L’étude des institutions électorales et parlementaires : Bilan et perspectives d’avenir

Cet article passe en revue les contributions des politologues québécois dans le domaine des institutions électorales et parlementaires. Si ce secteur a été moins exploré que beaucoup d’autres, c’est probablement parce que la discipline a pris son essor au Québec au moment où ses paradigmes se réorientaient dans de nouvelles directions. Les perspectives d’avenir semblent plus prometteuses.This article reviews the contributions from Quebec political scientists in the field of electoral and parliamentary institutions, an area which appears to have been underexplored. This has to do, it is suggested, with the fact that the beginnings of the discipline in Quebec coincided with a reorientation of its paradigms. The future looks more auspicious

« Les citoyens contre les partis ? » : Le nouveau système électoral de Hambourg à l’épreuve des élections de 2008

La ville de Hambourg a mis à l’essai en 2008 un nouveau système électoral permettant aux électeurs de favoriser certains candidats par voie de cumul et de panachage. L’article décrit l’âpre compétition entre activistes démocratiques et partis établis à laquelle a donné lieu l’élaboration de cette nouvelle loi électorale. L’analyse de l’élection suggère que l’impact des préférences individuelles sur la désignation des députés a été minime, en partie parce que le Parlement a réussi à amoindrir la portée de la réforme qui lui avait été imposée par référendum, mais aussi parce que la plupart des électeurs paraissent disposés à accepter les candidatures imposées par les partis.A new electoral system allowing voters to support specific candidates through cumulative voting and panachage was tested for the first time in 2008 in the city-state of Hamburg. This system was the outcome of a bitter fight between democracy activists and party elites. An analysis of the outcome of the election suggests that the impact of individual preferences on the selection of legislators was actually minimal, partly because legislators amended the law so as to minimize its impact, but also because most voters seemingly accept candidates sponsored by parties

Les autoroutes et le commerce interurbain dans la région de Montréal

C'est entre 1959 et 1977 que la région montréalaise s'est dotée d'un système autoroutier régional. Parmi les agglomérations reliées à la métropole par ce réseau, sept sont qualifiées de satellites: Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Granby, Saint-Hyacinthe, Sorel, Joliette, Saint-Jérôme et Valleyfield. Très tôt les nouvelles voies rapides ont incité certains promoteurs à construire en banlieue d'immenses centres commerciaux, modifiant ainsi en leur faveur les habitudes d'achat des résidents des villes satellites. Les nouvelles habitudes de consommation induites par les autoroutes nuisent à l'augmentation des ventes au détail à l'intérieur de ces villes. Certaines ont cependant vu croître leur accessibilité suite à la mise en place du réseau autoroutier. D'autres, par contre, en plus de subir une concurrence accrue du Grand Montréal, n'ont pu, à cause de leur localisation, tirer profit d'une accessibilité accrue. Le déplacement des activités commerciales a enfin favorisé l'émergence de puissantes chaînes nationales qui contrôlent une partie croissante de la vente de détail au pays.Over the period 1959-1977 a network of highways has been established in the Montréal region. Among the agglomerations linked to Montréal by this network, seven can be considered as satellite towns: Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Granby, Saint-Hyacinthe, Sorel, Joliette, Saint-Jérôme and Valleyfield. Almost from the beginning, these new expressways induced major development corporations to construct large suburban shopping centres, thereby modifying to their advantage the shopping habits of the residents of the satellite towns. New consumer practices, stimulated by further development of the highways, have had a negative effect on the growth of retail activity within these cities. Some centres have however experienced improved accessibility following the construction of the expressways. Others, by virtue of their location, have suffered increasing competition from Greater Montréal. Finally this shift in the location of commercial activities had facilitated the development of powerful national retail chains that control an increasing proportion of the retail activities in Canada

Sexual Education for Youth in Rwanda: A Case Study of Methods, Effectiveness, and Response at the Kimisagara One Stop Youth Center

In examining the increasing influence of states in contemporary society, this paper explores the concept of biopower, particularly in the area of sexual health, as a critical control mechanism that solidifies state legitimacy. By turning control mechanisms inwards, into minds and physical bodies, the state utilizes its monopoly over the legitimate use of symbolic violence to convince citizens of the assumed universality of structures and mindsets that solidify state power. Reproductive health has emerged as a crucial site of consolidating state control, perpetuating the assumed necessity of state regulation of bodies for the betterment of the nation. In Rwanda, with a need for a secure, controlled country in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, myriad programs developed to promote these state priorities. This paper examines the impact of the state on reproductive health programs in Rwanda, using a Ministry of Health-sponsored youth center called Maison des Jeunes de Kimisagara as a case study. It attempts to review the purposeful choices made about what information to distribute regarding sexual and reproductive health and the resulting impacts of those choices

Talking Nonsense: Spiritual Mediums and Female Subjectivity in Victorian and Edwardian Canada

This study traces the development of mediumship in Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Especially popular among women, this practice offered them an important space of expression. Concealing their own identities under spiritual possession, mediums ubiquitously invoked well-known historical figures in séances to transmit their opinions on current issues. As such, they were able to promote new ideas to interested audiences without claiming responsibility for their potentially controversial words. While many studies have been conducted in the United States, Britain, and France regarding the significant role of mediumship in the emergence of women on the political scene, very few have approached this history in Canada. My research defends the importance of studying mediums’ discourses as they provide rare access to Canadian women’s perspectives at a time when public speaking was restricted for them. More particularly, I argue that séances provided women a disguised means to explore, discuss, and reconfigure the notion of female agency within a variety of public and private platforms. I read séances through the works of major figures in feminism and psychoanalysis in order to demonstrate how the complexity of subjectivity performed by mediums questioned traditional understandings of discourse and agency. Examining the trance communications of mediums from pioneering author Susanna Moodie to suffragist Flora MacDonald Denison, among others, my objective is to shed new light on the relations between women and politics, while defending a more inclusive understanding of the historical past that addresses yet unexplored forms of women’s participation in sexual, cultural, and political debates