Beyond the Crystal Ball: Modelling Predictions about Quebec and Canada

Abstract

Within the field of Canadian politics, intense debate over the constitution is a central and abiding concern. Given the failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, it is suitable to reflect on Canada--and especially Quebec--as a political entity in the greater setting of North America. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which creates economic alternatives for Quebec, (1) makes this an especially appropriate time to examine the prospects for significant (or macro) constitutional change. (2) Neither executive federalism nor popular referenda have succeeded in producing lasting agreement on basic principles of government between Quebec and the Rest of Canada (ROC). After the intense conflict over the Charlottetown referendum, while much of Canada retreated into constitutional hibernation, Quebeckers, possibly buoyed by anticipated passage of the NAFTA, boldly elected fifty-four members of the independantiste Bloc Quebecois (BQ) in the federal election of 1993, and a separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) government in the provincial election of the following year. Given the passage of the NAFTA and the political uncertainty that still exists in post-referendum Quebec and Canada, constitutional issues promise to attain even greater centrality. Thus, the time is right for appraisal of constitutional problems and prospects within a new theoretical frame of reference. After all, one of the few apparent points of agreement about previous rounds of bargaining is that time pressure and lack of foresight are enemies of constructive change. (3) This research note introduces to the study of Canadian politics a new technique for predicting the outcome of bargaining over key issues. Although the paper's aim is modest--to describe the technique--it also outlines a more substantial research project that is currently underway and should provide insights into the outcomes of two fundamental issues facing Quebec-Canada relations in the aftermath of the 1995 referendum on sovereignty in Quebec. More specifically, the project seeks to predict the outcome of Quebec-Canada constitutional bargaining and the outcome of bargaining over a sovereign Quebec's attempt to join the NAFTA. The investigation unfolds in three stages. The first presents the Decisions Insights expected utility forecasting model. The second describes the current political and economic setting of the ROC and Quebec, and offers some predictions based upon the model as a means of presenting the outlines of a promising research program. The third and final stage encourages extension of the research project on both intellectual and practical grounds. Toward an Expected Utility Model Constitutional bargaining and negotiations among governments and interest groups can be studied in any number of ways. Conventional approaches combine (in varying degrees) empirical theory from political science and historical analysis. The result is a set of informative case studies that collectively trace the evolution of bargaining over distribution of power between the federal and provincial governments, most notably Quebec. (4) Models based on rational choice, or the application of microeconomic theory to the study of politics, are well suited to the analysis of the kind of bargaining that can be expected between Quebec, the ROC, and a range of others. These models begin with the assumption of self-interest and focus directly on how and why policies are made. The specific characteristics that link economic thought to political processes may be summarized as follows: first, methodological individualism as a point of departure; second, the assumption that individuals strive after their own interests in a rational way and try to maximize utility--this assumption may be called the fundamental behavioral hypothesis; and, third, use of methods and techniques of economic analysis. Thus, rational choice is a theoretical perspective with well-developed methods that can be applied to the integration of horizontal and vertical elite bargaining. …