Canada and/in the World is a broad topic that has produced a wide range of diverse publications in the twenty-first century, not only in political science but also in history and other neighbouring disciplines. What they all share is an interest in investigating how Canada, either as a state, a polity, a society, a culture or an idea, intersects with and is part of the international. Yet, along this spectrum we find literature spanning from problem-solving to critical—to use Robert Cox's distinction (1986)—as well as from heavily empirical and policy relevant to theoretically informed. Some works aim to explain, some to facilitate understanding and others to challenge and deconstruct. Thus, while there might be a traditional core of positivist writing centring on liberal internationalism and to a lesser extent (neo)realism, which some claim can be condensed into a list of “the ten most important books on Canadian foreign policy” (Kirton, 2009), there are also strong critical voices that challenge core assumptions about how we conceptualize and examine Canada and/in the world.

Many multilateral efforts have unfolded since the 1990s with the objective of discussing the improvement of migration regulations. Can these efforts be conceived as the sign that the sovereignty of the nation-state is eroding? The fact that states remain in control of many dimensions of migration policies invites a cautionary answer. An alternative interpretation consists in comprehending these efforts as conditioning a new world migration order. The article presents these efforts in order to discuss their underlying economic and political priorities, as well as the power relations involved. Some of the most important consequences of this transformation are then discussed.

Forty per cent of Europeans refuse to have Roma as their neighbours, while 80 per cent of these do not even have direct contact with them. Using these statistics as a point of departure, this study analyzes how attitudes toward Roma are constructed. It proposes to investigate this process in two similar environments but where local integration policies directed toward Roma differ, resulting in disparate forms of intergroup contact. The analysis is premised on two theoretical assumptions: that the integration of migrants is a local public policy issue and that intergroup contact frames attitudes between majority and minority groups. From semi-structured interviews in the French municipalities of La Courneuve and Ivry-sur-Seine, four theories are empirically tested: the contact theory, the halo effect, the impact of local immigrant integration policies and media influence. This study demonstrates that the implementation of municipal policies in favour of Roma integration can improve their living conditions and thus deconstruct prejudices attributable to their precarious situation. In addition, it illustrates how the media activate, maintain or solidify the way Roma are perceived.

Pragmatism is not new. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the pragmatic movement, embodied in such American authors as Charles Peirce (1839–1914), William James (1842–1910) and John Dewey (1859–1952), has developed various philosophical works and has been engaged in several theoretical disputes as well as political debates. Yet does pragmatism form part of only an American sensibility? Does it belong only to the past? This review essay will argue to the contrary. We will see to what extent pragmatism provides fruitful potential and inspiration for contemporary policy analysis in the United States and in Europe. This review essay will discuss actual issues and challenges within pragmatism by providing a critical reading of two recent books: Pragmatism and European Social Theory, edited by Patrick Baert and Bryan S. Turner (2007) and Reconstructing Democracy, Recontextualizing Dewey: Pragmatism and Interactive Constructivism in the Twenty-first Century, edited by Jim Garrison (2008).

Abstract. Much recent scholarship explores the consequences of Heidegger's transformation of philosophic thinking for our understanding of political theory at the edge of modernity. In a response to recent readings, this essay argues that the contemporary literature on Heidegger fails to account for two fundamental concerns: the ontic/ontological distinction and the importance of moods, particularly anxiety and boredom. Utilizing these moods, this essay explores the ways in which Heidegger's thought escapes politics through a privileging of the ontological, or object-less, experience, relying on a reclusive reflection as the way to authenticity. Instead of fostering a strong community or strong liberal sense of self, Heidegger leaves us with the nothingness of anxiety and the emptiness of boredom as our alternatives. By transcending the ontic in favor of the ontological, Heidegger divorces himself from politics in the everyday sense and posits an existential response to political theory that is unable to foster authentic collective life.

Résumé. Une part importante de la littérature récente explore les conséquences de la transformation de la pensée philosophique amenée par Heidegger et ses effets sur notre compréhension de la théorie politique à l'aube de l'ère moderne. En réponse à de récentes lectures, cet essai relève deux manquements fondamentaux dans la littérature contemporaine sur Heidegger. Le premier concerne la distinction entre l'ontique et l'ontologique et le deuxième a trait à l'importance des humeurs, plus particulièrement l'anxiété et l'ennui. En explorant ces humeurs, cet essai dévoile les manières dont la pensée de Heidegger échappe à la politique en privilégiant l'expérience ontologique ou immatérielle et en se fondant sur la réflexion recluse, voie qui mène à l'authenticité. Au lieu de favoriser une communauté forte ou un sens profond et libéral de soi, Heidegger nous laisse comme options de rechange le néant de l'anxiété et le vide de l'ennui. En transcendant l'ontique en faveur de l'ontologique, Heidegger se sépare de la politique au sens premier du terme pour donner une réponse existentielle à une théorie politique incapable de forger une vie collective authentique.

No one can delineate the precise state of affairs likely to prevail at the conclusion of the present world conflict. The drama is too kaleidoscopic, too much is hidden in the wings, and the number of acts is uncertain. The best that one can hope for is to distinguish the main threads of the unfolding mystery and to guess the probable position of the dramatis personae at the final curtain. Yet a few things are becoming increasingly apparent.

From facts already before our eyes it is clear that economic rehabilitation and reconstruction on a grand scale will be necessary before life can begin to function again in many parts of the world. Moreover economic reconstruction will be something more than the distribution of “K” rations and bowls of soup to the undernourished peoples of Europe and Asia. The physical destruction of factories, industrial plants, railways, harbours, gas and electric works, and all the rest of the means of production by which civilized peoples provide themselves a living, of course will have to be made good. Yet this is not all. Much of the world's population—in south-eastern Europe, in China, in India—subsisted at an almost unbelievably low standard of living even before the war began. To tender these peoples no better prospect than a return to the miserable pittance that was theirs before the war would not augur well for world peace and order, nor make more than a hollow mockery of the solemn promises of the United Nations. Their standards of living cannot be raised by driblets of charity and pious good wishes, but only by making available to them the capital instruments by which they themselves can raise their per capita productivity and hence their material welfare. The task of relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction, and development that will confront the world at the war's end promises to exceed anything of a similar nature that has ever been undertaken. Yet it is a task which lies inevitably before the world and one for which the penalties of inept handling are certainly severe and possibly disastrous.

Canada's recent return to a pegged exchange rate marks the end of a highly interesting experiment in international economic policy and the end of an era in the history of the Canadian balance of payments. It is now appropriate, therefore, to look backwards and to examine the effects of changes in the balance of payments on the Canadian economy during the period in which the value of the Canadian dollar was allowed to fluctuate freely. Only a very narrow aspect of the problem is examined in this paper, namely, the effect of the large long-term capital inflow of the 1950s on the Canadian business cycle. This problem is interesting not only for its own sake, but also because the cyclical effect of a capital inflow is extremely important in determining whether the borrowing country achieves its potential or required growth rate.

If, for our purposes, we define the potential supply of goods and services available to an economy as domestic production at full employment plus imports minus exports, a capital inflow increases that supply by bidding up the value of the Canadian dollar until sufficient upward pressure on imports and downward pressure on exports is imposed to transfer the capital inflow in real terms. This increase in supply implies that planned aggregate expenditures in Canada can increase without exerting inflationary pressures on the economy. A capital inflow allows a higher level of investment expenditure and this raises the potential rate of growth of the productive capacity of the economy.

Many practitioners of political science are currently questioning the bona fides of comparative politics as a valid academic subdiscipline in their trade. At the same time, in trying to perform comparative politics in the classroom over a period of five years, I have found the standard, multi-country comparative politics course to be increasingly unsatisfactory as a component of the political science curriculum. Many factors combine to make it extremely difficult to generate an adequate university learning experience from this kind of course:

1. Superficial learning is inherent in multicountry comparative courses. Because of the pressure to deal with at least three political systems within the confines of a single course, relatively little time is devoted to each country. Moreover the bibliographical material varies wildly from country to country in its quantity, quality, methodology, and content. It can only be a rare instructor who is really competent, let alone expert, in the politics of all the fields he is expected to treat in his course.

The widespread adoption of mainframe computers by all levels of governments is a phenomenon that has been seriously neglected by political scientists. While a few isolated, popular issues have been noticed, little academic attention has been paid within the discipline to the effects of computers on our political institutions and processes. The development of a cadre of data processing specialists is introducing a new and powerful set of values into public decision-making. Interest groups and political parties are scrambling to adjust their mobilization strategies. The growing employment of arcane and often questionable decision models diminishes even further the public's already limited ability to monitor their governments' activities. As a discipline, political science has much to do if it is to meet these challenges to its understanding of governments and how they work.