In Search of a Postcolonial Theory of Normative Integration: Reflections on A.C. Cairns' Theory of<i>Citizens Plus</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract. The focus of this article is the theory of integration advanced by Alan Cairns in his book, Citizens Plus: Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian State . Cairns' theory has had a mixed reception since its publication. Like much scholarship and public policy in the Aboriginal rights field, Citizens Plus has attracted strong proponents and opponents. At present Citizens Plus remains one of the primary competitors vying for influence in guiding the postcolonial reconfiguration of the relationship between Aboriginal peoples, the Canadian state and civil society on terms of justice that may be perceived as legitimate by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples. The prime alternative, as conceived by both Cairns and his critics, is the nation-to-nation constitutional vision of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The author provides a political theoretical reading of Citizens Plus . She seeks to disclose the normative and conceptual structure of Cairns' argument and to situate Cairns' theory in the context of debates concerning the future of Aboriginal peoples and the constitution of Canada. This reading foregrounds an alternative interpretation of the relationship between Citizens Plus and the constitutional vision of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which makes it possible to see them as complementary rather than opposed constitutional visions. The author also raises broader questions concerning the reasons for continuing the search, at the heart of Cairns' work, for a post-colonial theory and praxis of normative integration in diverse societies, and the conditions of the possibility of such a theory and praxis. Ultimately the author argues that whether one agrees or disagrees with Cairns' prescription, at a minimum Citizens Plus should be understood as raising a fundamental question to which multinational constitutional theory must respond. Résumé. Le présent article a pour objet d'examiner la théorie avancée par Alan Cairns dans son ouvrage, Citizens Plus : Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian State . Cette théorie est loin de faire l'unanimité; comme beaucoup d'autres ouvrages ou initiatives dans le domaine des droits autochtones, Citizens Plus a ses partisans et ses détracteurs. À l'heure actuelle, Citizens Plus demeure l'une des principales approches possibles de la redéfinition postcoloniale des relations entre les peuples autochtones et l'État et la société civile canadiens sur le fondement de conditions justes dont la légitimité est susceptible d'être reconnue autant par les peuples autochtones que par les non-autochtones. La vision de relations de nation à nation, telle qu'exprimée par la Commission royale sur les peuples autochtones, est, selon Cairns ainsi que ses détracteurs, la principale alternative à Citizens Plus . Dans le présent article, l'auteure interprète Citizens Plus dans une optique de théorie politique. Elle cherche à faire ressortir la structure normative et conceptuelle de l'argument de Cairns et à situer la théorie de Cairns dans le contexte des débats concernant l'avenir des peuples autochtones et de la constitution canadienne. L'auteure veut ainsi attirer l'attention sur une autre interprétation possible de la relation entre Citizens Plus et la vision de la Commission royale sur les peuples autochtones. Selon cette interprétation, il s'agit de visions complémentaires plutôt que contradictoires. L'auteure soulève également des questions plus générales, concernant les raisons de poursuivre la recherche d'une théorie et d'une praxie d'intégration normative au sein de sociétés empreintes de diversité, ainsi que les conditions de la possibilité d'une telle théorie et d'une telle praxie. Cette recherche est, par ailleurs, au cœur de l'œuvre de Cairns. En dernière analyse, l'auteure soutient que, peu importe que l'on souscrive ou non à ce que Cairns propose, Citizens Plus soulève, à tout le moins, une question fondamentale à laquelle la théorie constitutionnelle multinationale doit répondre.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".