This article considers connections between the ideological orientations of the Reform party of Canada and its proposals for reform of political representation. Particular attention is devoted to its advocacy of direct democracy, new models of representative behaviour and constitutional reform as means of democratizing Canadian politics. These proposals are discussed in relation to Reform's account of collusion between special interests, parties and interventionist governments in our federal system. Reform's preference for market-based over political decision-making is identified as a key foundation of their explanation and remedies for the crisis in Canadian democracy. A review of Reform's blending of older populist critiques with modern neo-conservative perspectives on this problem clarifies the party's distinctiveness and appeal. The Reform agenda emerges as one aiming to contract not just the power of special interests, but also the scope of democratic decision-making in public life.

Since his rise to national importance in Canada, commentators have been trying to make sense of Preston Manning and his Reform party. For the most part, however, such commentary has refused to see his political thinking as new at all, but instead regards it as a throwback to previous examples of western-based political protest movements. Yet Manning should be regarded as a postmodern conservative. His politics are a response to the process of postmodernization that has characterized Canada in recent years. This article traces the rise of postmodern politics in the Western world; examines the specifically Canadian manifestation of this process; discusses the Reform party in the context of the cultural tension driving Canada's recent political debates; and concludes with a commentary on Manning's contribution to the fragmentation of Canada's traditional party system.

This article provides a systematic examination of the social bases and ideological and policy orientations of the Reform party of Canada through a study of the attitudes of delegates attending its 1992 national assembly. We identify the core political attitudes of Reform activists, and examine whether their positions on policy matters are distinctive and whether they are characterized by internal cohesion or division. We then examine the party's mobilization strategy to determine the extent to which this strategy produces systematic cleavages among party activists. Our analysis reveals that Reform promotes a distinctive position on a number of salient political issues. However, we also challenge the view that Reform activists are united by a unidimensional right-wing ideology. We conclude by discussing the impact of party mobilization on future divisions within the party.

To characterize the institutions that have accompanied Fordism, we start from the relative presence or absence of corporatism in industrial relations. A specification of the relationships between corporatist arrangements and social and political factors suggests four specific models can account for the 12 countries considered. The model allows us to make sense of the various arrangements linking institutional forms and the social and political forces that generate and sustain these forms. Two domains are considered specifically, industrial relations and politics.

Is political choice under conditions of uncertainty influenced more by expected losses than by expected gains? Does the relative importance of economic rationality in political choice vary between generations? The analysis of individual opinion on sovereignty in Quebec sheds new light on these questions. Among determinants of individual support for sovereignty, apprehensions of possible losses play a more important role than expectations of possible gains. The relative importance of the evaluation of economic consequences in the decision to support sovereignty, however, differs across three generations. These differences can be explained with reference to the economic context that prevailed when members of each generation reached adulthood.