Scholars are now accustomed to adapting to ever–changing forms ofcommunication technology that permit quicker and wider disseminationof their research and the availability to them of the research ofothers. Since 1968, the Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revuecanadienne de science politique has appeared solely in paper formatalthough its editorial and production procedures have becomeincreasingly distinguished by electronic forms of communication. In1996, the JOURNAL's website was created, providing various editorialand business information, including the abstracts of articles and listsof books reviewed in recent issues.

Since the mid–1990s, comparative research on welfare state evolution hascontrasted the contours of postwar social policy expansion with theparameters of contemporary programme retrenchment. Paul Pierson's 1994account of pension, housing and income support policies in the UnitedKingdom and the United States during the Thatcher and Reagan yearsproposed two core arguments with this literature: first, welfare stateexpansion and contraction were governed by fundamentally differentdynamics; and second, even conservative, ideologically committedpolitical executives found it hard to impose radical social policychanges. Because “the welfare state has proved to be far more resilientthan other key components of national political economies.”Pierson hasmaintained, “retrenchment is a distinctive and difficult politicalenterprise.”

The literature on evolutionary theory tends to address questions ofethnicity from two perspectives: (1) macro, or long–term selection processes associated with basic human preferences for individual orgroup survival, ethnic identity or kinship affiliations; and (2)intermediate selection mechanisms associated with the fitness andadaptability of specific cultures, religions or belief systems indifferent regions of the world.Comparatively less time has been spentaddressing micro–evolutionary questions about the timing, escalationand duration of ethnic violence — that is, micro orshort–term selectionprocesses and fitness mechanisms that account for the escalation and/orduration of ethnic hatreds, violence or war at a particular time.

Governments appear increasingly constrained in their ability to makeindependent policy choices in an era of global economic finance andcommunication. As a result, scholars are more closely examining howactors, institutions and economic forces that extend beyond stateborders can influence domestic public policies and politics. Thisscholarship on “globalization” and “transnationalrelations” serves as a corrective to a comparative public policy literature that has tended totreat external pressures as either exogenous shocks, or as simply otherinterests to which the state must respond.

Au cours des dernières années, plusieurs recherches ontété menées surun phénomène relativement récent en Occident:l'accès plus important desfemmes à des charges publiques électives.Ces recherchesont porté soit sur les caractéristiques des femmes qui sollicitaientun mandat électif et qui parvenaient à se faireélire, soit sur les obstaclesqui jonchaient leur route vers le pouvoir, soit sur certaines de leursattitudes et opinions et sur certaines perceptions, notamment quantau rôle des femmes en politique .Ces études ontétéeffectuées à tous les paliers de gouvernement, bien que le paliermunicipal ait été quelque peu négligé,reflétant peut-être un désintérêtplus large de notre discipline pour cette instance décisionnelle.

Over the past few years there has been an increase in scholarly attention to the politics, the theorization and the logic of difference as asite of contestation; as a cultural value, as a measure ofliberalism'scapacity for tolerance and inclusion, and as a subject of state actionfor protection. The debate has been joined by two contributors to thisJOURNAL: Avigail Eisenberg in 1994 and Katherine Fierlbeck in 1996.Their thinking is fairly representative of the important debate aboutthe political significance of difference, especially in view ofAboriginal rights and contemporary treaties in Canada, and deservescloser scrutiny.

Recensions / Reviews