Cybernetic analysis is part of the systems approach and has been used by several authors to study governmental policies or public decisions. Nevertheless, the way in which it is used in this article is different from preceding attempts. Regulation by feedback is considered as being complex rather than simple; positive feedback seems neither exceptional nor pathological, and great emphasis is placed on power relations in the phenomena of regulation by feedback through which government policies are formed.

The presentation of different sub-systems of the cybernetic model and of different types of regulation by feedback are illustrated by examples touching on the adjustment of electoral boundaries. In the last part of the article, the first results of research bearing on the sector of social affairs and on that of energy serve to underline three characteristics of the cybernetic analysis of government policies as proposed in this article: the key role that it gives regulation by feedback, its particular attention to the unexpected consequences of action, and its insistence on the phenomena of communication as essential to action.

Politique agricole et résultats électoraux en milieu agricole au Québec

The purpose of this article is to assess the degree to which the agricultural policy of the Quebec government influences the provincial vote in rural areas. More precisely, does the pro-government vote shift as a result of the short-term economic impact of agricultural policy? This general hypothesis is broken down into four specific hypotheses. The unit of analysis is the agricultural locality, that is, one in which at least 50 per cent of the population lives on a farm. The analysis bears on the voting shifts in the elections of I960, 1962, 1966, 1970 and 1973.

Two of the hypotheses are clearly invalid. The other two are confirmed for the election of 1966 but not for the election of 1973. The agricultural policy of the provincial government seems, therefore, to have an electoral impact only under certain conditions. It becomes clear that only policy changes effected a short time before an election, and that involve programmes with a highly visible economic impact, can strongly influence the vote.

In addition, we find that the pro-government vote varies according to the very short-term rise and fall in the price of the main product found in each locality. The federal policy of price support for agricultural products is equally a voting determinant in certain elections; in fact, some unpopular decisions of the federal government are turned against the provincial government. In summary, electoral results are strongly influenced by very short-term economic circumstances, whether the government is responsible for them or not.

In the crisis that pervades Western Marxism, the question of the party and its relation to the masses occupies a central position. This article critically examines the Leninist conception of party, specifying those intrinsic limits which are linked to the theoretical and political context of the period in which it was elaborated. The authors raise the problem of the development of class consciousness and criticize the Leninist principle of the external character of class consciousness.

This theory in which the party is conceived as the master-thinker and theoretical guide of a proletariat dominated by its material conditions of existence rests on an epistemological justification: the theory of reflection. The authors retrace in Lenin's theory of knowledge the philosophical foundations of this conception which makes the party the mediator\bearer of the historical truth of the proletariat. In fact, for Lenin, the lack of consciousness of the working class is explained by its inability to pass beyond its class determination and to rise to a comprehension of contradiction. It is precisely by reason of this deep-seated narrowness of the working class that the party is indispensable in bringing knowledge of society in its totality to the proletariat.

A consequence of this theory of knowledge is to separate arbitrarily what is conceptualized and what exists, that is to say on one hand a knowledge produced and retained by intellectuals, and on the other a working class delivered over to a blind spontaneity, to ignorance. This position, taken to its extreme, can justify all forms of authoritarianism and elitism.

Radio-Québec, or the Office de Radio-Télédiffusion du Québec, was founded by the Quebec government in 1969 as an educational television service. This meant that it was parallel, in some respects, to the Ontario Educational Communications Authority or to the “ETV” stations of the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States. It was also perceived (within Quebec) as an historic affirmation of Quebec's constitutional rights in the field of broadcasting.

These notes are replies to criticisms that have been made over the years of my essay, “Conservatism, Liberalism and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation,” which originally appeared in the Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 32 (1966), 143–71.

What might be expected of the Canadian press, and of comment about the Canadian press, in a referendum on Quebec independence? This article does not seek directly to confront that question: it is exclusively about the contribution of the British press to Britain's referendum in June 1975 on her membership in the European Economic Community. Obviously the circumstances of that referendum were quite different from one about Quebec: unlike Premier Lévesque's proposal, for example, it was held across the whole nation, and opinions differed as widely within the parties and their leaderships as between them. But the article's contention—that referenda tend to put in doubt the legitimacy of the press at the same time as giving them an even more central role than in election campaigns—seems applicable to the Canadian situation and perhaps to referenda in general. To draw out the comparison fully, however, would require a familiarity with Quebec politics (and with the precedent of the 1942 conscription plebiscite) that is far beyond this author's competence. This note attempts simply to argue the case by illustration from the isolated British example.