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The idea of offering Sèvres porcelain as a diplomatic gift emerged in France in 1757. The Qianlong emperor benefited from this diplomatic blessing at the instigation of the minister of state, Henri Bertin, an ardent Sinophile. Through the examination of a few examples, this article examines the circumstances in which these gifts were offered and defines the diplomatic objectives behind them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé: Cet article étudie la stratégie de communication gouvernementale lors du mouvement de grève étudiante de 2012 au Québec. Six ans après la fin du conflit, et malgré la production d'un volume important d'analyses et de réflexions sur cette crise sociale, aucune étude empirique n'a recensé systématiquement le contenu de la stratégie communicationnelle du gouvernement. Par le biais d'une analyse de contenu quantitative des interventions publiques des membres de l'exécutif, cette étude relève les cadres argumentaires au cœur de la stratégie de communication gouvernementale. S'inspirant de la théorie de l'activation en cascade d'Entman, l'analyse montre comment le gouvernement a tenté de définir les problèmes, les solutions et les protagonistes impliqués dans le conflit sociétal qu'a traversé le Québec en 2012. Notre analyse met en lumière l'échec gouvernemental à maintenir au fil des évènements l'initiative du cadrage de la crise, et le changement de stratégie communicationnelle qui en résulte. This article examines how the government framed its communications during the so-called "Printemps érable" (Maple Spring), a historic student protest movement that took place in Quebec in 2012. Six years after the end of the conflict, and despite the production of a significant volume of analysis and reflections on this social crisis, no empirical work had been dedicated yet to the study of the government's communication strategy. Following a quantitative content analysis of 424 public interventions from cabinet members, this study raises the argumentative frameworks at the heart of the government's communication strategy. Drawing on Entman's cascading activation model (2004), the analysis shows how the government tried to define the problems, solutions and protagonists involved in this societal conflict. Our study highlights the government's failure to maintain the framing initiative of the crisis, and the change in communication strategy that resulted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the literature on the process of cabinet appointments and on ministerial careers and the types of mobility that they involve, this article examines the hypothesis that the rate of ministerial promotion and demotion within a cabinet differs for women and men. To verify this hypothesis, we compiled a database that integrates the several hundred individuals who served as ministers in the Quebec Executive Council between 1976 and 2012. The quantitative analysis consists of descriptive statistics and negative binomial models; it takes into consideration a number of variables, including age, education, and past political mandates. Our results show that the ministerial careers of women and men follow a similar trajectory. Specifically, women and men begin their ministerial careers with minor portfolios, but as their ministerial experience accumulates, ministers of both sexes take on portfolios of increasing importance. In other words, the ministerial careers of women do not lag behind those of men. This observation negates the idea that the ministerial careers of women are less illustrious than those of their male counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The style of politician speeches reveals their personalities and their communication strategies. In order to analyse the style of Quebec prime ministers, from 1960 to 2005, a corpus of 789 speeches have been built up and a quantitative stylistic analysis has been applied to it. The main indicators used are the grammatical categories, especially the verbs and pronouns, the length and the structure of the sentences. This statistical comparison shows some important differences between the styles of the prime ministers and between the communication strategies they have followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]