カナダ政治の新しい展望 / ジョン・H・レデコップ (編), 吉田健正・竹本徹(訳), 『カナダ政治入門』, 東京 : お茶の水書房, 1989, 319pp., \3296
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概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
Canada has not been particularly visible to the Japasese. This is partly because we have generally tended to belittle Canada in favor of the United States and partly because, at least in the area of political science, Canada does not seem to have produced a large volume of academic literature regarding its domestic affairs. In this context, the appearance of the Japanese translation of Approaches to Canadian Politics, edited by Professor John H. Redekop, is to be welcomed for the contribution that it will make to Canadian studies in Japan. This important collection of essays was translated by two Canadian specialists, Professors Kensei Yoshida and Toru Takemoto. In Redekop's own words, this book was written for people with little prior knowledge about Canadian politics. Accordingly, much of the book is devoted to discussions of various approaches to Canadian politics in the hope that it will stimulate general interest in the subject. Part of the 369-page book was deleted from the Japanese edition in the interest of compactness, but the omission is more than compensated forby the efforts of the translators to update parts of the original text with their own notes. The Japanese edition won the 1988 Canadian Prime Minister's Award for Publishing in the translation category. To this reviewer, five of the nine translated chapters were particularly interesting : "Geography and Politics" by Proferssor C. F. J. Whebell ; "Continentalism : The Key to Canadian Politics" by Redekop ; "Canadian Political Economy" by Professor Douglas J. McCready; "Federal-Provincial Relations" by Professor J. Peter Meekison ; and "Canadian Political Parties and Elections" by Professor Frederick C. Engelmann. While this reviewer had some reservations about Whebell's conclusion that geography will remain a key determining factor in Canadian politics, Redekop's discussion on the impact of north-south relations across the international border on east-west economic and political ties within Canada is revealing. A parallel could be drawn with Japan's relations with Southeast Asian countries or Tokyo's relations with regional cities within Japan. McCready convincingly explains the economic reasons behind the "weak" federal system in Canada, a notion that Meekison supplements with his concept of "layer-cake" federalism, which is substantially different from the federal system in the United States. We learn from Engelmann's article that Canada's two-party system is in the process of transformation. The book is not without its share of weaknesses. For one thing, it does not seem "Canadian" enough; some articles focus more on "approaches" to political studies than on Canadian politics itself. Secondly, there is little organizational continuity from one chapter to another. Thirdly, there is much emphasis on history but very little corroborative analysis. Chapters on the process of legislative policy-making and the bureaucracy would also have been helpful. In spite of these weaknesses, however, there is no doubt that this book will be a valuable addition to the limited collection of Japanese-language literature on Canada.
- 上智大学の論文
- 1989-10-30