Canadian federalism and the challenge of North American integration

Abstract: Canada's growing economic integration within North America has not resulted in parallel trends towards greater political integration or in the general harmonization of policies and regulations, as was hoped by some observers and feared by others. This article explains the incremental adaptation of Canadian federalism to market‐driven economic integration and assesses the factors that contribute to and constrain federal leadership and guidance of these processes. It outlines formal and informal processes for managing and reconciling overlapping jurisdictions ‐described as “complementary federalism” ‐ that balance the pursuit of policy coherence and pressures for policy harmonization with the recognition and accommodation of regional interests. The author examines the development and limits of complementary federalism in three major policy fields ‐ trade policy, taxation and the regulation of financial services and capital markets ‐ affected by trends towards North American economic integration. Sommaire: L'intégration politique et I'harmonisation générale des politiques et des règlements n'ont pas suivi la même courbe ascendante que celle de l'intégration économique du Canada au sein de l'Amérique du Nord, selon I'espoir de certains observateurs et la crainte de certains autres. Cet article explique I'adaptation graduelle du fééeralisme canadien à I'intégration economique axée sur les forces du marché et se penche sur les facteurs contribuant ou freinant le leadership fédéral et son orientation de ces processus. Il expose les processus officiels et officieux permettant de gérer et de concilier les compétences qui se chevauchent ‐ décrits comme une forme de fédéralisme complémentaire ‐ afin d'équilibrer la recherche de cohérence en matiére de politiques, et les pressions exercées pour les harmoniser tout en reconnaissant et en ménageant les intérêts régionaux. L'article examine le déeloppement et les limites du fédéralisme complémentaire dans trois grands domaines de politiques ‐ la politique commerciale, la politique fiscale et la réglementation des services et des marchés financiers ‐ ces domaines étant affectés par les tendances vers une intégration économique nord‐américaine.     

Building Capacity in Election Administration: Local Responses to Complexity and Interdependence

Public administration research has identified networks, professionalization, and collaboration with community interests as potential principles by which public organizations can enhance their capacity and effectiveness. This article explores the implementation of these principles by election administrators at the local level, where their ability to conduct elections is the subject of current scrutiny. Findings indicate that election administrators established networks, professional organizations, professionalization requirements and community collaborations prior to the passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Findings also suggest that local election efforts may become more effective as a result of certain provisions of the act that promote centralization and information dissemination. Local election administrators may also continue to build capacity by applying these public administration principles.     

UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN'S RIGHTS: THEORY AND PRACTICE

This article discusses the meaning of children's rights in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Both place primary responsibility for the upbringing and education of children on their parents and families. The freedom of parents to bring up their children in their own way is an important component of a liberal democracy founded on respect for individual differences. So if parents believe in moderate corporal punishment as a means of educating their children in their own religious beliefs, is the state justified in banning such punishment either in school or in the home in order to protect the children's rights? This article discusses the children's rights which are protected by doing so.     

“Wild Years”: Rock Music,Problem Behaviors and Mental Well-being in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescent preferences for non-mainstream types of rock music can be markers of adolescent problem behaviors, but no study has ever investigated whether this...     

Orchestration and transnational climate governance

With multilateral efforts to mitigate climate change in gridlock, attention has turned to transnational climate governance initiatives, through which sub- and non-state actors seek to reduce greenhouse gases. These initiatives include networks of cities committed to lowering their carbon footprints, voluntary corporate reduction targets and disclosure processes, and many of the rules that govern carbon markets. The paper considers the role of “traditional” actors in world politics—states and intergovernmental organizations—in orchestrating such initiatives. This strategy accounts for nearly a third of transnational climate governance initiatives, we find, and upends the conventional dichotomy between “top down” and “bottom up” solutions to global collective action problems. We develop a theory to explain when states and intergovernmental organizations are likely to engage in orchestration, and we provide initial support for this theory with a new dataset of transnational climate governance initiatives and case studies of two of the most active orchestrators, the World Bank and the United Kingdom.