The election of Donald Trump and his decision to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) represented a shock to the Canadian and Mexican governments and business elites. Drawing on the New Regionalism(s) Approach (NRA), this article reviews the response of the Canadian state to the crisis in the North American regional project. I argue that this newer theoretical approach better explains the dynamics of regionalization or regional decomposition than mainstream theories by integrating the role played by uneven globalization, normative and ideational dimensions, and civil society in processes of regional integration and/or decomposition.

What strategies will states pursue in managing their relations with more powerful neighbours? International Relations scholarship identifies a wide range of policy options open to “secondary states,” including soft balancing, bandwagoning and institutional binding. We provide a conceptual framework to distinguish between these similar and often conflated institutional strategies on the basis of two dimensions: threat perception and inclusiveness. We then apply this framework to the inter-American system. Analyzing original data on treaty action between 1946 and 2015, we find that secondary states’ adherence to multilateral agreements increases when the United States participates and when states do not perceive the hegemon to be a threat. These findings suggest that institutional binding captures the dynamics of inter-American cooperation more adequately than either soft balancing or bandwagoning: states balance against perceived threats but bind their friends.

While the vast majority of oil pipeline projects in Canada have been successfully built, several mega oil sands projects within and passing through Canada have been cancelled or significantly delayed. This article explains why these delays and cancellations have occurred. A systematic cross-case analysis is used to provide insight into the changing politics of oil sands pipelines. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is used to identify combinations of causal conditions that co-occur across cases of proposed new oil pipelines and pipeline expansion projects. The pipeline projects were proposed to the federal regulator—the National Energy Board—between 2006 and 2014. The QCA reveals that social mobilization and major regulatory barrier(s) are necessary conditions in explaining variation in pipeline project outcomes. The analysis of sufficiency reveals more complex configurations of conditions. This article contributes to the literature on the politics of oil sands pipelines by using a comparative approach to identify the impacts of socio-political and legal dynamics that have emerged around pipelines in the last 15 years.

We investigate how refugee sponsors and sponsorship groups approach their responsibility to “create new Canadians.” We set the stage by reflecting on the history of Canada as an immigrant-receiving, multicultural country, as well as on the role of acculturation attitudes of host community members in establishing the integration environment for newcomers in general. We use findings from nearly 60 interviews with sponsors in the Ottawa area to outline the different approaches that sponsors take. Approaches to sponsorship fall into three general orientations: paternalistic, passive paternalistic and mutualistic. These approaches manifest in the actions that sponsors take during the sponsorship process. In our discussion, we consider the implications of these approaches for the sponsor–refugee relationship, as well as the broader project of Canadian multiculturalism. We argue that mutualistic approaches best demonstrate welcoming acculturation orientations to newcomers, and that they are an important component of supporting privately sponsored refugees to become Canadians.

The duty to consult mandates that the Crown must consult affected Indigenous parties when Crown action may negatively impact Aboriginal rights or title claims. The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has emphasized that the duty should be characterized by honourable dealings and good faith negotiations. This article argues that the concept of throughput legitimacy can help evaluate the Crown's conduct in consultation. By analyzing 131 British Columbia Environmental Assessments (BC EAs), this article finds that the Crown struggles to uphold throughput legitimacy from the perspective of Indigenous peoples, particularly in the areas of transparency, accountability and effectiveness.

One reform considered for increasing voter turnout rates is to lower the voting age to 16 years old. Advocates of such a reform argue that young people would vote for the first time while they are still in school and living with their parents, which would provide a social context that is supportive of their electoral participation. However, opponents argue that 16- and 17-year-olds are not mature enough to take part in elections. Using data from a 2018 Quebec election survey that included a subsample of individuals aged 16 and 17, this study provides mixed evidence for both arguments.

Reforms to campaign finance laws at the beginning of the twenty-first century led to concerns that Canadian political parties would become more centralized, thereby altering the stratarchical arrangement between local party organizations and the national party office. This article extends the period of analysis to 2008 and 2011. Although concerns were not unfounded, data reported in this article reveal that horizontal linkages developed between constituency associations in the Conservative Party of Canada, instead of downward money transfers from the national office. The article compares the Conservative party to its major competitors and explores three regional cases where these linkages are prevalent. Tobit regression is used to examine whether monetary transfers are coordinated by the central office or initiated by local constituency associations. Given weak evidence for the latter, the findings demonstrate that parties with a reliable base of support can leverage their campaign resources from one region into a national presence.

In their much-quoted typology of Western media systems, Hallin and Mancini (2004) associate Canada's media system with what they call the “Liberal model,” given its strong professionalization and limited politicization. They also hypothesize the existence of a more professional and more politicized media subsystem in Quebec. This article tests their hypothesis with data from a 2018 survey of 209 experts across Canada. The findings do not support the hypothesis of a media subsystem in Quebec. However, they show a diversity of ideological and political orientations among news media organizations, which has important empirical and theoretical implications for the study of political communication in Canada.

By taking a historical perspective on the higher education and the housing sectors in Quebec, we demonstrate how the political cleavage around the national question has had long-term effects on the dynamic of contention in these two sectors. At a general level, the presence of this cleavage has favoured the adoption of institutional arrangements related to funding that have allowed the reproduction of social protest over time. Nevertheless, the institutional arrangements vary from one sector to another: in the case of higher education, Bill 32, adopted in 1983, facilitated the division of the student movement into two branches and, to some extent, its dynamism; in the case of housing, the AccèsLogis program and the contribution au secteur, implemented in 1997, ensured the selection of claims for social housing and favoured the grouping that leads this issue. In both cases, the national question is at the heart of the process that led to the adoption of these policies.

The predominance of Whiteness, and the corresponding lack of representation of people who are both racialized and minoritized, in the governance of universities is a political issue. We present the results from an intersectional diversity audit of central and senior academic administrators at five Canadian universities: Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, University of Victoria and York University. Our findings indicate that racialized men and women are hitting ceilings in the middle administrative ranks. Conversely, we find a notable overrepresentation of White men and women in the senior administrative ranks. Our analysis suggests that White women, unlike racialized women and men, no longer face serious barriers to representation within these senior ranks. These findings raise concerns about processes of racialization that may impede career progress for some but accelerate it for others. They raise concerns about the politics of who lifts whom into the echelons of academic decision making, which in turn has implications for justice, knowledge and social meanings of competency.