Sui Generis and Treaty Citizenship

This article, written from an Aboriginal perspective, explores the problematic invitation to federal citizenship in Canada for Aboriginal peoples. Its focus is on the deficits of such an offering for the constitutional rights of Aboriginal peoples, which is characterized by sui generis and treaty citizenship. Informed by Aboriginal and intercultural perspectives, the article argues that the offerings of statutory citizenship for Aboriginal peoples inverts rather than respects the constitutional relationship. It looks at how the Supreme Court of Canada has located and structured sui generis Aboriginal orders, the concepts of sui generis citizenship, treaty federalism, and constitutional supremacy as compared with the idea of federal citizenship, concluding that such 'invitations' to Canadian citizenship are inconsistent with and infringe upon the constitutional rights of Aboriginal peoples. By understanding the prismatic nature of Canadian federalism in a postcolonial context, this article aims at reconceptualizing Canadian citizenship in terms of ecological belonging, fundamental rights, and respect for human diversity and creativity.     

The Role of Party Activists in the Evolution of the Abortion Issue

This article examines the role of party activists in the partisan evolution of the abortion issue. Previous research indicates that party elites—specifically members of Congress—and partisans in the mass public have become more differentiated in their abortion attitudes during the last several decades with Democrats becoming more pro-choice and Republicans becoming increasingly pro-life. The missing piece of the picture is the behavior of party activists. Accordingly, this research examines the changes in the abortion attitudes of two groups of party activists during the last three decades: campaign activists and national convention delegates. From 1972 to 1980 there were no significant differences in the abortion attitudes of Republican and Democratic campaign activists, and the mean positions of the two parties' national convention delegates did not differ greatly. However, since 1984 there has been a growing differentiation in the abortion positions of both groups of party activists. Now Democratic activists are consistently pro-choice while Republican activists are equally pro-life. This evidence indicates that the differentiation on the abortion issue that has only recently emerged among partisans in the mass public was predated by an earlier and much more dramatic polarization that had already developed among party activists and elites, thus supporting a model of issue evolution introduced by Carmines and Stimson in their study of racial issues. We also find that citizens' abortion attitudes have become increasingly correlated with party voting not just in presidential elections but also in House, Senate, and gubernatorial contests during this period as well as being more closely related to political ideology. All of this evidence points to the growing extent to which abortion has become a partisan issue in American politics and the key role that party activists have played in this process.     

Race, Ethnicity, and Law Enforcement Profiling: Implications for Public Policy

The proposed Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act of 2001—Title II of Senate Bill 19 of the 107th Congress—was the third consecutive legislative proposal aimed at addressing the perceived problems of racial profiling and police abuse in the detention of minority motorists for allegedly unjustifiable reasons. The measure followed Senate Bill 821 from the 106th Congress and House Bill 118 from the 105th Congress. This study looks at the purpose of these bills, explores the reasons supporters believe that federal policy mandating law enforcement agencies to collect racial data on motorists stopped and detained is needed, and examines a number of public policy questions that a Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act might raise.     

From plan to network: Urban elites and the post-communist organisational state in Russia

Abstract. This article uses the results from formal network analysis to test hypotheses about the character of Russia's post-communist transition, taking decision-making elites at the sub-national level as the unit of analysis. From the transition literature, the hypothesis generated is that city politics retains elements of its pre-democratic structure; from the urban regime theory, the hypothesis generated is that the elites' structure will show elements of convergence to a Western type, with the prominence of actors from the private sector. The data is drawn from a survey of elites in one city, Novosibirsk, undertaken in 1997. The results show that the membership and structure of the network has some similar characteristics to a Western city. Rather than being purely dominated by bureaucratic elites, the private sector plays a role. The private sector actors are grouped with the public sector actors, though they are not, however, equal partners to the networks as its members do not appear among the most networked in the city. We conclude that the legacy of the past may not be as much a constraint as the transition literature supposes.     

On collective goods,private wealth,and the core solution of simple games with sidepayments

This essay identifies consequences for the core solution in a class of social decision problems concerning the provision of collective goods (or bads) if the rules are modified to permit sidepayments. In these problems, a kind of formal decision procedure that includes any weighted or unweighted majority rule governs only the decision about collective goods. Each decision about collective goods, however, implies a vector of the agents' endowments of private wealth that can, but need not, vary across the alternatives. Any agent may offer to make sidepayments from this endowment that are contingent on the collective goods decision, but the agent holds preferences that, given any fixed decision about collective goods, strictly increase in the agent's own wealth. The results indicate that the core's response to introducing the possibility of sidepayments depends on whether any agent possesses a veto over the collective goods decision. If no one has a veto, then an outcome belongs to the core of the game with sidepayments only if no sidepayment is made and the same decision about collective goods belongs to the core of the associated game without sidepayments. In this case, introducing the possibility of sidepayments does not bring a new collective goods decision into the core. Indeed, merely adding the possibility of sidepayments can cause the core to vanish. On the other hand, if at least one agent possesses a veto, then introducing sidepayments can (but need not) lead to a new core solution concerning the decision about collective goods. In any such new solution, at least one agent who has a veto — but no one who lacks it — receives a sidepayment.     

Deregulating Federalism? The Politics of Mandate Reform in the 104th Congress

This article examines the politics and substance of mandatereform in the 104th Congress. It briefly describes the evolutionof the mandate issue, examines the process by which the issuewas placed on the national agenda, and traces the formulationof a legislative response. It analyzes in detail the politicsof enacting mandate-reform legislation, paying particular attentionto patterns of support and opposition and to changes in thesepatterns over time. It concludes by examining the prospectsfor successful implementation of the legislation and its likelyconsequences for the intergovernmental system.     

Transborder Cooperation, Regional Initiatives, and Sovereignty Conflicts in Western Europe: The Case of the Upper Rhine Valley

Transborder cooperation in Western Europe has made considerableprogress. Primarily because of the activities of local groups,such as the Regio Basiliensis, and the support of internationalorganizations, such as the Council of Europe, the Upper RhineValley and other European border regions have succeeded in voicingtheir interests in a fairly cohesive manner. However, the continuedemphasis of national governments on sovereignty and nationalinterests has prevented international border regions from achievingsuch basic goals as infrastructure integration and harmonizationof environmental policy. Present forms of transborder politicalactivity have been insufficient to overcome conflicts betweenregional needs and national interests. For this and other reasons,European border regions have resorted to new local economicand political initiatives to argue more forcefully for borderregion demands. In pooling the combined resources of its Swiss,French, and German participants, the Upper Rhine Program ofInnovation might well serve as a model for this kind of regionalinitiative, perhaps setting a precedent for future forms oftransborder political activity.     

The Rise of Competitive Federalism

This article challenges the prevailing view of increasing political and fiscal centralization in the federal government. Since 1978, the authors argue, the nation has entered a new era of "Competitive Federalism" with federal, state and local governments locked in a competitive struggle for taxpayer resources and support. The new era has emerged largely because of the loss of the tremendous fiscal advantage held by the federal government during its centralization period, 1929 to 1978. Although "deregulated" and free to move into any area of domestic policy, the federal government is constrained by necessary budget pressures and a "reformed" income tax structure. Competitive Federalism has emerged as a new balancing force between Washington, D.C. and the fifty state-local governments and will govern the federal system for the foreseeable future.