Volume 19, Number 1, 1988

EN:

This study looks into the federal government' s relinquishment of its 1980 energy policy known as the National Energy Programme. Such a sacrifice was made in the name of free trade between Canada and the U.S. Indeed, it is suggested that for the Conservatives, their deregulation of the energy industry for the sake of the economic integration of North America has served as the very proof of free trade. Hence also the end of the Foreign Investment Review Agency symbol of Canadian nationalism.

For the free trade negotiations to be concluded, Ottawa needs to establish a common front with the provinces. This new context is in agreement with the "national reconciliation" policy extolled by the Tories soon after they came to power. In the name of a more decentralized Federation, they would surrender much in order to stimulate trade between the regions and the American market. This appears to them as the best way to boost the economy to a point which is already reached by our neighbours in the south. Thus the two projects, i.e. a complete redefinition of the energy policy and rapprochement with Washington, are being seen through simultaneously, in a spirit of compromise.

In handing over to the provinces the administration of their off shore territories, and going as far even as to promote their traditional stance regarding the canadian energy policy, Alberta being a case in point, the government espouses a particular style of relationship with the industry. So as to bring Canada to par with current practices in the U.S., it brings forth its objective of "privatisation" which is in accordance with the neo-conservative credo: the subsidization of industry, deregulation, sharing out of the energy industry to the advantage of the private sector, the eventual privatization of Petro Canada. In this study, a first framework for analysis of those phenomena, with regard to the current negotiations between Canada and the US, is proposed.

EN:

Since the U.S. Catholic bishops gave their "strictly conditioned" moral acceptance of nuclear deterrence in 1983, much has changed on the strategic landscape, most notably with the emergence of numerous space-based and defensive schemes, and it is not clear how a committee struck by the hierarchy to review recent developments will respond. There are reasons to suggest the outcome will not be a complete condemnation of deterrence, whatever judgment is mode of current U.S. policies. It is equally likely that the review will fail, as did the 1983 letter, to provide sufficient justification for what it conditionally accepts. The 1983 letter cannot be construed as "soft" on the Soviet Union. But Us scant account of an expansionist adversary appears only after its moral judgments and prudential alternatives are stated. The letter, argued in a just war framework, cannot find the language to refer to a particular adversary by name or indicate why deterrence is justified on an interim basis. This f allure is ascribed to two factors. First, Catholic teaching increasingly has restricted the scope of jus ad bellum and shifted its emphasis to jus in bello criteria of discrimination and proportionality in judging modem war. Second, within a generation, the U.S. hierarchy has redefined its relationship to its society and become less willing to alter Church teaching to accomodate national purposes, even while affirming in general terms the traditional right and duty of self-defence. Y et insofar as this right remains operative, the bishops' inability to describe what is to be defended, and from what, leaves the reader unclear as to why the U.S. and its allies should possess nuclear weapons even, or only, conditionally.

EN:

This article provides an analytical framework which we employ to examine the 'interparadigm debate' currently underway in the field of international relations. Arguing that this debate is more significant than the previous 'grand debates' in the field because it is simultaneously fought on the terrains of ontology, epistemology and values, we use these categories to examine the central propositions of the major paradigms of international relations. We argue that the interparadigm debate is a series of attacks on realism from the other perspectives, which neo-realists attempt to counter by a reconstruction of realism through the appropriation and reinterpretation of concepts and arguments used by its main critics. The refurbishment of realism corresponds to an attempt at maintaining the intellectual hegemony of the paradigm on the teaching and practice of world politics. We think that the hegemonic synthesis under the auspices of realism is not desirable and constitutes a retrograde move which ought to be resisted by scholars seeking a more relevant and less 'americanized' discipline of international relations.