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This study reports on the institutionalization of political science in Cameroonian higher education from the analytical perspective of the international transfer of standards. It makes it possible to discover that the managerial organization of the discipline, the development of training courses, the initiation to the manipulation of founding theories and the development of research trajectories are based on Western experiences. The corollary is the formation of an extrovert university space for emulation of the political scientist who, however, imposes himself as a player in the global scientific market through the alternative but cumulative knowledge he offers.

Keywords: science politique, enseignement supérieur, transfert des normes, champ politiste, globalisation, political science, higher education, transfer of standards, political scientist field, globalization

The Quebec municipal political scene is experiencing a rapid increase in the number of political parties in cities of all sizes. This article analyzes the effects of the presence of political municipal parties on the conquest and exercise of municipal power. Our research is motivated by the presumption that the onset of this proliferation is part of a “Westminsterization” process of municipal politics, that is to say, a polarization between a government and its opposition in municipal politics. In order to explore this hypothesis, we analyze Quebec political municipal parties from three angles that have been identified in literature on their national counterparts, namely, their role of organization, the electoral machine, and representation and governance. Our analysis shows that Quebec municipal political parties resemble their provincial and federal counterparts in many respects. They recruit candidates with the aim to get them elected. Moreover, through the intermediary of their elected government officials, they take part in decision-making, and even in structuring the decision-making process. Nevertheless, Quebec municipal parties have not yet become fully assimilated to provincial and federal parties to the extent that they exhibit a lower degree of formalization, manifested, among others, in a looser control over their staff and crew, a more pronounced role of the chief candidate for the position of mayor, and less assurance of the longevity of partisan organizations.

Keywords: Partis politiques municipaux, régime de Westminster, élections municipales, Québec, municipal political parties, Westminster system, municipal elections, Quebec

Community intervention is related to the changes in public policy, social movements and more widely to those social issues. New Public Management and private initiatives based on consultation and community mobilization challenge community organizers in their practice and ethics. The proliferation of community development workers and the emergence of territory development invite community practitioners to open up their practice and challenges of a new type to better support systems for collective action targeting local issues around cross-cutting an integrated development project.

Keywords: Intervention communautaire, action collective, développement des communautés, développement de territoire, organisation communautaire, agents de développement, Community intervention, collective action, community development, territory development, community organization, community practice, community practitioners

In Québec, in Canada and elsewhere in the world, expert advisory committees advise and guide government decision-makers in the choice of new drugs, vaccines to be used or interventions to be put in place. In parallel, these experts are receiving increasing support from private companies to conduct their research or to disseminate the results of their research. Such situations place them at risk of conflicts of interest and may eventually undermine confidence in public decision-making. This case study stimulates reflection into what constitutes sound and optimal management of conflict of interest situations by expert members and the organizations in which they have an advising role.

Keywords: conflit d'intérêts, comité d'experts, immunisation, politiques publiques, santé de la population, vaccination, conflict of interest, expert committees, immunization, public policies, population health, vaccination

This article challenges the common assumption that security policies are the outcome of a security-liberty balance. Drawing on constructivist and cognitive approaches of public policies, it shows through an analysis of the debates on several laws taken by the Israeli Parliament, that these laws must be understood as the reflection and the outcome of a struggle between conflicting referentials of political regimes. Deconstructing security policies this way allows us to overcome the static notion of the balance between security and liberty and helps us better grasp the construction process of political regime referentials through discourses.

AbstractThis article considers public policies in the health domain that are labelled “humanisation of labour and childbirth” and their impact on the experience of childbirth among urban working-class women in Northeast Brazil. It analyses a paradigmatic example from the array of programmes: breast-feeding. Ethnographic data, collected during field research in three public childbirth centres in a neighbourhood in the city of Recife, provides evidence about the use of public health instruments to control poor women's bodies. Avoiding a deterministic vision of the relation between the health system and mothers as actors, the article develops a reflection on the links between the programmes and the experience of breast-feeding mothers.

Inspired by the theory of neo-institutionalism that gives institutions an important role in explaining political decision-making and public policy, this article analyses the November 2005 municipal election in Québec City. By electing independent candidate Andrée Boucher as Mayor, the voters ended a practice that had been going on since 1965, in which the mayors elected had always run within political parties. After a review of Québec City politics from the mid-1960's onward, in order to bring out the specific issues of this election, the authors analyse the political platforms, the way the election campaign proceeded, and the election results, and put together a list of the initial achievements of the Boucher administration. In conclusion, observations are drawn regarding the influence of institutional rules on political dynamics and on policy development at the local level.