The article first presents the broad outlines of a recent work of the author. It shows that Social Credit was a movement long before it became a political party, a fact which offers the opportunity to present a brief history of the Social Credit phenomenon in Quebec. This political movement is defined as a protest movement, and its ideology is that of the right in the sense that it makes its appeal particularly to conservatism, with a view to preserving a social and economic order threatened with disappearance. One can distinguish three phases in the evolution of the movement: a mobilization phase, a consolidation phase and a phase of institutionalization. For each of these phases there is a corresponding type of leader. Moreover factionalism acts as the catalyst of change of the movement from one phase to another. The last part of the article presents and discusses the recent developments of Social Credit in Canada and in Quebec. Two different choices appear to be available to the party: to radicalize its appeal as a movement of right-wing protest, or to modernize its ideology in such a way as to become a moderate party of the centre right. Finally the Creditiste phenomenon is examined as a particular species of a broader genus which would include the Parti Québécois as well. One could therefore apply to the latter the same type of analysis that was applied to the Creditiste phenomenon.

To many political scientists the stuff of the discipline is supposed to be the delineation and comparison of power and influence relationships. Yet I doubt that we have really progressed very far in our empirical analysis of such phenomena; and indeed empirical studies, especially those conducted in the field, or in the “real” world, which have actually demonstrated influence relationships or tested formulations, seem to have lagged far behind the conceptual part of the enterprise. As one leading formulation puts it, one actor has influence over another actor in so far as he can change his behaviour (opinions, etc.) or get him to do something he would not otherwise do. Even to demonstrate that in any given setting certain actors have more influence and others less, let alone to explain the finding convincingly or to attempt comparisons with other settings, requires careful measurement of the motives, skills, and resources of both influencers and influencees. The requirements are very demanding, of course, and it is no wonder that empirical research has not been able to portray and explain the full reciprocal nature of influence relationships. The concession made to the conceptual and empirical difficulties of the problem seems to have been to examine only one of the actors, or half of the relationship; and in practice this seems to have worked out to be a concentration more on the influential than on the influenced. At times it seems that we have been enthralled simply by the thought of having discovered the influence-wielder, and that we have forgotten that there must also be others who are influence-recipients. As a hopeful correction to this one-sided treatment of influence relationships, and also simply to present some evidence on a topic that needs more documentation, my intention in this paper is to examine those influenced in local politics.

The intensive use of paid time and space in mass media by political parties and candidates during electoral campaigns in Western democracies has given rise to the widespread opinion that advertising expenditures can and do influence the outcome of the voting process. If this were indeed so it could be argued that parties and candidates with rich coffers might, at least in some measure, buy their way into seats of power by lavish outlay on advertising. The continuous debate in Canada and other democratic countries on the desirability of limiting campaign funds attests to the importance of this issue.

Sometime between 30 October 1972 and the spring of 1973, the government led by the Rt. Hon. Pierre Trudeau, with fewer than half the members of the House of Commons belonging to the Liberal party, discovered that, unless it was prepared to use maps based on the 1961 census, one of the courses not immediately available to it was the dissolution of Parliament and the calling of another general election. The handicap (and it must also have particularly affected the strategy of the New Democratic party), was not for any constitutional reason; nor was it based on the possibility that the governor general might refuse the prime minister a dissolution. That possibility existed, although no one in the cabinet or Commons appears to have recognized it. Eugene Forsey concluded years ago, after his exhaustive study of the prerogatives governing dissolution: “Even where a great new issue of public policy has arisen, the Crown would be justified in refusing dissolution if Supply had not been voted, or a redistribution or franchise Act had not yet had time to come into operation, provided an alternative Government could be found, or provided the issue was not one which brooked no delay, e.g. a mandate for the despatch of troops overseas.” Two of the conditions noted by Dr Forsey three decades ago existed in 1972–3: a redistribution act had not yet had time to come into operation, and an alternative government could be found.

Normally in political studies the term public policy is construed to encompass the societally binding directives issued by a society's legitimate government. We usually consider government, and only government, as being able to “authoritatively allocate values.” This common conception pervades the literature on government policy-making, so much so that it is hardly questioned by students and practitioners of political science. As this note attempts to demonstrate, some re-thinking seems to be in order. For purposes of analysis in the social sciences, this conceptualization of public policy tends to obscure important realities of modern corporate society and to restrict unnecessarily the study of policy-making. Public policy is held to be public simply and solely because it originates from a duly legitimated government, which in turn is held to have the authority (within specified limits) of formulating and implementing such policy. Public policy is public then, our usual thinking goes, because it is made by a body defined somewhat arbitrarily as “public”: a government or some branch of government. All other policy-making is seen as private; it is not public (and hence to lie essentially beyond the scope of the disciplines of poliitcal science and public administration) because it is duly arrived at by non-governmental bodies. Thus policy analysts lead us to believe that public policy is made only when a government body acts to consider some subject of concern, and that other organizations are not relevant to the study of public policy.

Contemporary political science is increasingly interested in the problem of empirical measurement and at various times researchers need scales to measure political attitudes and behaviour. In this process the Canadian political scientist is faced with two alternatives: (1) he can develop new scales, or (2) he can use existing measures from the literature which in most cases mean using scales empirically developed and used in the United States.