Organizational change in the central machinery of government is essentially a function of executive leadership. The major determinants of such change are invariably political and not administrative in character and derive from the leadership paradigms of chief executive officers—their philosophy of government, management style and political objectives. This phenomenon is examined in the recent transformation of the Canadian central executive system from one based upon the Trudeau paradigm of rational management to one structured to fit the Mulroney paradigm of brokerage politics. The organizational instruments of each paradigm are considered and their respective capacities to meet the requirements of executive leadership in our modern administrative state are assessed. It is argued that the two different systems and the changes introduced by them are best explained by the paradigms of these two prime ministers.

The article examines the evolution of financial aide from the federal government to the Canadian manufacturing industry between 1960 and 1980. Financial assistance is not negligible but is less than what it is sometimes assumed to be. It increased substantially from I960 to 1971 and decreased somewhat thereafter. The study attempts to establish that the evolution of this aid is largely linked to the process of tariff reduction and is not affected by short-term economic changes. The last section discusses the political benefits and costs of financial aid versus other policy instruments; it argues that discrimination basically characterizes financial aide and that businessmen have become increasingly wary of such discrimination.

The relationships between attitudes toward income redistribution and partisan preferences are examined and contrasted in Canadian and American samples of college students. In both samples evidence is found that there is a strong relationship between the variables among males and an absence of a relationship among females. In Canada, support for income redistribution is strongly positively correlated with support for the New Democratic party, positively correlated with support for the Liberal party, and strongly negatively correlated with support for the Progressive Conservative party. In the United States support for income redistribution is strongly positively correlated with support for the Democratic party and strongly negatively correlated with support for the Republican party. Cross-national differences are also found between Canadian and American subjects, Canadian subjects having significantly lower variance among party supporters regarding this issue. Some implications of the results for research in the area of sex differences in politics and the influence of economic concerns on political behaviour are discussed briefly.

The concept of “relative autonomy” is now routinely used by Marxist and non-Marxist students of public policy to describe the state's independence from class forces. A rare attempt to use the concept empirically is Carl J. Cuneo's work on Canadian unemployment insurance (UI) in the 1930s. This article argues that Cuneo focusses too narrowly on class struggle, and thus misses important aspects of Canadian UI policy. Relative autonomy must be more broadly conceived in terms of the state's administrative expertise, fiscal capacity, and jurisdictional divisions. It is constituted within, not outside, the state. The article illustrates these internal forces through a re-examination of the evolution of Canadian UI in the 1930s.

There has been a recent tendency, with deep historical roots in structural-functionalism and elite analyses, to insulate the state from class formations and struggles. Reacting against classical Marxist and neo-Marxist attempts to locate certain features of state policy in the class struggles of capitalist formations, there has been a reversion to “explaining” state policy solely by the “internal dynamics” of state administration and the motives and intentions of their incumbents. Leslie Pal's critique of my work in his article is yet another attempt in this tradition. After critiquing my “narrow” use of “relative autonomy” and “rigid” reliance on “class struggle” to account for the introduction of the Employment and Social Insurance Act of 1935 and the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1940, he offers an alternative classless “model” which relies heavily on actuarial ideology and federal-provincial relations in the dynamics of internal state administration. In light of his use of my work as a point of departure, I will make only a few salient points. My comments are divided into two parts: theoretical assumptions and the class nature of actuarial ideology.

This article examines the effect of the resource amendment (section 92A) on Canada's political economy. The analysis of the consequences of section 92A moves beyond the immediate changes in the distribution of legislative jurisdiction to examine the broader political implications. It is argued that the resource amendment is politically significant in several respects. It removes certain irritants from federal-provincial relations. By augmenting and clarifying provincial powers, the provinces' role in resource development is strengthened. The expansion of provincial legislative capacity gives the provinces more legitimacy and power at the political bargaining table.

Only in Prince Edward Island have voters tended to elect provincial administrations of the same party stripe as the federal government. The authorargues that this has not occurred purely by chance and that, in fact, provincial campaigns have historically revolved around the issue of being “in line” with Ottawa. Presently, support for federal-provincial partisan congruence is rooted in those Islanders who can be characterized as “political animals” as well as in the dominant groups of the Island's social structure. The author concludes that the deviating provincial election of 1982 does not represent a fundamental change in the Islanders’ political orientations.