In The Clash of Rights, Paul. M . Sniderman, Joseph Fletcher, Peter Russell and Philip Tetlock have challenged the orthodox view of “democratic elitism” and “value consensus” with respect to support for civil rights and liberties. Based on analysis of Canadian attitudes toward the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Sniderman et al, found that support for rights claims varied more among elites than between elites and masses. They extend this finding to a hypothesis that competing political elites are prone to exploit disagreement over rights issues for purposes of partisan electoral advantage. They find that the Conservative officeholders are typically less supportive of rights claims, while New Democratic party and Parti Québécois legislators tend to be more supportive. On most issues, the Liberals are (surprise!) in between. These findings lead to conclusions such as “the issue of bilingualism is political, not social.” More generally, Sniderman and his colleagues suggest that there is broad, evenly distributed support for rights among the Canadian public, and that conflict over rights is largely attributable to partisan competition among political leaders.

Over the past few years there has been an increase in scholarly attention to the politics, the theorization and the logic of difference as a site of contestation; as a cultural value, as a measure of liberalism's capacity for tolerance and inclusion, and as a subject of state action for protection. The debate has been joined by two contributors to this JOURNAL: Avigail Eisenberg in 1994 and Katherine Fierlbeck in 1996. Their thinking is fairly representative of the important debate about the political significance of difference, especially in view of Aboriginal rights and contemporary treaties in Canada, and deserves closer scrutiny.

Two questions have dominated the modern study of politics. How do political systems become democratic? And how, supposing they have managed to become democratic, do they manage to remain so? As yet, there is no agreement on the answer to the first question. For a generation, however, there has been consensus on a core part of the answer to the second. In democratic polities, political elites have come to consensus in support of democratic rights, and in times of political stress this elite consensus has served as a bulwark protecting citizens' liberties.

Globalization and its implications for domestic policy making are not new issues for Canadians. Indeed, the country's political economy has long made Canadians highly vulnerable to developments beyond their borders. Dependent on foreign trade and investment, Canada's economy has become deeply integrated into the American economy and, for selected primary commodities, the international economy. Relatedly, Canadian governments have been long–standing supporters of multilateralism and international regulatory frameworks like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), now the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Underlying Matthew Mendelsohn's plea for popular participation in constitution making is a tradition of democratic thought that Jennifer Smith calls “anti–partyism.” This is not the place to describe types of anti–partyism, or trace its roots in Rousseau; I will say only that in Canadian history, and still today, anti–partyism is critical of parliamentary government. In the mid–nineteenth century its proponents argued for the rule of the demos, “the many”; they called their philosophy, “democracy.” They were not calling merely for an extension of the franchise; they criticized the very idea of representative and responsible institutions, contending that responsible parliamentary government empowered “the few” at the expense of “the many.” Today, most scholars regard parliamentary government as a form of democracy, and usually remember that “democracy” has more than one definition. In his article, Mendelsohn unfortunately uses “democracy” to describe only views inclining to anti–partyism.

Recensions / Reviews

Recensions / Reviews

Recensions / Reviews

Matthew Mendelsohn's “Public Brokerage: Constitutional Reform and the Accommodation of Mass Publics” offers an alternative to what he calls the “conventional wisdom” surrounding Canada's intractable constitutional quagmire. Unlike most analysts of the Canadian constitutional process, Mendelsohn advocates greater public input into constitution making. Indeed, he suggests that the principal problem lies with elites, not mass publics. Limiting the role of “elites” in “accommodation,” he argues, allows for the possibility of constitutional reconciliation. Mendelsohn, then, provides a service by infusing some fresh ideas into Canada's constitutional debate.

I thank the JOURNAL for this opportunity to continue a dialogue on constitutional paralysis in Canada. The disagreements between myself and Janet Ajzenstat and Michael Lusztig underline some of the tensions in Canadian political science and have important implications for how we conceive processes of constitutional change.

Recensions / Reviews