1 A survey of Gallup polls indicates, for example, that respect and confidence in political parties and the House of Commons has declined seriously since the 1970s, while Canadians have become increasingly convinced that political favouritism and corruption are prevalent in Ottawa. See Peter Dobell and Byron Berry, “Anger at the System: Political Discontent in Canada,” Parliamentary Government 39 (1992), 3–20. For findings that suggest less variability in attitudes and a role for elections in stimulating support for institutions, see Kornberg, Allan and Clarke, Harold D., Citizens and Community: Political Support in a Representative Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 113.Google Scholar

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3 Morgan, Edmund, Inventing the People (New York: Norton, 1988)Google Scholar, 14.

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7 March, James G. and Olsen, Johan P., Rediscovering Political Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: The Free Press, 1989)Google Scholar, chap. 7. The same kind of distinction is made in Elkin, Stephen L., “Constitutionalism: Old and New,” in Elkin, Stephen L. and Edward Soltan, Karol, eds.,-4 New Constitutionalism: Designing Political Institutions for a Good Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)Google Scholar, chap. 2, where a particular effort is made to survey the “aggregative” perspective.

8 For a discussion of their distinctive impact on institutions in the Canadian case, see Resnick, Philip, The Masks of Proteus: Canadian Reflections on the State (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990)Google Scholar, chap. 5.

9 Pangle, Thomas L., The Ennobling of Democracy: The Challenge of the Postmodern Age (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

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13 March and Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions, 126.

14 Elster, “The Market and the Forum,” 128.

15 March and Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions, 125–26.

16 As Elkin puts it, “In the aggregative view, political interactions are understood as being much like gears or processors in a machine, and political institutions are un derstood as more or less adequate calculating machines” (Stephen L. Elkin, “Con stitutionalism's Successor,” in Elkin and Soltan, eds., New Constitutionalism, 120).

17 Pangle, The Ennobling of Democracy, 126–28.

18 Note that when the terms are used in this way, neither aggregative nor integrative processes are necessarily more democratic. Both aim at ensuring government by the people; the difference lies in just how this is to be accomplished and how the re sulting institutions of democratic governance are legitimated.

19 March, and Olsen, , Rediscovering Institutions, 127–128.Google Scholar

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23 Whitaker, Reg, A Sovereign Idea (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992)Google Scholar, 206. Whitaker offers a forceful and well-documented case for the absence of “the people” in the Canadian constitutional tradition.

24 Vipond, Robert C., Liberty and Community: Canadian Federalism and the Failure of the Constitution (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).Google Scholar

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26 Even where aggregative processes dominate much of a nation's politics, as in the United States, the distinction between normal and constitutional politics can still be maintained as long as the constitution is relatively secure from amendment. See Donald S. Lutz, “Toward a Theory of Constitutional Amendment,” American Political Science Review 88 (1994), 365.

27 Ajzenstat, Janet, “Constitution-making and the Myth of the People,” in Cook, Curtis, ed., Constitutional Predicament: Canada after the Referendum of 1992 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994)Google Scholar, 113.

28 Sunstein, Cass R., “Democracy and Shifting Preferences,” in Copp, David, Hampton, Jean and Roemer, John E., eds., The Idea of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 201–202.Google Scholar

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30 Foley, Michael, The Silence of Constitutions (London: Routledge, 1989)Google Scholar, xii. In the Canadian context, see Thomas, David M., “Turning a Blind Eye: Constitutional Abeyances and the Canadian Experience,” International Journal of Canadian Studies 7–8 (1993)Google Scholar, 63–79.

31 Cairns, Alan, Charter versus Federalism: The Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992)Google Scholar, 7. Garth Stevenson makes the point this Alan Cairns, Charter versus Federalism: The Dilemmas of Constitutional way: “Symbolically this amending formula suggested that the provinces were sovereign states whose powers could not be taken from them without their con sent…” (Stevenson, Garth, Unfulfilled Union [3rd ed.; Toronto: Gage, 1989]Google Scholar, 257).

32 It is open to debate how much aggregative thinking has affected these institutions. It might be argued, for example, that since the introduction of the Charter the courts have become increasingly politicized by Charter proponents. See F. L. Morton and Rainer Knopff, “The Supreme Court as the Vanguard of the Intelligentsia: The Charter Movement as Postmaterialist Politics,” in Ajzenstat, ed., Canadian Constitutionalism, 79, and, for a postreferendum assessment of the Supreme Court, F. L. Morton, “Judicial Politics Canadian-Style: The Supreme Court's Contribution to the Constitutional Crisis of 1992,” in Cook, ed., Constitutional Predicament, chap. 5.

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37 This view, which I tend to share, is most closely associated with the work of Alan Cairns. See his Disruptions: Constitutional Struggles from the Charter to Meech Lake, ed. by Williams, Douglas E. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1991)Google Scholar, and “Citizens (Outsiders) and Governments (Insiders) in Constitution Making: The Case of Meech Lake,” Canadian Public Policy 14 (1988), 121–145CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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40 Lutz, “Toward a Theory of Constitutional Amendment,” 364.

41 On the “formal” and “informal” stages of constitutional reform and the opportunities each present for public involvement, see Jennifer Smith, “Representation and Constitutional Reform in Canada,” in Smith, David E., MacKinnon, Peter and Courtney, John C., eds.. After Meech Lake: Lessons for the Future (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1991), 71–74.Google Scholar

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43 Whitaker, Sovereign Idea, 255.

44 Alain Noël (“Deliberating a Constitution: The Meaning of the Canadian Referendum of 1992,“ in Cook, ed., Constitutional Predicament, 66) argues that “democratic deliberation played a role in helping Canadians make up their minds about the Charlottetown agreement.” Agreed, but this “deliberation” could not be sustained precisely because elites introduced “the ‘rational’ politics of self-interest” (72) that Noël feels citizens somehow transcended.

45 For a limited defence of elite negotiation, see Stein, “Tensions in the Canadian Constitutional Process,” esp. 108–10. The fact that some of the concessions negotiated may have had very little resonance with citizens seems to have escaped attention. The signal example of a hard-fought provincial victory that left English-Canadians unimpressed was the Triple-E (effective, elected and equal) Senate. Sold as a means of strengthening the role of small provinces in Ottawa, the Senate was of only minor importance to the referendum decision of most Canadians. See Richard Johnston, “The 1992 Referendum and the Possibility of Democracy,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Ottawa, June 1993. Yet this should have come as no surprise. In a 1983 CROP poll, only 11 per cent of those who thought the Senate should be reformed said it was a “high priority.” Less than 15 per cent thought it was an important issue. These results are reported in Richard Johnston, Public Opinion and Public Policy in Canada, Research Studies, Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, Vol. 35 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for Supply and Services Canada, 1986), 33–36.

46 Pal, Leslie A. and Leslie Seidle, F., “Constitutional Politics, 1990–92: The Paradox of Participation,” in Phillips, Susan D., ed., How Ottawa Spends: A More Democratic Canada…? (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993), 143–202.Google Scholar

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48 Ian Brodie and Neil Nevitte, “Evaluating the Citizens’ Constitution Theory,” this JOURNAL 26 (1993), 235–67; Alan C. Cairns, “A Defence of the Citizens' Constitution Theory: A Response to Ian Brodie and Neil Nevitte,” ibid., 261–67; and Ian Brodie and Neil Nevitte, “Clarifying Differences: A Rejoinder to Alan Cairns's Defence of the Citizens' Constitution Theory,” ibid., 269–72.

49 Resnick, The Masks of Proteus, 94.

50 On the evolution of Canadian practices and the role played by international forces, see Cairns, Charter versus Federalism, chap. 1.

51 Rainer Knopff and F. L. Morton, “Nation-Building and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” in Alan Cairns and Cynthia Williams, eds., Constitutionalism, Citizenship and Society in Canada, Research Studies/Royal Commission on Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, Vol. 33 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for Supply and Services Canada, 1985), 131–82. Whether the Charter has succeeded in this regard is very much an open question.

52 Caims, Alan C., “The Charter, Interest Groups, Executive Federalism and Constitutional Reform,” in MacKinnon, Smith and Courtney, , eds., After Meech Lake, 13–31.Google Scholar

53 Of course, the arbiter of these struggles, the judiciary, retains much of its integrative character, but even here the modern judicial practice of balancing competing interests has situated an aggregative process at the heart of constitutional adjudication. See Manfredi, Christopher P., Judicial Power and the Charter: Canada andthe Paradox of Liberal Constitutionalism (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1993), 61.Google Scholar

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61 Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Jane Jenson, “Reforming the Parties: Prescriptions for Democracy,” in Phillips, ed., How Ottawa Spends, 49–50.

62 Krasner, Stephen D., “Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective,” Comparative Political Studies 21 (1988), 73–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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64 Blais and Gidengil (Making Representative Democracy Work, 16 and 26) report that while the Canadians they interviewed are sceptical about the ability of voters to understand issues, 74 per cent endorsed the idea that most national problems could be solved “if decisions were brought back to people at the grass roots.”

65 As March and Olsen put it: “There is no reason to believe that incentives and personal values will be arranged so that entry into debate will be differentially attractive to those whose contributions would be most valuable” (Rediscovering Institutions, 133).