In the tradition of democratic theory, elections are recognized as important mechanisms of accountability. However, the migration of public decision-making responsibility away from elected representatives and the emergence of new governance actors necessitate a fuller conceptualization of accountability relationships. As governments pursue partnerships with societal actors and disperse authority across multiple levels, questions of public input and accountability within the democratic governance process arise. In this paper, cases of authority migration in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia between the years of 1946 and 2005 are used to examine the accountability relationships between new governance actors and both government and society. The existence and relative strength of accountability relationships are evaluated using the rules stipulated in the provincial legislation. Political ideology of governing parties, geographic scale of new jurisdictions and period in time are evaluated as predictors of the strength of the accountability relationship overall.

This paper reconsiders whether federal and provincial parties are as independent and separate as the literature would suggest. Examining five different types of party personnel (party members, activists, riding presidents, candidates and legislators) this paper explores how federal parties and their counterparts in Ontario have responded to multi-level governance. Rather than embracing “two political worlds,” party personnel have responded to the federal nature of Canadian politics by engaging with parties at multiple levels. Additionally, the paper examines two competing explanations of party integration and seeks to uncover whether differences organizational design or ideological consistency best explain divergent levels of party integration. The experience of the Conservatives demonstrates that vertical integration is not a result of a party's organizational design alone and that a coherent ideology can help to offset a truncated organizational structure.

This article examines the interaction of different modes and levels of legitimacy within network governance institutions over time. Drawing on new theoretical directions in European governance studies and empirical findings from Canada, we contend that whereas input legitimacy can be exchanged, or traded-off, with output legitimacy to reinforce the overall legitimacy of a network governance institution, “throughput legitimacy” functions as a necessary condition that sustains legitimacy over time. Through a comparison of homelessness governance networks in Toronto and Calgary, we find that throughput legitimacy carries an amplification effect that results in either virtuous or vicious cycles. That is, we argue and demonstrate that low throughput legitimacy in network governance institutions can effectively bring down the whole house of cards.

For the past decade, debates over the issue of immigration have been a central feature of political life in Quebec. They have underscored the cultural insecurity of Quebecers and the sense that, for many Quebec citizens, immigration is a threat to Quebec culture. These debates have also left the impression that there are regional disparities in the way immigration is perceived. But what is the actual situation? Is cultural insecurity really stronger outside the main urban centers? Are there really significant regional variations in perceptions about immigration, and if so, what accounts for them? This article addresses these questions with the help of a public opinion survey conducted with close to 30 000 Francophone Quebecers during the spring of 2011. Our findings show that there are indeed important regional variations but that, contrary to common assumptions, Francophones living outside major urban centers are not the ones most inclined to perceive immigration as a threat to Quebec culture. In fact, Francophones living in the immediate periphery of the city of Montreal are more likely to view immigration negatively, suggesting a kind of “halo” effect. Our findings also indicate that regional differences are strongest among the younger generations.

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the quality of democratic accountability mechanisms in Latin America. It begins by reviewing the concept of democratic accountability quality and its operationalization by means of factor analysis. As a result, three quality indicators are identified corresponding to the types of accountability that prevail in the literature: horizontal, electoral and social. The study reveals considerable differences among the Latin American democracies. Set out below is an exploratory analysis of the factors explaining these differences. The analysis yields three main conclusions. First, it confirms the usefulness of the model. Second, the quality of each type of accountability is explained by specific factors: no one factor explains all three cases. Third, a different logic behind social accountability mechanisms is detected as compared with the other two types of accountability mechanisms.

This article deals with the controversy that arose in 2002–2005 over faith-based arbitration tribunals held in Ontario. It seeks to contribute to the existing literature on the question by looking at new empirical sources. The analysis focuses specifically on the public discourse of social actors who opposed the establishment of arbitration tribunals. The majority of those who opposed arbitration tribunals did not formulate their position in terms of an opposition between religion and feminist values. Rather, they focused their arguments on the supposed danger of Islam, which they perceived as an oppressive and alien religion. The controversy over religious arbitration becomes a way to claim a Western, “Canadian” identity that is also secular and Judeo-Christian. From this perspective, the Ontarian controversy can be related to European debates on Islam that emerged during the last decade (such as the cartoon controversy in Denmark, the debate on minarets in Switzerland, and the burqa prohibition in Belgium).

This article examines the evolving debate over takeover bids by foreign state-owned and influenced enterprises (SOEs) in the context of CNOOC's successful 2012 acquisition of Nexen Inc., historical debates over foreign investment in Canada and the ongoing adaptation of Canadian trade and investment policies to global shifts in economic activity and power. It views SOE-related policy changes as responses to four broad factors: Canada's adaptation to changing global investment patterns as a small, open economy, efforts to diversify Canada's trade and investment relations while balancing domestic regional and sectoral interests, the extension of trade-related principles of reciprocity to investment policies and competition among governmental and economic interests in the allocation of discretion in corporate governance and related regulatory policies.

This article argues that the granting of responsible government to Yukon in 1979 was not the inevitable outcome of territorial political development but the result of a protracted and organized settler political movement that emerged first in opposition to the federal government and, later, to Yukon's Indigenous peoples. I analyze settler actor political behaviour and outcomes using the framework of “contested colonialism.” Non-Indigenous Yukoners are understood as actors who simultaneously bring colonialism to the North while also contesting elements of that same colonial order. Using extensive archival research, I identify several critical junctures leading to the implementation of responsible government during the 1960s and 1970s.