Re-imagining Confederation: Moving Beyond the Trudeau-Lévesque Debate

1993 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 699-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel V. LaSelva

AbstractThe Trudeau-Lévesque debate has created a political deadlock that threatens not only Confederation but federalism as well. At the core of the political deadlock is a philosophical dispute about language, in which liberty is set against community, and particularism becomes opposed to universalism. Not only does the Trudeau-Lévesque deadlock presuppose an antagonism between basic values that is difficult to justify, but it has also diverted attention from important dimensions of Canadian federalism. An exploration of the Trudeau-Lévesque debate provides insights as to how the deadlock can be dissolved, thereby facilitating the re-imagination of Confederation.

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-28
Author(s):  
Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin

Unlike in Canada, the doctrine of political safe-guards of federalism is a tantalizing presence in American constitutional law that changing tides and moods have never completely submerged. The core idea is simple: political institutions in the United States have been designed to ensure that interests of the states are represented in the federal decision-making process. Thus, the judiciary does not need to intervene to police the federal division of powers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Mary L. Mullen

This article considers the politics and aesthetics of the colonial Bildungsroman by reading George Moore's often-overlooked novel A Drama in Muslin (1886). It argues that the colonial Bildungsroman does not simply register difference from the metropolitan novel of development or express tension between the core and periphery, as Jed Esty suggests, but rather can imagine a heterogeneous historical time that does not find its end in the nation-state. A Drama in Muslin combines naturalist and realist modes, and moves between Ireland and England to construct a form of untimely development that emphasises political processes (dissent, negotiation) rather than political forms (the state, the nation). Ultimately, the messy, discordant history represented in the novel shows the political potential of anachronism as it celebrates the untimeliness of everyday life.


Author(s):  
Nguyen Van Dung ◽  
Giang Khac Binh

As developing programs is the core in fostering knowledge on ethnic work for cadres and civil servants under Decision No. 402/QD-TTg dated 14/3/2016 of the Prime Minister, it is urgent to build training program on ethnic minority affairs for 04 target groups in the political system from central to local by 2020 with a vision to 2030. The article highlighted basic issues of practical basis to design training program of ethnic minority affairs in the past years; suggested solutions to build the training programs in integration and globalization period.


2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timofey Agarin ◽  
Miķelis Grīviņš

The paper investigates the dynamics and volution of issues on the agenda of Baltic environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) since the collapse of communism. The past research on Baltic environment activism suggests that these enjoy high visibility because they tapped the core societal views of natural environment as a crucial asset of a nation. As we demonstrate in this paper, the changes in agendas of Baltic environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) make clear that the rhetorical toolbox of ‘national environment’ is often used to mainly achieve greater financial gains for individual members, rather than for society at large. We illustrate how the dearth of economic opportunities for domestic public has impacted perceptions of ‘nature’ advocated by the environmental activists, focussing specifically on national perceptions of ownership and the resulting actions appropriating ‘nature’ as a source for economic development, only tangentially attaining environmental outcomes on the way. The vision that the ‘environment’ is an economic resource allowed ENGO activists to cooperate with the domestic policymaking, while tapping international networks and donors for funding. Throughout the past decades they worked to secure their own and their members’ particularistic economic interests and, as we demonstrate, remained disengaged from the political process and failed to develop broader reproach with publics.


Politics ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-30
Author(s):  
Robin Gray

This article concerns the relationship between policy and voter elasticity on either side of the political spectrum as an explanation of the left's post-war political failure. The core contention is that left-oriented voters are more responsive to slight deviations in policy. This is used to explain partially Labour's post-war failure to dominate power even when the ‘left's vote’ was over 50 per cent.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
adrian peace

The biannual mega-event of Terra Madre is now established as the political flagship of the Slow Food movement. It assembles in Turin the leading cosmopolitan figures of this neo-tribal, post modern organization, along with several thousand of its ordinary members, who were drawn in 2006 from the ranks of food producers, cooks and academics. The most significant secular rituals of Terra Madre involve the theatrical celebration of its global character, beginning with the assembly of representatives from some 1600 ““food communities”” distributed throughout the world. Equally important are the many smaller scale activities in which the details of the movement's politics are articulated and embellished, at times in strikingly rhetorical ways. In this paper, which is based on ethnographic research, the theatrical and rhetorical qualities of Terra Madre as a political spectacle are explored in some detail. It is argued, in conclusion, that what is inadvertently exposed are some of the political myths which lie at the core of the Slow Food movement's contemporary philosophy.


Significance This is expected to be followed by the first parliamentary election since 2014, at some point in early 2022. It now looks increasingly likely that both elections will be delayed. The electoral process lacks the elements it would need to be truly transformative, but it is prompting shifts in the political elite which will dictate developments for at least the next year. Impacts Khalifa Haftar will keep pushing for his armed group to form the core of Libya’s future army Seif al-Islam Qadhafi’s candidacy in the elections is unlikely to result in him becoming president. Aguileh Saleh looks set to stay on as House of Representatives speaker with no clear date for parliamentary elections.


Author(s):  
Ruihui Han

Guanxi circle play a critical role in ancient China politics. Based on guanxi, two kinds of guanxi groups formed: formal guanxi circle and informal guanxi circle. The former refers to the group centered the emperor; the latter refers to the groups with the powerful and charismatic figures as the core, except for the emperor. In order to consolidate the political power, the emperors in different periods would try to prevent the informal guanxi circle in political structure. Besides, various scriptures also denounce the informal guanxi circle, deeming such circle as harmful. The judgement of informal guanxi circle appeals to research, as there is no previous researcher has address such problems. This study set out to examine whether the informal guanxi circle is harmful to the whole political structure. Results show that the informal guanxi circle, in the antecedent of satisfactory communication, can be extremely meaningful to the whole political structure. This study implies that the fact of informal guanxi circle is on the contrary of the common sense derived from the scriptures and the superficial ancient political activities, such as the emperor’s order to prevent the informal guanxi circle. The findings can contribute a better understanding of the ancient informal guanxi circle in ancient political structure in China.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095269512110344
Author(s):  
David Garland

This article traces the emergence of the term welfare state in British political discourse and describes competing efforts to define its meaning. It presents a genealogy of the concept's emergence and its subsequent integration into various political scripts, tracing the struggles that sought to name, define, and narrate what welfare state would be taken to mean. It shows that the concept emerged only after the core programmes to which it referred had already been enacted into law and that the referents and meaning of the concept were never generally agreed upon – not even at the moment of its formation in the late 1940s. During the 1950s, the welfare state concept was being framed in three distinct senses: (a) the welfare state as a set of social security programmes; (b) the welfare state as a socio-economic system; and (c) the welfare state as a new kind of state. Each of these usages was deployed by opposing political actors – though with different scope, meaning, value, and implication. The article argues that the welfare state concept did not operate as a representation reflecting a separate, already-constituted reality. Rather, the use of the concept in the political and economic arguments of the period – and in later disputes about the nature of the Labour government's post-war achievements – was always thoroughly rhetorical and constitutive, its users aiming to shape the transformations and outcomes that they claimed merely to describe.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
David McCrone

How are Scottish elites educated? Is Scotland simply England writ small with Oxbridge and private schools predominating? Do private day schools mainly in the cities provide the core of elites? How important are education authority schools? How have patterns changed, if at all, between 1986 and 2019? Using ‘ Who's Who in Scotland’, this article charts the changing composition of elites especially among the political, legal and administrative classes in Scotland in comparison with business and ‘traditional’ elites. Drawing comparisons with analysis of British elites more generally, it appears that Scottish elites are educationally more ‘Scottish’ and state-educated today than they were in 1986.


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