The State and Its Three Levels: Regime, Governance and Polity

This article is not simply a summary of the analytical framework already presented in the earlier, principal theoretical works of the author. It goes beyond the simple exercise of schematic brevity by adding some new elements: the notion of collective action groups between those of social classes and interest groups; a first transposition of a schema conceived for the classical unitary state to one applicable to the federal, or “multiple,” state; and a new formulation of the three analytical levels, specifically those characterizing this theoretical framework, which go by the labels of “regime,” “governance,” and “polity.”

The article is divided into three parts corresponding to the study of the three levels and connected by an equal number of “thresholds” of levels. The conclusion points out the lines of transposition for the study of a federal state and the directions of research for the analysis of political change.

This article deals with the political development in Czechoslovakia 1945–1948, a crucial period in Eastern Europe for a liberal democratic system in that country. In 1945 the Soviet leader, Stalin, gave his personal approval for this experiment to go on and the Czechoslovak communist party followed his instruction, participating fully in the government. As in international affairs Czechoslovakia was to act as a bridge between the West and East; internally it was to serve as a model of peaceful transition from “bourgeois” democracy to “people's” democracy. The model is examined in some detail. Since attempts were made in 1968 to re-establish it in the new conditions of the 1960s, it was accepted as a political model for the Euro-communists. After 1947, with the onset of the cold war the Czechoslovak communists changed their minds (Stalin probably also) and began to plot to seize power, which they easily achieved in February 1948. The article is based on published communist sources, especially those during the period of the Prague spring, and diplomatic reports from Czechoslovakia deposited at the British Foreign Office.

There is a disturbing quality to George Grant's more recent work that reflects less the substance than the obscurity of his so-called prophetic message. Gloomy reflections on the human prospect are, after all, not uncommon today, and while critics may describe yet another dismal forecast as pessimistic, they are unlikely to be “perplexed” by it or be struck by its “cranky obscurity.” The problem with books such as Time as History or English-Speaking Justice is not that their message is unpalatable but that one is never really sure just what the message is. Certainly Grant's work resists any simple ideological packaging. He has consistently repudiated the Utopian politics of the left and is well aware of the impossibility of conservatism in the modern world. Neither can it be said that in his writing Grant simply adopts the role of social critic. While apparently critical of modern society he is well aware that we are all moderns today, reminding us of the foolishness of attempting a return to the past as if the discoveries of the modern age had not been made.

Given the Liberal party's dominant position in Canadian federal politics, it has been extremely difficult for the Progressive Conservatives to effect an electoral breakthrough and win enough parliamentary seats to form a government. In this century, the Conservatives have been in power for only 22 years. The last time the party formed a majority government was in the spectacular Diefenbaker victory of 1958 which gave the Conservatives 208 of 265 seats. After the demise of the Diefenbaker government in 1963, the Conservatives languished in opposition until 1979 when they won a plurality of seats and Joe Clark formed his short-lived government. It is the election of 1979 which provides the focus of analysis in this article, and especially the success of the Conservatives in supplanting the Liberals, although not with a majority government.

The Structural Analysis of law

Rules of law can be considered as “planned” orders which prescribe relations of control between social actors. From a network perspective, control is defined as constraints on the variety of social communication. It bears upon the transmission of norms, of status, of human and material resources, of informational resources, and of controls themselves. Each of these dimensions allows for a structural analysis where different types of structures can be identified from the more centralized ones to the less centralized ones. These different types are named: coarchy, stratarchy, hierarchy, and anarchy.

The electoral representation rule which was adopted by the Quebec National Assembly in 1979 is analyzed to illustrate such a method of analysis. It appears, as a result, that the structures of the more important control relations (those bearing on the transmission of norms and status) generally speaking are more centralized than the structures of less important ones (those bearing on the transmission of resources).

Such a structural analysis can be applied to other “planned” orders: for example, regulations and decrees, constitutions and statutes of organizations. It also can be applied to “live-in” orders, that is to say to operative control relations, which are subject in various degrees to the “planned” orders.

Power and Conflicts in Organizations: Strengths and Limits of the Model of Michel Crozier

Because of the manner in which they look at inter-organizational conflict and power, none of the main streams of organizational theory has been able to incorporate the three elements which compose the political dimension in an organization: strategic interaction, the integration of behaviour in the collective “system,” and the consideration given to cultural effects.

Michel Crozier claims to have solved the problem by having recourse to a systematic and hypothetical-inductive reasoning, and in making power the base for all forms of relationships where one always finds implied some negotiated influence. The different theoretical positions taken regarding the strategicanalysisthat he proposes are examined in this article. The author stresses the advantages of the procedure; suggests an improvement to understand interaction; questions the assumption of the necessity of the systematic integration; and comments on the methodological difficulties of introducing the cultural element in strategic action.

Recent years have witnessed an increased attention toward legislative decision-making in urban Canada. Various studies have been undertaken which attempt to analyze the fundamental patterns of city council voting in different Canadian centres. Although influenced theoretically by discussions in the American legislative voting literature, they have frequently detected trends at variance with findings in the United States. Nevertheless, the direction of such Canadian studies has tended to be less focussed, with hypotheses and theoretical approaches frequently being rejected. This particular work was undertaken in an attempt to break out of a predictable mould which has tended to feature replications of similar research modes across the range of cities. The goal here is to redress the lack of theoretical initiative and to develop new explanations for the dynamic that underlies the municipal decision-making process.

Recent studies addressing the origins of political orientations raise questions concerning the level of generality at which it is appropriate to conceptualize such orientations. In traditional treatments of the subject, the assumption is implicit that one’s orientation to government is a generalized disposition that has application across various levels of government–for example, that a citizen’s particular degree of trust (or distrust) in public officials to represent the public interest usefully characterizes his orientations to national, provincial and urban legislatures alike.