This article analyzes the impact of freer trade on Canadian foreign investment policy. Its object is to identify new measures of control that were applied to the activities of foreign companies between 1975 and 1983. The evolution of relations between governments and multinationals is traced and followed by an analysis of the various measures that were implemented to control foreign investment by these governments. Finally, the study of the Canadian situation focusses on the four following measures: direct aid, procurement policies, the Foreign Investment Review Agency and world product mandates. These measures have a specific sectorial impact and attempt to increase Canadian benefits from foreign multinationals.

The speakers in Thucydides who give voice to the sophistic thesis that might is right do not generally think that what they are releasing upon the world is a war of all against all. On the contrary, they are hopeful, like the modern utilitarians they anticipate, that their realistic assessment of human motives can serve as the foundation of an inter-state order based not on justice but on clear and certain power relations. The most perceptive of these speakers is Diodotus, who addresses his theory of imperial management to the difficult problem of the rise and fall of states. But the psychology upon which this theory rests points toward confederation in place of empire and toward constitutional government in place of democracy, run by demagogues. It also implies a reasoner, perhaps Diodotus himself, who is master of his own desires. In the end Diodotus seems somewhat at odds with the sophistic rationalism he so ably espouses.

All administrative structures are affected by their cultural, social, economic, and political environments. The daily interactions between the two sectors comprise the substance of the administrative activity. In 1973 Zaïre's local administration was subjected to a reform which centralized and standardized its structures. This article examines the reform of the administration from the perspective of social underdevelopment. The local administrative cadres appeared to emerge from the reform with more power and prestige in social planning. However, the actual outcome of the reform in terms of development was doubtful since the authorities who acquired politico-administrative functions were engaged in their own lucrative activities and the public had little control over their administrative actions. Thus the administrative structure became an instrument which the dominant class—the bourgeois politico-administration—could use to strengthen its power over the economy. It could scarcely be otherwise in a situation in which underdevelopment creates and sustains a continual crisis. The consequences are inequalityx in the distribution of public goods and inequity in public decisions. All of these factors produce real stagnation in the society, in spite of the apparently revolutionary upsets which have occurred from time to time. They permit external domination to strengthen its hand and allow internal domination to carve out a suitable empire. To change the situation and free up local administration would require a genuine revolution in the devolution of power to the whole public.

Generating Social Capital: Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective, Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle, eds., New York and Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 256

The concept of “social capital” has become a popular buzzword. Like other authors, the contributors to this volume draw on Robert Putnam's well-known definition of social capital as “generalized trust, norms of reciprocity and networks” among individuals (2). Social capital is credited with providing a wide range of social benefits, including tolerance of diversity, economic growth, lower crime rates, better health and more responsive government. The grandiose claims made on behalf of social capital and the large amounts of money being poured into developing social capital in diverse social settings, as well as the fuzziness of the original concept, mean that careful analysis of the idea of social capital is badly needed.

Developments and problems in contemporary thinking about strategy

The purpose of this analysis is to review the most important changes in contemporary thinking about strategy and to draw certain conclusions. Beginning with the different stages in the evolution of “classical” theories and the coming of “academic” ideas developed as explanations of a strategy of deterrence between the two super-powers, the analysis emphasizes the relation between the new explanations of conflicts among social groups and the new categories for defining strategy. It also stresses the relation between a theory of the multiple causes of conflicts and wars and the development of the interdisciplinary interpretation of the analysis of strategy. In conclusion, it is argued that the current stage of research into a “qualitative” change in the analysis of strategy also implies new objectives for strategy that are required for the problem of the survival of mankind.

Division of power and social integration

Explanation of some of the recent challenges to western democracy may be found in a re-examination of Montesquieu's thought. Here we find the theory of the separation of power to be far more complex than is implied in the simple divisions of legislature, executive, and judiciary. For Montesquieu, the separation of power is more a social division than a political or juridical one. He contemplated returning the organs of political power to various social forces, e.g. monarchy, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie, and that then the self-assertion of forces would be restrained by the resistance of other social groups. The realization of its goals would require every important social group to integrate itself both to society and to the state and to seek its goals through realization of the general good.

Since Montesquieu's time, political structures would seem to have been very little changed even though social structures have been greatly altered by the rise of economic powers. Political institutions have been losing touch with the vital forces of society and these have had to find other channels of expression. The personalization of power, the rise of the executive, violence, and increasing paternalism may be viewed as phenomena of compensation by which attempts are being made to bridge the gap between the structures of political power and those of a society which has been restructured.

Revigoration of parliamentary democracy would seem to require that all vital social forces be reintegrated into the political system and be given meaningful channels of political expression. Failure to make such changes opens the way to identification of the political powers with technocracy and the increasing general use of violence in the resolution of social problems.

Rainer Knopff's scholarship on Canadian constitutionalism has offered some of the most trenchant criticism of the exercise of judicial review under the Charter, yet his theory has largely been misunderstood (as has that of his frequent co-author F. L. Morton). This article exposes two prominent critiques of Knopff's constitutional writings as straw man arguments and provides a republican account of his constitutional theory. The first straw man argument is that Knopff supports a majoritarian or populist conception of direct democracy. This claim is belied by Knopff's embrace of representative democracy and institutions structured to encourage reflexive deliberation. The second straw man argument is that Knopff is a moral rights skeptic. Knopff's rights skepticism is a legal skepticism about the determinacy of many rights that is merely a function of his inclusive legal positivism. The article concludes by reflecting on the republican lessons that Knopff's constitutional scholarship continues to offer, including how holding legislatures responsible for settling reasonable disagreements about legally indeterminate Charter rights might help counteract the twin threats of populism and juristocracy.

Dans cet article, les injustices en matière de responsabilités de care entre les partenaires hétérosexuel.les sont problématisées comme des irresponsabilités relationnelles. D'abord, l'apport des théories du care à l'appréhension des asymétries de pouvoir liées au déséquilibre dans le travail de soin est discuté. Ensuite, les manifestations de ce déséquilibre sont illustrées dans les arrangements intimes établis par les couples. Ces conséquences injustes sont, par la suite, conceptualisées comme des « irresponsabilités relationnelles ». Enfin, une conception de la coresponsabilité relationnelle est proposée dans une perspective de plus de justice et de démocratie entre les personnes, dans le privé comme le public.