I have interpreted the rather facetious title given me by the programme committee as permission to speak rather light-heartedly, even irresponsibly, about a few of the changes in the formal methods of analysis in the field of economic theory; to speak of fashions in tools, fashions in gadgets, fashions, if you will forgive me, in models.

In the 1920's Professor J. M. Clark supported the thesis that economic theory has developed by replacing worn and outgrown half-truths by new half-truths, that correspond more closely with increased knowledge, changing points of view, and different circumstances. Sir Dennis Robertson reviewed the first volume of the Survey of Contemporary Economics, called his review “A Revolutionist's Handbook,” and enumerated seven revolutions; but his phrasing is ironical. In his posthumous work on the History of Economic Analysis Professor Schumpeter has contended, with some success I think, that advances in economic analysis have been more consistent and less fluctuating than changes in the field of economic doctrine, economic systems, or economic thought. Fashions change, then, even in the methods of economic theory, but there is a good deal of continuity too. Many of the most widely useful tools of economic theory have changed very little in the last generation, or even in the last century; some have been in use for many centuries. Nevertheless, there have been many important changes too. Periodically, as attention comes to be focussed on a particular sort of problem, old tools are repaired, polished up, and put in the shop window; or new ones are invented.

Dans cet article, les injustices en matière de responsabilités de care entre les partenaires hétérosexuel.les sont problématisées comme des irresponsabilités relationnelles. D'abord, l'apport des théories du care à l'appréhension des asymétries de pouvoir liées au déséquilibre dans le travail de soin est discuté. Ensuite, les manifestations de ce déséquilibre sont illustrées dans les arrangements intimes établis par les couples. Ces conséquences injustes sont, par la suite, conceptualisées comme des « irresponsabilités relationnelles ». Enfin, une conception de la coresponsabilité relationnelle est proposée dans une perspective de plus de justice et de démocratie entre les personnes, dans le privé comme le public.

Studies of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) focus largely on its policy-making role and its interpretation of the Charter of Rights. However, less studied are the Court's decisions in earlier periods, especially in comparison to the Charter years and in cases beyond civil rights and liberties. This study fills a gap in the scholarship by analyzing the universe of decisions from 1945 to 2005 in criminal, tax and tort cases. Utilizing Baum's (1988, 1989) method to examine policy change, I explore policy trends on the Supreme Court. The findings suggest that, for the most part, the SCC has remained a stable, consistent body over the course of its modern history. It appears that most of the variation in judicial output across time is due to issue change with some shifts due to personnel and membership change.

Abstract. The existing literature on gender effects in the electoral process offers little evidence of significant gender vote share differentials. In this paper it is shown that for the 2006 Canadian federal election, once candidate campaign spending is introduced into the model with appropriate flexibility in the vote share responsiveness across genders, significant differences are found to exist between male and female candidates. The findings suggest that, for equal levels of spending, male incumbents have a vote share advantage relative to female incumbents, though this vote share advantage is found to diminish with increased expenditures. Female non-incumbent candidates, on the other hand, have a vote share advantage over male non-incumbent candidates for higher levels of expenditure and this advantage was found to increase with increased expenditures.

Résumé. Les écrits traitant des effets du genre dans le processus électoral offrent peu de preuves d'un écart significatif dans le pourcentage des voix selon le genre. Cet article montrera que, dans le contexte des élections fédérales canadiennes de 2006, une fois que les dépenses de campagne des candidats sont introduites dans le modèle avec la flexibilité adéquate sur la réceptivité du pourcentage des voix selon les genres, on découvre que des différences significatives existent entre les candidats masculins et féminins. Le résultat des recherches montre que pour des dépenses équivalentes, les titulaires masculins ont un avantage sur le pourcentage des voix par rapport aux titulaires de sexe féminin bien qu'il s'avère que cet avantage diminue lorsque les dépenses augmentent. D'autre part, les candidates féminines non-titulaires ont un avantage sur le pourcentage des voix par rapport aux candidats masculins non-titulaires quand les dépenses sont plus élevées et cet avantage s'avère augmenter lorsque les dépenses augmentent.

The influence of party connection on the selection of judges has long been an issue in Canada This article considers whether such connections adversely affect the appointment of women judges to federally appointed courts. The answer appears to be yes. Using political donations as a proxy for party connection, the data analyzed here suggest that as the number of appointees with connections to the government rises, the number of women appointees falls. However, for appointments to provincial courts by the government of Ontario, the prevalence of political connections among judicial appointees is less prominent, suggesting that different systems of judicial appointment may help to lessen these effects.

Rainer Knopff's scholarship on Canadian constitutionalism has offered some of the most trenchant criticism of the exercise of judicial review under the Charter, yet his theory has largely been misunderstood (as has that of his frequent co-author F. L. Morton). This article exposes two prominent critiques of Knopff's constitutional writings as straw man arguments and provides a republican account of his constitutional theory. The first straw man argument is that Knopff supports a majoritarian or populist conception of direct democracy. This claim is belied by Knopff's embrace of representative democracy and institutions structured to encourage reflexive deliberation. The second straw man argument is that Knopff is a moral rights skeptic. Knopff's rights skepticism is a legal skepticism about the determinacy of many rights that is merely a function of his inclusive legal positivism. The article concludes by reflecting on the republican lessons that Knopff's constitutional scholarship continues to offer, including how holding legislatures responsible for settling reasonable disagreements about legally indeterminate Charter rights might help counteract the twin threats of populism and juristocracy.

L’étude des imaginaires occupe dans l'historiographie dédiée au nationalisme camerounais une place marginale. Cet article traite d'eux à la fois comme modalités d'invention et de transformation de l’État-Nation depuis la fin du XIXe siècle. L’étude soutient qu'au cœur des multiples césures de l'histoire du Cameroun, l'imaginaire est apparu comme une ressource dans laquelle ont puisé les acteurs pour produire des utopies qui, dans des contextes divers ont pris une dimension performative. La réflexion fait trois principales contributions : elle montre tout d'abord que l'idée du Cameroun en tant qu'entité territoriale indivisible tire ses origines de la période coloniale allemande. Elle révèle qu'au-delà de ses causes structurelles, la question anglophone au Cameroun objective l'idée d'un conflit d'imaginaires entre francophones et anglophones. L'analyse de la question diasporique souligne enfin l'influence des médias dans la production des imaginaires dans la crise anglophone.

Several recent reports seek to evaluate the impact of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Canadian democracy by documenting his government's efforts to curtail established democratic processes and mechanisms for public debate. However, this article uses examples of the Harper government's changes to legislative and parliamentary norms to demonstrate that this government's efforts to curtail multi-directional public debate were importantly accompanied by efforts to amplify unidirectional communication of the government's partisan messages. The paper finds that this corresponding emphasis on communication exemplified a “photo-op” approach to democracy, which highlights points of compatibility between the seemingly contradictory authoritarian-populist “publicity state” and neoliberal democratic ideals. This research demonstrates the necessity of attention to government communication in analysis of the Harper government's impact on the Canadian public sphere. It also illustrates the pragmatic rather than doctrinaire nature of New Right politics in Canada and the affinity between neoliberal and authoritarian-populist approaches to governance.

The India-Pakistan Conflict: An Enduring Rivalry, T.V. Paul, ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

The rivalry between India and Pakistan has clearly been both deep and enduring. The two sides have fought four wars since attaining independence in 1947, and have waged a low-intensity conflict in the disputed territory of Kashmir since the late 1980s. And despite recent improvements in Indo-Pakistani relations, their fundamental political and territorial disagreements remain unresolved. However, it is not obvious why the two countries' relationship has been so stubbornly antagonistic. The India-Pakistan Conflict: An Enduring Rivalry, edited by T.V. Paul, addresses this issue. Specifically, the volume asks: Why has the Indo-Pakistani rivalry been so persistent, even compared to other long-standing conflicts? How have factors at the international, state and leadership levels contributed to this outcome? And why are the prospects for achieving a negotiated settlement of the rivalry so dim?

Contact tracing applications have been deployed at a fast pace around the world to stop the spread of COVID-19 and may be key to containing future pandemics. This study aims to explain public opinion toward cell phone contact tracing using a survey experiment. We build upon a theory in evolutionary psychology—disease avoidance—to predict how media coverage of the pandemic affects public support for containment measures. We report three key findings. First, exposure to a news item that shows people ignoring social distancing rules causes an increase in support for cell phone contact tracing. Second, pre-treatment covariates such as anxiety and a belief that other people are not following the rules rank among the strongest predictors of support for COVID-19 apps. And third, while a majority of respondents approve of the reliance on cell phone contact tracing, concerns for rights and freedoms remain a salient preoccupation.