”; political institutions and arrangements are not simply the instrument or the expression of a pre-existing class structure but rather condition or shape the class structure. The implications of the erroneous attribution to the theoretical understanding of class formation as well as practical politics are explored.