Lipset's Continental Divide* and the Ideological Basis for Differences in Higher Education between Canada and United States

Abstract

The renowned American political sociologist, Seymour Lipset, has been interested in the study of cultural and institutional differences between Canada and the United States ever since he attempted to explain, in his doctoral thesis more than forty years ago, why the first socialist government in North America happened to come to power in Canada. Continental Divide, thus, represents more than forty years of study, reflection, and accumulation of data on differences between Canada and the United States with respect to political values, behaviour, and institutions. Not surprisingly given this background to the undertaking, the book is extraordinarily well referenced, utilizing all the standard comparative works of historians, sociologists, political scientists, and economists, as well as bringing together considerable data from public opinion polls which reveal consistent [although often modest] differences between the United States, English, and French Canada. Lipset reaches both into the past to the observations of Tocqueville, and some surprising observations of Friedrich Engels, on the role of culture in explaining institutional differences between Canada and the United States, and into the immediate present to discuss the Meech Lake debate. He uses not only scholarly literature, but examines also the way that differences in national identity are revealed in fiction, films, and art. Indeed, Margaret Atwood and Robertson Davies are featured as prominently in his analysis as are S.D. Clark, Kenneth McNaught, Richard Simeon, and Northrup Frye. Although Lipset analyzes many areas of culture and institutional behaviour in Canada and the United States, he gives no attention to elementary and secondary education and includes only a few brief comments about higher education. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Lipset's general explanation of cultural and institutional differences between Canada and the United States might serve to