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.

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.

In a recent article, “An Environmental Case Against Equality of Right,” Professor Lewis argues for no less than the complete rejection of those highly-prized liberal values upon which much of the institutional framework of Western societies has been built, the values of civil peace, unlimited acquisition, and equality of right. This radical recommendation is urged on the basis of the mundane and, until very recently, much-ignored problem of environmental destruction. Lewis’ environmental case is (1) that equality of right, which is recommended by Hobbes as the necessary condition of civil peace, “logically entails”—and this is clear, he contends, from Locke's use of the concept in the Second Treatise—the right of unlimited appropriation; (2) that unlimited appropriation destroys nature and ultimately man; and (3) that we must consequently rethink our allegiance to unlimited appropriation, to equality of right (because it logically entails unlimited appropriation), and to civil peace (whose necessary condition is equality of right), and be prepared to accept alternative theoretical foundations upon which to reconstruct our major social institutions. While this attack on unlimited acquisition will undoubtedly strike a responsive chord among many social critics, the concomitant rejection of the Hobbesian hope of civil peace and of equality of right will receive a much less hospitable welcome. But the catch in Lewis’ argument is that we cannot get rid of the former without jettisoning the latter two at the same time. If his analysis of this matter is correct, then the costs of preventing the further destruction of nature and the future demise of man are extremely high, much higher than most critics have yet been willing to recognize.

To many Canadians anti-Americanism is not only as old as Canada itself, but it also seems to have been and still is an integral part of the entire Canadian experience. To the historian Baker, anti-Americanism is a recurring theme in Canadian history and exists today as it did a century ago. However, anti-Americanism, to the best knowledge of the authors, has not been investigated through systematic behavioural empirical research. The development of a scale to measure anti-American attitudes is a necessary step in the empirical investigation of Canadian anti-Americanism. The purpose of this research note is to present some data that contribute to the empirical development of a measure of Canadian attitudes towards Americans which may be used as an anti-American scale.

Concepts are like wines; some do not travel well. Thus, a frequent problem concerns whether phenomena with the same label in two societies are really the same. Party identification is a concept which is particularly interesting in this regard. The effect of party identification on voting decisions has been examined in more than a dozen countries, and the data have evoked controversy about the concept's utility, especially in Canada. Although this paper will focus on the term's usefulness in Canada compared to the United States, the arguments are sufficiently general to have implications for analysis elsewhere.

Concepts do not travel; theories do. The distinction is an important one because the concept party identification and its measurement in different contexts provides students of voting with one of a class of problems in comparative analysis. Comparative analysis implies a search for and the development of general laws about human behaviour, laws which are valid across political systems. The way that this search is carried out is through the development, confirmation, and modification of theory. One such theoretical exchange has involved explanations of voting and a major concept in these theories has been “party identification.” The concept is controversial to the extent both that different theories describe it and its role differently and that variations have been observed in patterns of the relationship between some aspects of party identification and political behaviour. However, the role of theory and its status in analysis is problematical in David Elkins' “Party Identification: A Conceptual Analysis.” Comparative analysis requires, first and foremost, that the theory within which any concept is located be specified.