Arguments for tolerance, and criticisms of it, regularly produce paradoxes and other kinds of conceptual difficulty. We seek to show that these paradoxes are unnecessary, and that they arise from misconceptions of what a theory of tolerance is required to justify. Imagined as a “virtue,” tolerance is simply confused with other concepts; understood in the framework of a theory of “rights,” the element of choice essential to the concept is wholly neglected; explaining the concept in terms of some theory of fallibilism leads to a confusion of pragmatic with cognitive standards. Moreover, such mistaken approaches often arise from an equation of tolerance with liberalism or pluralism: the authors maintain, however, that justifications of tolerance do not rest on a commitment to any political theory or ideology, but imply only a recognition of the political situation itself.

Macdonald is described as a man of phronesis who possessed a sophisticated political philosophy which, in general, conformed to the political disposition exemplified by Edmund Burke. Macdonald's views on the constitution, change, representation, democracy, women, tradition, economics, religion and unions are investigated. It is concluded that Macdonald was an anti-rationalist who saw the world in terms of loyalty, duty and obligation and who was devoted to the principles of prudence, tradition and the rule of law, to constitutional monarchy, to the British connection and British institutions but with respect for French traditions, to the minimal change consistent with harmony, to order before liberty, politics before economics and experience before abstract reason.

The article presents a reinterpretation of the welfare state dealing with the role played by women in the development and on-going function of the welfare state. Three roles are emphasized: women's organizing and the role of women's organizations in pressuring for the measures making up the welfare state, women as workers in the welfare state and, finally, women as clients of the welfare state. Having described these roles, the current politics of the welfare state are examined in order to illustrate the importance of understanding the relations between gender and politics.

If the next stage of constitutional renewal is to be the strengthening of national institutions, consideration should be given to the judicial branch of government as well as to the Senate and House of Commons. In assessing reforms in this area it is important to distinguish the symbolic from operational consequences. First priority should be given to constitutional entrenchment of the Supreme Court. Although the significance of such an amendment is largely symbolic, it is needed to remove uncertainties created by references to the Supreme Court in the Constitution Act, 1982. A general guarantee of judicial independence should be abandoned as a misguided exercise in constitutional symbolism. From both a symbolic and operational perspective, reform of section 96 of the original constitution holds out the most interesting possibility of establishing the constitutional basis for a truly national judiciary.

Aristotle is reputed to be a thinker for whom nature is a standard which enables political judgments to avoid being arbitrary. By examining his discussion of acquisition in the Politics, this article reconsiders whether and how this reputation is deserved. Although Aristotle's discussion seems to represent a classic case in which theoretical reflections on nature issue in a moral condemnation of limitless acquisition, a subsequent distinction between theory and practice limits the practical consequences of his remarks on nature. This observation invites a rethinking of Aristotle's position on the relationship between nature and political life.

The aim of this study is to provide an empirical basis for theories about political coalitions formed to apply economic sanctions against a target country. An excellent example is the economic blockade of Cuba by the United States, during which successive Republican and Democratic administrations have pursued economic measures to achieve a political objective. This study investigates the degree of cooperation and cleavage among Washington's capitalist-bloc allies with this effort to establish multilateral economic pressures against the Cuban Revolution. The analysis suggests that, despite the growth of economic competition during the 1960s and 1970s, such strains were not reflected at the level of political relationships.

Ontario's two minority governments provide political scientists an opportunity to analyze how a government and legislature will function when executive control is curtailed by the electorate. It also affords an opportunity to observe the dynamics of legislative reform in a situation where backbenchers have unaccustomed clout. Relying on a survey of “insider” opinion, the article finds that MPPs showed little interest in reforms other than those which improved their services. Further, it finds that all the normal functions attributed to the legislature were performed better in a minority situation. However, while the majority of respondents had positive overall assessments of the minority experience, they had a variety of reservations about perpetuating it in some way. The article points up the dilemma that there appears to be no way to “capture” the widely recognized positive aspects of minority administrations within the norms of parliamentary government accepted by legislators and no willingness on their part to vary these norms.

Social thought is in a state of crisis; so is Western society. We are still subject to the ideologies and social structures developed or institutionalized during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. No new global social theory has emerged since those of Hegel and Marx. Socialism seems both to complete and to abstract Western social thought. An explanatory hypothesis suggests itself: the blockage is a result of the contradiction in Western civilization between the deep aspiration for social efficiency and the equally profound desire for liberty. This contradiction, historically very fruitful, has been brought to its head by socialism, which although stemming from liberalism, has not managed to supersede it or to suppress it. Hence the crisis of socialism becomes the true crisis of our thought and society.

This article contends that the ethical principle underlying C. B. Macpherson's attempted retrieval of liberal democracy embodies two ontologies, a liberal ontology of self-governance and a humanist ontology of developmental man. The presence of the latter ontology is shown to reveal a fundamental weakness in Macpherson's thought: it justifies a type of political authority destructive of what he values in liberal democracies. The article concludes that, contrary to Macpherson's understanding, his radical effort to rescue liberal democracy from capitalism could dispense with the humanist ontology and be sustained on the basis of the liberal ontology alone.

Searching for the meaning of politics is time lost. Introduced by the Ancient Greeks, the concept of politics came to be understood by subsequent authors as the most meaningful of the social sciences. It has been reduced to a secondary status, however, with the growth of sociology. The term has become loaded with meaning, to the level of the inexpressible. Attempts at delimiting it have been fruitless except for nominalist definitions which are evaluated for their heuristic character within a given theoretical discourse. The analyst should look for social relations instead of given social objects.

The migration of people from valley to valley or from region to region, and, since the emergence of the nation state, from country to country, is an acknowledged characteristic of humanity. The motives behind population movements fall into two broad categories: a desire for an improved lifestyle based upon economic betterment and a need to escape from persecution and oppression stemming from intolerance and discrimination whether practised or merely condoned by those in authority. Frequently, these fundamental motivations explaining population movements may be interrelated and therefore difficult to separate. Economically motivated migrants have comprised the majority of persons throughout the ages who have pulled up roots to relocate. Nevertheless, that portion of mankind which has felt compelled to flee to avoid physical danger resulting from official or societal attitudes and policies has constituted a significant portion of the migratory population. This article focusses on this latter category of persons, some of whom seek to enter and remain in Canada. The policy and administrative process governing the admission to Canada of these refugees, as well as an explanation and evaluation of the formulation and implementation of such processes will constitute the major thrust of thearticle.

This article argues that Popper's social and political theory is congenial to the planning and carrying out of fundamental and thoroughgoing reform of society guided and informed by rationally plausible and morally defensible theory. Popper's arguments for moderation in political action do not rest on or support any kind of idealization of either tradition or status quo, or even upon his dislike of violence, but rather upon the inherent limitations of human knowledge. While there is no need to fear radical revolution in theoretical science (no one is harmed when theories are killed), the application of theories to political action involves risk. And risk presents moral problems and decisions which cannot be resolved by science. Popper's social and political ethics are humanitarian and egalitarian. If this should require broad, fundamental changes in political and social norms and institutions, then such changes must remain among the ultimate, if not the immediate goals of political action.

Robert Nozick seeks to extract a substantive theory of distributive justice (“the entitlement theory”) from what he takes to be the formal properties of natural rights (or rights-based) theory. The unsoundness of his arguments supports the longstanding suspicion that all such theories are conceptually confused and ideological biased. Yet upon examination, the classical (chiefly Lockean) views that Nozick regards as a prototype of natural rights theory withstand that suspicion precisely in so far as they lack the formal properties of his own theory. I conclude that theories of the classical form are better equipped to resolve political arguments.

Tocqueville is usually understood to have proposed a two-tiered antidote to “the problem of democracy”: the doctrine of “self-interest rightly understood” and the preservation of religious belief. This article argues that Tocqueville provided a previously unnoticed third tier to his prescription: the democratic family. Sheltered from the competitive individualism of society, the family is portrayed as a haven of co-operation that nurtures the habits of altruism. Central to this scheme is a “different but equal” regime of the sexes. Arguing that increased equality leads to increased competition, Tocqueville suggests that a thorough-going equality of the sexes would undermine the family's function of moral formation.

According to Hayek the rule of law constitutes the foundation of liberalism's political and legal theory. General and abstract laws, as opposed to concrete measures, protect individual freedom from prerogative and arbitrariness (normativism versus decisionism). Hayek maintains that Carl Schmitt's decisionism explains his attacks on liberalism and the prominent role he played in support of Hitler's regime. Two general observations should shorten the distance that Hayek seeks to establish between his posture and that of Schmitt. Firstly, Schmitt's critique is primarily aimed against the tendency that neutralizes the state and makes it vulnerable to democratic pressures. Secondly, Hayek's normativism is seen to contain a decisionist potential.

Rousseau had usually been interpreted as desiring the re-emergence of pre-modern virtue. His writings contain many appeals to this supreme virtue of courage and honour. At the same time, however, Rousseau embraces many of the principles of modern philosophical thought, thus rendering a return to classical virtue problematic. The author proposes that his commitment to modern principles entails a substantial reformulation of virtue such that it becomes expressed as those qualities displayed in the social world of labour and love. This new account alters the character of human association by fundamentally altering the ancient distinction between public and private. The new social sphere which develops through this alteration is, however, subject to some difficulties.

Native Indian leaders in Canada have embraced the European-Western doctrine of sovereignty as the political-legal instrumentality for achieving their version of “the good society.” This article analyzes the appropriateness and feasibility of sovereign statehood for Canada's Indians. Indian aspirations to sovereign statehood run aground on at least two counts: key ideas contained in the European-Western doctrine of sovereignty are incompatible with core values comprising traditional Indian culture: also, the Canadian government is implacably opposed to relinquishing its sovereignty over Indians. This study explores alternative models of self-determination for Canada's Indians and concludes that stateless nationhood offers the best basis on which Indians may be able to negotiate internal self-determination.

Students of urban politics have in the past tended to neglect the question of gender in their research. Since the early 1970s, however, this question has generated a significant number of studies. Investigation of the role of women in cities, in relation to the various components of urban structure such as transportation and housing, shows that women have a variety of relations with the organization of social space. The results of research to date allow us to define the main aspects of these relationships, and to assess the relevance of these kinds of enquiries. Several trends can be discerned in the literature in this emerging field. These indicate that the strengths and the weaknesses of future research will be at two levels: that of theory-building in the area of gender politics, and that of continuing investigations of this question in the context of more traditional approaches to urban politics.

Provincial constitutional documents have not usually been the subject of scrutiny by those concerned with the governmental process at the provincial level. It has been assumed that the major characteristics of provincial government have been shaped by constitutional rules derived from the British North America Act and from the conventions of British-style parliamentary government. A case study of the British Columbia Constitution Act shows that such assumptions are only partially true. The powers of the provinces to shape their governmental structures through constitutional adaptation are extensive and have been used in the case of British Columbia to make broad modifications to the style of constitutionalism in the province since its entry to Confederation in 1871. It is not that the term provincial constitution should become a household word but that the investigation of the operation and potential of provincial constitutions should be seen as an essential component to an understanding of the provincial governmental process.

This article examines several major demonstrations that turned violent, with particular emphasis on the organization of the groups, their political status, their objectives, the style of action of the participating groups and the actions of the police forces. After examining how these factors combined to affect the dynamics of the collective action process in each of the incidents, a series of hypotheses is drawn up charting the relationships between these factors in order to establish some hypotheses about the causes of violent outcomes during demonstrations.