The Origins of Canadian and American Political Differences, Jason Kaufman, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2009, pp. 382 (original) (raw)
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Contentious Politics in North America
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2009
Index between the idea for this book and its actual release has been a long one. We want to first, therefore, thank all of the contributors for their patience, support and contributions to this concrete form of transnational collaboration. In fact, as an addendum to the growing research field of North American studies, we have watched for over a decade as those concerned with the contentious side to North American integration have struggled to gain a hearing in the more mainstream debates that have centered ritually on trade and investment liberalization. But there have been a number of stepping stones that have helped to widen the debate, including workshops we participated in on
French Canadians and the American Political Promise
"In recent decades, Quebec scholars have paid special attention to the américanité of French Canadians—the extent to which they have been culturally, economically, and politically American, whether they be on Canadian soil or in the United States. This conceptual lens has proven its worth not merely in studies of recent Quebec history. When projected over nearly two and a half centuries of North American history, it reveals a fascination with (and ambivalent response to) American political ideals. In time, the lure of republicanism would yield to cultural and economic concerns, but, in the 1830s, reformers and radicals in Lower Canada could envision a day when they too would break free from colonial bondage and more fully realize democratic ideals. [...]"
Elections, Political Integration, and North America: Exploring the Unknown
Norteamérica, Revista Académica del CISAN-UNAM, 2010
Given unwieldy cross-border electoral spillovers, how feasible is North American political integration? Even by largely satisfying neofunctionalist and security community theoretical tenets, this study finds North American political integration ultimately depends on: (a) a bipartisan orientation shift; (b) institutionalizing this shift; (c) the relative weight of integrative and disintegrative instincts; (d) safeguards against external shocks; (e) creating new opportunities of cooperation; and (f ) leadership compatibility. Among other findings: (a) U.S. elections impact Canada and Mexico more than vice versa; (b) insufficient Canadian-Mexican economic flows deepen asymmetry towards the United States; (c) both ideology and pragmatic leadership fuel North Americanization; and (d) post-Cold War issues actually increase Mexico's Washington influence at Canada's expense. By
International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2007
Political theorists have long considered the question of how constitutional design can respond to the demands of minority nationalism. In this context, Canada has attained considerable prominence as a model, even though the notion of the model came to prominence during the Canadian constitutional crisis of the 1990s, when Quebec nearly seceded. In part, the much-touted Canadian exemplar may be viewed as an intervention by Canadian political theorists in domestic constitutional debates as a way of supporting national unity. However, the Canadian constitutional crisis also points to the limits of a legal approach to the accommodation of minority nationalism. On the one hand, most constitutions contain a process for constitutional amendment, which conceivably might bring about changes sufficient to satisfy the minority nation. On the other, the rules for constitutional amendment may encounter profound difficulties in constituting and regulating moments of constitutive constitutional politics, since it is precisely at those moments that the concept of the political community, which those rules reflect, is placed at issue by the minority nation.
The Life and Death of an Issue: Canadian Political Science and Quebec Politics
Canadian Journal of Political Science
How has English-speaking Canadian political science conceived of the relationship between Quebec and Canada? Why has an issue that has been considered central for more than three decades become less attractive, if not marginal, within the discipline? The aim is to examine, from this example, the overlapping relationship between science and politics. The intent is also to show that Canadian political science has examined the Quebec/Canada relationship from four different angles: 1) its interest in Quebec politics was part of the urgency of the moment, based on a crisis that challenged the foundations of the political system; 2) it questioned the legitimacy of the sources of the dispute, namely the compatibility between the new expressions of Quebec nationalism with the presumed principles on which the Canadian political community had been founded; 3) Quebec nationalism also encouraged a reflection on the existence (or not) of “English Canada” as a sociological and political reality; ...
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Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 2000
Two of the three large countries on the North American continent-the United States and Canadashare a number of similarities that often make it difficult for the untrained observer to differentiate between the two nations. On the surface, the two are structured similarly as federal systems that, by definition, exhibit shared power between the national government and provincial or state political entities.