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Explores tension between the exclusive claims of Canadian nationhood & national identity & the Quebecois claim to national status. Focus is on how ethnic mobilization & language-related issues have provided the contours of Quebecois identity, arguing that objectivist ideas of ethnicity must be tempered by critical analyses of more subjectivist & politically construed notions of identity. At issue is whether Canada & Quebec ought to be conjoined indefinitely within one liberal structure. After outlining four factors that have threatened French Canada's capacity to reproduce French identity & culture, the issue of devising a Quebecois identity centered on ethnicity or territory is addressed in the context of how the Parti Quebecois tried to construct a social space in which to legitimize its vision of the political community. Federal & provincial language strategies are next compared, demonstrating the conflict between the federal policy of balanced bilingualism & Quebec's pursuit of a provincial francization policy. In light of five broad political claims on the part of Quebec to maximize its autonomy, constitutional reform is addressed, along with the Meech Lake Accord & the 1992 referendum. The complex ethnolinguistic nature of the constitutional impasse is demonstrated through a look at legal trends across the 1980s & 1990s. The faltering of symmetrical federalism is manifest in the erosion of the French-English Canadian duality & the reality that countermeasures to support the francophone population cannot be realized at the provincial or federal levels. The idea of partition is briefly looked at before turning to the renewed multiculturalism program & the potential for a kind of asymmetrical federalism. It is concluded that the state is officially restricting its concerns to the rights of official language minority groups "where numbers warrant," detaching the question of language rights from the political context, ie, recognition of Quebec as a nation. 50 References. J. Zendejas

Explores tension between the exclusive claims of Canadian nationhood & national identity & the Quebecois claim to national status. Focus is on how ethnic mobilization & language-related issues have provided the contours of Quebecois identity, arguing that objectivist ideas of ethnicity must be tempered by critical analyses of more subjectivist & politically construed notions of identity. At issue is whether Canada & Quebec ought to be conjoined indefinitely within one liberal structure. After outlining four factors that have threatened French Canada's capacity to reproduce French identity & culture, the issue of devising a Quebecois identity centered on ethnicity or territory is addressed in the context of how the Parti Quebecois tried to construct a social space in which to legitimize its vision of the political community. Federal & provincial language strategies are next compared, demonstrating the conflict between the federal policy of balanced bilingualism & Quebec's pursuit of a provincial francization policy. In light of five broad political claims on the part of Quebec to maximize its autonomy, constitutional reform is addressed, along with the Meech Lake Accord & the 1992 referendum. The complex ethnolinguistic nature of the constitutional impasse is demonstrated through a look at legal trends across the 1980s & 1990s. The faltering of symmetrical federalism is manifest in the erosion of the French-English Canadian duality & the reality that countermeasures to support the francophone population cannot be realized at the provincial or federal levels. The idea of partition is briefly looked at before turning to the renewed multiculturalism program & the potential for a kind of asymmetrical federalism. It is concluded that the state is officially restricting its concerns to the rights of official language minority groups "where numbers warrant," detaching the question of language rights from the political context, ie, recognition of Quebec as a nation. 50 References. J. Zendejas

Schulen bieten eine ausgezeichnete Möglichkeit zur Betrachtung und zum Verständnis der breiteren Gesellschaft, in welcher sie hervorgebracht und repliziert werden. Die Untersuchung der Art und Weise, in welcher Schulen strukturiert, positioniert, finanziert, verwaltet, wertgeschätzt, kritisiert, gepflegt und vernachlässigt werden, eröffnet uns - jenseits nationalstaatlicher Rhetorik - eine Sicht auf die von den Bürgern erlebten Realitäten. In diesem Artikel soll die Entwicklung der australischen Bildungspolitik zu Veränderungen in der soziokulturellen Theorie und Praxis, welche die mobile Moderne reflektieren und reproduzieren, in Beziehung gesetzt werden. Besonderes Interesse gilt dabei den Strategien zur Schulfinanzierung mit ihrem Bezug zum privaten bzw. nichtstaatlichen Bildungssektor von der späten Kolonialzeit bis in die sogenannten neoliberalen/spätmodernen Zeiten. Die vorgestellten Aspekte bewegen sich in einem Komplex wechselseitig verbundener Bereiche, vom Urbanen bis zum Ländlichen, vom Öffentlichen bis ins Private sowie in den primären, sekundären und tertiären Schichten von Bildungsangeboten. Die Periodisierung offenbart ein nachlassendes Engagement für eine säkulare, staatszentrierte und am Gemeinwohl orientierte Moderne zugunsten einer "zweiten Moderne" der Individualisierung und Privatisierung. Mit Bezug auf eine Bandbreite verschiedener empirischer Studien zur Schulwahl werden die sich wandelnden Ideen und Praktiken der in die Reproduktion von öffentlichen und privaten Schulen Involvierten hervorgehoben. Im Fokus stehen dabei einerseits die Fachleute und Angestellten des Systems und andererseits die "Konsumenten" der auf den "Quasi-Bildungsmärkten" angebotenen Produkte. (DIPF/Orig.).;;;Schools offer powerful scope for viewing and comprehending the wider society in which they are produced and replicated. The ways in which schools are structured, positioned, funded, managed, appreciated, critiqued, cared for and neglected, presents us with a means for seeing beyond the rhetoric of a nation state to the lived realities faced by its citizens. In this paper the author wants to link the development of Australian educational policies to shifts in socio-cultural thought and practice that reflect and reproduce a mobile modernity. He is interested in school funding policies as they relate to the private, or non-government education sector from the late colonial period to these so-called neo-liberal/late modern times. The interrogated scenes shift about amongst a complex of interrelated fields, from the urban to the rural, the public and the private, as well as the primary, secondary and tertiary layers of educational "offerings". The periodization reveals a loosening of commitments to a secular, state-centred, welfare-focused modernity, towards a privatizing, individualizing "second modernity". Drawing from a range of empirical studies of school choice the author highlights the shifting ideas and practices of those involved in the re-production of both public and private schools either as professionals/workers in the system, or as "consumers" of the products available in education's "quasi-markets". (DIPF/Orig.).

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia attempted to keep up a hegemonic sphere of influence, at least in the geographical territory of the former Soviet Union. For their part, the three Baltic States soon opted for participation in the European political & economic integration process. Increased political & economic stability as well as increased security was expected in the region through EU Membership because political forces in Russia still hoped for a restoration of its hegemony or believed in its ability to block NATO Membership of the Baltic States. The negotiations of the three Baltic States for EU-accession can be described as dynamic, although agreement over some sensitive issues was rather difficult, e.g. Estonia: free movement of persons; Latvia: environmental protection; Lithuania: corruption; & in all three countries: energy. Other problems causing difficulties with neighbouring Russia were the significant Russian minorities in Estonia & Latvia as well as the continuing Estonian & Lithuanian dependency on Russian energy exports. Being a member of the first group of accession candidates Estonia started negotiations two years earlier than the other two states, however, the "late comers" Latvia & Lithuania succeeded in speeding up their efforts, so all three states could join the EU at the same time. Overall, the Baltic States so far have successfully managed a fourfold transformation process, comprising of (1) the regaining of independence from Russia, (2) the shift to liberal democratic polities, (3) the transformation to market economy & (4) the realization of most of the necessary adaptations required for EU Membership thereby showing a considerable ability for pragmatism during the negotiations. In the beginning the populations of the three Baltic States were quite sceptical about transferring their newly won independence to Brussels. However, support for EU Membership increased during the accession talks after 2001 in Latvia & especially Lithuania, while Estonia remained the most distanced country of all applicants. Finally the referenda resulted in a two thirds majority vote in favour of EU Membership, in Lithuania even with over 90%. 10 Diagrams, References.

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Please check back later for the full article.Political representation is at the heart of liberal democracies. Whether democracy is understood as popular rule or as effective fate control by the people, representation is the means to realize the democratic idea of giving people a voice in large states. Thus, from a normative point of view, there should be a causal relationship between citizens' interests and policy decisions of representatives. Elections are the major link establishing causality between the wishes of the people and acts of governance. However, how and whom citizens elect varies considerably across democracies. The two ideal types, or "two visions of democracy" as Bingham Powell has called them, are majoritarian and proportional elections. In a majoritarian electoral system, citizens elect persons in single-member districts. In a proportional electoral system, citizens elect parties voting for lists and parties determine by candidate selection how those lists are composed. The causal link between citizens and representatives differs clearly between the two kinds of elections. The mandate in the majoritarian model is given to a person, and this person is held accountable in the next elections for her performance. In the proportional model, the mandate is given to a party, and the party is held accountable in the next elections. Thus, different actors have the duty to deliver representation in different electoral systems: individual deputies in the majoritarian, political parties in the proportional model. This implies that representatives should have different roles and foci of representation depending on the mode of their election. The two visions of democracy embedded in the two electoral systems carry distinct normative ideals about good representation. Looking at political representation in democracies from a comparative perspective, electoral systems seem to induce the respective orientation toward the mandate and whom to represent by different incentives for candidates running in single-member districts or on party lists. The role of a party delegate is more frequent in proportional, the delegate and trustee roles more frequent in majoritarian systems. In majoritarian systems, representatives are very much inclined to represent the median voter of the district; in proportional systems, representatives rather tend to represent their party voters.

"The aim of this paper is to investigate the hypothesis of a causal effect of individual labour-market-security and -integration on fertility by looking at the timing of first birth decisions after leaving the educational system. The analysis focuses on two major research questions: First, how is the timing of first parenthood related to previous labour market performance? Second, can we identify differences in first birth risks depending on individual labour market performance? In other words, to what extent do successfully integrated individuals differ with respect to their fertility decisions from those who are poorly integrated (as indicated by discontinuous or precarious employment patterns)? Integral to the analysis is a cross-national comparison of the relevance of institutional settings and their impact on family formation. In this context the editor focuses on the continental conservative German system and the liberal welfare state of the UK. He conceptualizes the initial transition to parenthood as the result of a rational as well as biographical planning process. The empirical investigation of the length of time up to first birth is based on an event history analysis, applying a piecewise constant exponential model to data from the SOEP and the BHPS. Results show the well known patterns of a still widely traditional division of labour between men and women on one hand side and extensive antagonisms of occupational and familial role. The cross-national comparison underlines the picture that this situation is especially virulent in Germany. In the case of German men with weak labour market integration he finds clear evidence of reduced probabilities of first birth - which is most likely due to limited breadwinner qualities. A reduced first birth risk also comes to the fore for women in Germany and the UK who show levels of extensive labour market integration (as indicated by a high amount of doing overtime work, e.g.). Yet an incomplete labour market integration of German women (as indicated by part time employment) also goes hand in hand with a reduced first birth risk. Among British women the editor cannot identify any clear fertility effects, related to initial labour market integration. This may be due to the fact that instable patterns of labour market entry are much more common in the UK and thus do not invoke any unsettling effect on fertility decisions." (author's abstract)