As a recent instance of transnational cooperation and governance, encompassing a novel combination of international and supranational legal properties, the International Criminal Court provides an instructive forum for considering increasingly complex sovereignty. This paper considers why Canada and the United States have pursued such divergent policies toward the Court. I argue that these postures are informed by their subjective conceptions of state sovereignty, a reflection of varying interests, values and capacities. As such, this case study illuminates factors that may influence patterns and limitations of transnational cooperation by states.

The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) annual Article IV consultation meetings and ensuing reports are external assessments of member states' economies by highly regarded international economists, designed to ensure that member states conform to IMF-prescribed liberal economic standards. For non-borrowing advanced industrialized countries, like Canada, what is the perceived utility of these annual Article IV consultations? Constructivists suggest that the adept staff of international organizations (IO) teach state civil servants and officials how to better formulate sound policies. However, constructivists need to engage in further empirical study to back up their theoretical assumptions about IO teaching and state learning. Based on personal interviews with Department of Finance staff involved in Article IV consultations and on content analysis of IMF reports on Canada, this paper contributes an empirical study on whether the Fund staff “teaches” and Canada's finance department staff “learns” from the annual surveillance exercises. The findings of this paper suggest that although involved Canadian Finance personnel appreciate meeting with the Fund staff as an academic and intellectual exchange, the policy advice they receive in the Article IV consultations rarely, if ever, changes their economic analyses, because the Fund's advice tends to not be practical. Based on suggestions from Department of Finance staff, as well as IMF evaluations of its bilateral surveillance, this paper concludes with recommendations from the finance staff on how to improve on the utility of Article IV consultations.

This article seeks to advance thinking about contextual theories of justice as found in Carens' Culture, Citizenship, and Community and Parekh's Rethinking Multiculturalism by considering the suggestion that such theories would be enhanced by the incorporation of an element of international adjudication. It explores possible advantages and disadvantages of this proposal both theoretically and by reflecting on Canadian experience with the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) in its Lovelace, Ballantyne and Waldman views. The article concludes that international adjudication would enhance contextual theories of justice if it incorporated key elements of the HRC's individual communication procedure, including the non-binding nature of its decisions.

A vigorous debate surrounding the “democratic dialogue” has done much for the understanding of our post-Charter parliamentary democracy. At the same time, it has diverted valuable attention from the settlement of the Charter with Canada's other constitutional pillar: federalism. This paper argues that the reconciliation of the Charter's national standards with the provincial diversity recognized by our federal Constitution is given expression by a federalist dialogue, occurring alongside, and even before, its democratic counterpart. An examination of several recent cases before the Supreme Court in which provincial policies have been impugned by the Charter provides evidence that provincial governments and the principles of federalism have a role to play in Charter interpretation, and that this role is often conceded by the Supreme Court in response to provincial factums. This discussion does not conclude the grand questions of federalism in the Charter era, but it does raise some definitive questions to propel the debate.

Dans cet article, nous partons du constat que les espaces de protestation sociale contre la mondialisation des échanges économiques ont suivi des trajectoires différentes au Québec et dans le reste du Canada, notamment depuis la fin des années 1980. Nous expliquons cette différence de trajectoire par l'articulation distincte, dans ces deux ensembles sociaux, entre le projet national poursuivi par les acteurs sociaux et politiques et les réactions de ces acteurs au processus de mondialisation des échanges économiques.

The recent decline in electoral turnout in Canada has attracted the concern of scholars and public officials, but the partisan consequences of this decline have received only scant attention. We begin to address that question with a simulation based on the 1997 Canadian Election Study. Based on estimated probabilities of individual behaviour derived from multinomial logit models of voter choice, we find that higher turnout would have likely hurt the Liberal party in Quebec, but slightly helped the Liberals outside of Quebec. We interpret this pattern as evidence that generational politics plays a role in shaping the relationship between electoral turnout and partisan support.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of social relations or social capital for voting turnout at three levels of Canadian government, paying particular attention to social contexts, socio-demographics and socio-economic forces. The data source is the Public Use Microdata File from the National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participation, administered by Statistics Canada (2001). Results provide support for social capital theory. Those who donate to charities and/or volunteer have a stronger propensity to vote than their counterparts. Two other measures of social capital, social networks and participation in religious activities, are also related to turnout. However, their effects are comparatively modest. Among the social bases of social capital, community rootedness is an important predictor of turnout. Civic engagement or attentiveness to current affairs also significantly increases voter turnout at all levels of Canadian government. Finally, standard socio-economic and demographic predictors of political participation do show independent effects on turnout. However, with the exception of age, these predictors are not as consistent or as strong as social capital measures in explaining turnout. Theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.

The Internet, operating as a technologically embedded laboratory of human activity, provides social scientists with a new set of analytical tools by which to test and replicate models of social and political behaviour, with data extrapolated from the regularities of online activity, organization and information exchange. This research note demonstrates that virtual policy networks, arrangements of public interaction between mutually supporting actors that form around policy activities, exist on the Web. In addition, the note considers whether or not Canadian virtual policy networks are mimicking their respective national policy communities through the application of a methodological approach referred to as link structure analysis. Four sectorally based networks, including Aboriginal policy, agriculture, banking and women-centred policy, are analyzed to assess the extent of virtual policy networks' replication of real world policy dynamics.

Questions concerning how Rawls's theory of justice accords with international criminal justice are largely ignored in favour of extensive debates on questions of distributive justice and how they relate to his theory and its international application. This lack of attention to international criminal law is significant since Rawls claims that his theory of justice is developed to correspond with recent dramatic shifts in international law. This paper argues that it is impossible for Rawls's account, state-centric as it is, to accord with advancements in international law that have increasingly asserted recognition of individuals in the global context.