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As a postsecondary educator with most of my experience teaching in colleges, but with some also in undergraduate and postgraduate studies both in Canada and the United States, I have been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only undertaking empirical analyses of political behaviour and the normative analysis of political theory, but also in the practical activity of promoting understanding of what is frequently called "civic life". The authorities who develop broad educational goals seem to have it in mind that promoting ideas of good citizenship and suggesting ways in which this citizenship can be enacted should be among the several goals of faculty members involved in "general education." As we live in a liberal democracy, it follows that a good part of that mission should involve the both cognitive knowledge (how governments work, issues of policy development, elements of the political process, etc.) and what are sometimes called affective and behavioural traits--habits of attitude and action that encourage and exemplify good citizenship. Specifically, we are expected to teach something about democracy.

Postsecondary teacher, Howard Doughty, has been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only working with the empirical analysis of political behaviour and the normative analysis of political theory, but also in the practical activity of promoting understanding of what is frequently called civic life. In line with current standards and educational goals for faculty members involved in "general education," Doughty asserts a good part of that mission should involve the both cognitive knowledge (how governments work, issues of policy development, elements of the political process, etc.) and what are sometimes called "affective" and "behavioural" traits--habits of attitude and action that encourage good citizenship. More specifically, these educators are expected to teach something about democracy. Herein, Doughty discusses the historical controversy that follows the concept of democracy in theory and in practice. Next, he highlights four primary concerns about the current state of democracy and electoral system. Doughty goes on to explore briefly one set of criticisms of contemporary democratic politics as they are practiced in the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom. A description of the First-Past-the-Post (FPP) electoral system and its overall flaws are then discussed. Three cases are then presented to illustrate why some people regard FPP as an unfair and even an undemocratic way to elect presidents, prime ministers and legislators of various descriptions. Doughty concludes with several arguments demonstrating why FPP should be replaced with the Proportional Representation (PR) electoral system.

This paper aims at contributing to new ways of thinking about democratic education. We discuss how revisiting this concept may help raise fresh questions in relation to non-formal fora grappling with intricate sustainability issues that span international borders. Starting from Rancière's ideas on democracy, we first examine a conception of democratic education derived from these ideas. Next, we turn to a complexity informed notion of education as proposed by the two strands of emergence and enaction. We discuss how, in introducing additional dimensions, these strands might fruitfully complement the Rancierian conception of education. We conclude our discussion by proposing to reposition democratic education as a process of (co)-emergence afforded by a series of critical moments which, we suggest, can call forth radically novel visions for governing the commons.

This dialogue centers on the following questions: (1) How can schools help a society select or identify new elites who are hopefully as good as and perhaps even better than those individuals who belong to the existing elite system?, and (2) How can we create learning situations that provide the most general learner with a broad basic education? The first question is rejected as highly inadequate and unsatisfactory partly because it makes a number of mistaken assumptions about how schools can best meet the educational needs in modern countries (such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada). The second question is deemed extremely worthwhile; it should be at the heart of educational dialogues in liberal democratic societies. The discussion is mainly about the desirability of replacing the first problem (of selecting new elites) with the second problem (of a broad basic education) by the way of commentary on the development of Western educational thought from Plato to Popper and beyond. A major aim of this dialogue is to upgrade the way elites in liberal democratic societies attempt to reform and improve our educational institutions.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, English-Canadian schools have attempted to create citizens of good character who were loyal to a Canadian nation defined by its role in the British Empire. Because of the country's experience in World War I, Canadians refined their identity in the 1920s, keeping it distinct from its relationship with Britain. Schools introduced citizenship courses for the first time, which encouraged students to develop skills appropriate for life in a Canadian democracy. On the other hand, English-Canadians have long defined themselves in contrast to the very large English-speaking community to their south: the United States. Indeed, Canadian historian J. L. Granatstein insists "Canadian anti-Americanism...has for two centuries been a central buttress of the national identity." An examination of English-Canadian school curricula and textbooks, however, reveals an understanding of the United States more complex than antipathy. As the schools' understanding of Canadian citizenship and English-Canadian identity changed from 1900 to 1965, so did their images of the United States. This paper is a historical examination of the treatment of the United States in English-Canadian school texts from 1900 to 1965. It relies on a content analysis of curriculum documents and seventy-five textbooks used in history, geography, civics, and social studies courses in English-Canadian elementary and secondary schools during these years. This analysis also reveals change and continuity in the images of the United States taught to several generations of English-Canadian school children. Sometimes, the image was simply negative: it provided a convenient contrast for the myth of the steady, loyal, and law-abiding Canadian. Sometimes, it was very positive: seeing in America a model of freedom and democracy for the world, a model worth emulating. (Contains 112 footnotes.)

Contemplating the root of the word "idiocy" leads the author to explore the challenge that democratic societies face of developing public-minded citizens. The schools, he argues, are the most likely institutions to succeed in that task. Schools in societies that are trying in various ways to be democracies, such as the United States, Mexico, and Canada, are obliged to develop public citizens. The author argues here that schools are well positioned for the task, and in this article he suggest how they can improve their efforts and achieve greater success. (Contains 23 notes.)

THIS PAPER PRESENTS a reinterpretation of the causes for the US Patriot movement of 1837-38, which rose up in support of the Canadian rebellion in Upper Canada (UC) initiated by William Lyon Mackenzie (the companion rebellion in Lower Canada is not considered in this paper since its causation was arguably considerably different). Most traditional treatments of this event, by US historians in particular, are stuck in narrative mode and lack convincing interpretation and analysis. The US Patriot war is usually quickly dismissed as the work of a few Anglophobes and adventurers seeking land and coin. The hypothesis advanced here suggests that the US Patriot movement and its progenitor rebellion in UC may be seen as an expression of the social class tensions growing out of the transition from a subsistence-barter/household economy and culture to the more impersonal commodity market economy - a transition that was proceeding in an uneven and combined manner on both sides of the nominal Canada/US border. Mackenzie's UC rebellion was both motivated by and encouragement to radical Democratic anti-bank forces in the US. Historians are urged to consider the Patriot movement in the larger context of class conflict and accommodation then being played out on a shared Canadian/American stage [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a modified and enlarged version of a paper that was originally presented at the Third U.S.-Soviet Workshop on Interdependence Between Nations held at Berkeley, California, in January 1990. The author decided to present this article in the form of a series of theses despite the criticism of this method by a number of commentators and reviewers. The author recognizes that this is a rather unusual practice, but it is also unusual for a Soviet social scientist to have the opportunity to present his ideas directly to U.S. readers. The author has chosen to utilize this method because it enables him to explicate both his general approach to the problem and to offer particular observations and conclusions regarding the prospects for stable democracy in conflict-ridden multi-ethnic societies. To achieve this ends, the decision to concentrate on a few of the more crucial or controversial issues and to present only a highly condensed discussion may be justified. The point of departure for this article is the assumption that within multi-ethnic nations, individual ethnic communities will have a high, though by no means unqualified, potential for political mobilization. Once this potential is actualized, ethnoregional subpolitics and endemic tensions are likely to emerge along with their capacity to undermine the stability of the entire multi-ethnic political systems.

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Why are democracies unresponsive to well-documented injuries in the production and by the consumption of pornography? Legal challenges to pornography in Canada and the United States in which sexual subordination, not moral notions of "obscenity," were the driving rationale, show democracies inadequately recognizing gender-specific harms. Changes in Canadian obscenity doctrines to account for harm and inequality, in contrast with the U.S. reign of "free speech," did not deliver a corresponding change on the ground. Developments in democratic theory, international law, and the particular U.S.-Canadian legal trajectory, and consideration of the void of institutions articulating the interests of those victimized in and by pornography, suggest the need to adopt empowering civil remedies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We speak often of ‘representative democracy’ and we tend to regard it as the dominant form of government in the modern West. But who or what is represented by the electoral systems of the modern democratic state? Although we may be tempted to regard contemporary democracies as embodying essentially the same underlying conceptions of representation, a careful examination of constitutional texts, legislative frameworks, and judicial interpretations reveals important differences from one country to the next. In particular, the problem of electoral apportionment has produced a line of constitutional cases in the United States, Canada, and Australia that raise very similar sets of issues, but with strikingly different results. This article compares the case law in the United States, Canada, and Australia on the question of electoral apportionment. While the ideas appealed to in each country are complex and contain sometimes overlapping elements, it is argued that they can be classified into three general types, which the article calls ‘individualist,’ ‘communitarian,’ and ‘federalist.’ Each approach presupposes a distinct conception of the political identity of the human person and has distinct implications for design of a democratic electoral system. And, while each conception finds a place in each of the three countries under examination, there is an important sense in which individualist conceptions have dominated much of the American jurisprudence, communal approaches have influenced most of the Canadian case law, and federalist conceptions have shaped the Australian cases at several decisive points. The article concludes by arguing that, although factors such as modalities of interpretation and conceptions of the relationship between the courts and the political branches of government have been important, significantly different underlying conceptions of democracy and of the political identity of the human person have been ultimately determinative of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]