Landscapes of women and men: rethinking the regional historical geography of the United States and Canada

This paper proceeds from the premise that historical geographers are not prejudiced against women, but many are unsure how to incorporate information on women into their research. The result unfortunately is a historical landscape in which only half of the residents normally are visible, despite many models of regional studies published in women's history. Historical geographers of rural Canada and the United States are to some extent limited by their frequent use of one narrative form, the national epic, that cannot readily portray women as important actors unless its essential plot line is reinterpreted in ways less familiar to geographers. Taking the examples of three western frontier women, I discuss how their narratives indicate ways to give a more balanced impression of both women and men in studies of regional economies and landscape modification. Incorporating female experience is likely to change some fundamental assumptions about the historical geography of the United States and Canada.     

The United States and Bahrain: Interpreting the Differentiated U.S. Responses to the Arab Spring

We examine how the United States' response to the situation in Bahrain can be differentiated from that in Libya and Egypt based on a comparative content analysis of the U.S. administration's press releases, remarks, and interviews during the first three months of the Arab Spring movement. Our findings indicate that although the level and duration of violence were comparable, the U.S. government response was strikingly different with the support given to the Bahraini government, in contrast to the critical stances adopted towards Libya and Egypt. We explain how the United States' lack of political incentive to act and concerted support by its allies were influential factors for the United States' differentiated policy during the Arab Spring.     

A Methodology for Estimating Returns to Skills for Canadian Provinces and U.S. States

Differences in both regional skill prices and skill mix can explain interregional variations in wage distributions. We control for interregional differences in skill mix that permit us to compute key parameters of regional wage distributions including regional returns to skills. In addition to setting forth the methods in detail, we also present estimates for 48 U.S. states and 10 Canadian provinces. For both males and females, we find that regional mean wages (with controls for skills mix) in the U.S. and Canada are similar, but that the returns to skills are systematically higher in the U.S.     

Religiosity in Canada and the United States: Diverging Paths

Comparing degrees of religiosity, Canada and the US have been moving along divergent trajectories for the past several decades. Regional variations are evident in both societies, but, taken as a whole, the divergence holds up even when these intrasocietal differences are accounted for. Neither the classic secularization thesis nor the more popular religious economy model in the sociology of religion adequately explain the contemporary disparities in religious practice and belief in the two societies. More compelling explanations lie in human security and welfare state models. Canadian and US demographic patterns, particularly internal differences among recent immigrants, are additional explanatory factors. Levels of existential security and immigration trends in the two societies are likely to sustain the divergence in religiosity.     

Eduard Hitzig's experiences in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871): the case of Joseph Masseau

It is well known that Fritsch and Hitzig published the results of their experiments on cortical stimulation in 1870, the year in which the Franco-Prussian War (FPW) broke out. Several tall stories are found about Hitzig's role in the FPW; stories that have not been well documented. During this war, he worked at the military hospital in Nancy, where he was allowed to admit to his ward soldiers with head wounds. He made a close observation of the 20-year-old French soldier Joseph Masseau, who suffered from a right-sided cerebral abscess following a gunshot wound sustained during the Loire campaign on December 10, 1870 and was looked after in the military hospital of Nancy in January and February 1871. Hitzig related the clinical and autopsy observations to his recent experimental findings. A translation into English of part of the case report is provided.     

Technical Standards and the Integration of the U.S. and Canadian Economies

One of the most challenging aspects of the study of Canadian political thought is its apparent lack of a clear consensus (perhaps in the form of a “grand theory”) that provides it with more structured analytical organization and parameters. This absence can be remedied through an explicit recognition of the competing traditions that have contributed to the mosaic of Canadian philosophical and political beliefs and values. The interplay between liberal and communitarian traditions of Canadian political thought could provide the basis for this sort of model, though other contributions also need to be acknowledged and considered.     

Policy Coherence and Component-Driven Policymaking: Arctic Policy in Canada and the United States

This research extends theorizing about the implications of political environments to the content of policy areas. We consider the case of Arctic policy in Canada and the United States as an example of what we label as component-driven policymaking. We show how the lack of a clear constituency and the lack of a stable policy subsystem for the Arctic create a policy environment for which the politics of particular issues dominate Arctic policymaking. The result is a policy space labeled Arctic policy that lacks policy coherence. We suggest that similar features of component-based policymaking help explain limited policy coherence for a variety of policy areas such as policies for children, families, rural areas, urban areas, and women in the United States.     

Participation and Environmental Policy in Canada and the United States: Trends Over Time

This article explores trends in participation and environmental policy in Canada and the United States over three time periods: from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s; from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s; and, finally, over the past few years. The article examines possible interactions among the two variables within each country over these periods and searches out overall tendencies toward convergence or divergence. The article argues that there was divergence between the two countries in the first period, with the U.S. providing more participatory opportunities earlier than Canada and establishing a more developed regulatory framework. An overview of progress over the second period, showing some convergence among the two countries, is then provided. Canada seemed to be catching up to its southern counterpart in terms of both participatory opportunities—although they took a distinctively Canadian form—and policy decisions. More recently, however, the trend has been toward divergence. The article explains that, over the past few years, participatory opportunities in Canada have been diminished and the environmental regulatory framework has been scaled back. Although there have been some changes in the U.S. case, the scale of these changes has not been as extensive. The final section of the article then attempts to relate these broader trends in participation and policy decisions to the political context in each country. It is argued that institutional frameworks in the two countries have played a key role in the identified trends. In particular, Canada's institutional structure—specifically the concentration of power in the executive and its federal structure—has hastened these recent developments, while the U.S. institutional framework—with its multiple power centers—has acted as a brake on those who advocate significant change to the existing environmental policy regime.     

Incomplete Sovereigns: Unpacking Patterns of Indigenous Self-Governance in the United States and Canada

ABSTRACT

In the early 1970s, both the Canadian and United States federal governments introduced modern land claim agreements as a first step forward in the states’ recognition of Indigenous goals for self-determination. Since then, both the United States and Canadian federal governments have incrementally expanded their recognition of Indigenous rights to include Indigenous goals for political self-determination. Yet, despite the fact that both countries began implementing broadly similar policies at approximately the same time, the degree to which Indigenous political and economic self-determination has been realized varies considerably both within and between the two countries. The variation in Indigenous self-governing power and authority suggests that the policy shift towards Indigenous self-determination is incomplete and has faced important barriers to implementation. This paper investigates two key aspects of this variation in Indigenous self-determination in the United States and Canada: (1) institutional histories embedded in geography, and (2) the temporal nature of policy frameworks. I argue that the full realization of Indigenous self-determination has been shaped in different ways and, ultimately, is limited by the intersection of embedded institutional legacies and federal political dynamics.     

Mortality differentials between rural and urban areas of states in the Northeastern United States 1890-1900.

Data from a number of countries show much higher mortality rates in urban than in rural areas in the nineteenth century. In this paper we examine the urban-rural mortality differential in the death registration states of the United States in 1890 and 1900. Before proceeding with the analysis, the data are evaluated and we determine that the data used for the 1900 analysis are more complete than data used in other analyses for the same date. An attempt is made to correct for the deficiencies in the 1890 data. When the urban and rural mortality levels are examined for individual states at both dates, urban mortality is generally higher than rural mortality. However, there is variability across states in urban mortality levels, rural mortality levels, and the urban-rural mortality differences. In general, the urban-rural mortality difference is larger in 1890 than in 1900. When the urban-rural mortality differences are examined in terms of the causes of death which account for the differential, we conclude that higher urban mortality rates are generally attributable to a few diseases—tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases and several other communicable diseases—the transmission of which depend heavily on close human contact or contamination of the environment.