Stéphane Paquin

A longitudinal twin study of physical aggression during early childhood: evidence for a developmentally dynamic genome.

BACKGROUND Physical aggression (PA) tends to have its onset in infancy and to increase rapidly in frequency. Very little is known about the genetic and environmental etiology of PA development during early childhood. We investigated the temporal pattern of genetic and environmental etiology of PA during this crucial developmental period. METHOD Participants were 667 twin pairs, including 254 monozygotic and 413 dizygotic pairs, from the ongoing longitudinal Quebec Newborn Twin Study. Maternal reports of PA were obtained from three waves of data at 20, 32 and 50 months. These reports were analysed using a biometric Cholesky decomposition and linear latent growth curve model. RESULTS The best-fitting Cholesky model revealed developmentally dynamic effects, mostly genetic attenuation and innovation. The contribution of genetic factors at 20 months substantially decreased over time, while new genetic effects appeared later on. The linear latent growth curve model revealed a significant moderate increase in PA from 20 to 50 months. Two separate sets of uncorrelated genetic factors accounted for the variation in initial level and growth rate. Non-shared and shared environments had no effect on the stability, initial status and growth rate in PA. CONCLUSIONS Genetic factors underlie PA frequency and stability during early childhood; they are also responsible for initial status and growth rate in PA. The contribution of shared environment is modest, and perhaps limited, as it appears only at 50 months. Future research should investigate the complex nature of these dynamic genetic factors through genetic-environment correlation (r GE) and interaction (G×E) analyses.

Paradiplomatie identitaire et diplomatie en Belgique fédérale: le cas de la Flandre

Federal states like Belgium operate under conflicting pressures in the conduct of their international relations: centralizing pressures, on the one hand, imposed by the necessity of speaking with a single voice in order to forge a coherent international policy and decentralizing pressures, on the other, because globalization stimulates a qualitative and quantitative extension of the internal and international roles of substate players, mainly through the international deployment of substate paradiplomacy. This centralization of external affairs and the centrifugal forces introduced by globalization cause problems in this type of system, in which substate entities have numerous fields of jurisdiction. This new phenomenon is not without its risks because it leads to disorder and conflict. In many countries, the development of paradiplomacy by the substate actors creates conflict with the central government. The impression is created that the federal and the substate authorities are condemned to fight a zero-sum struggle for access to the international system, the former seeking to prevent the latter from playing a role in the development of foreign policy and to limit all international action by them. The case of Belgium is of particular interest since its substate entities are the most dynamic regions in the world in international relations. The objective of this article is to evaluate the impact of the Flemish identity paradiplomacy on the foreign policy of the federal state.

Federalism and the Governance of International Trade Negotiations in Canada: Comparing CUSFTA with CETA

When the European Union (EU) and the Canadian government announced the launching of negotiations to create a “new generation” free trade agreement, the EU insisted that provincial representatives be included on the Canadian negotiating team. The goal of this article is to explain why the provinces have gradually become key, indeed indispensable, actors in international trade negotiations. I examine how international trade negotiations are conducted in Canada, noting the enhanced role for provincial governments, and I focus on a comparison between the Canada–US free trade negotiations and the discussions for a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Europe.

Globalization, European integration and the rise of neo‐nationalism in Scotland

This article proposes the following theory: by cutting the benefits of integration and by reducing the obstacles to independence or the various forms of autonomy, globalization and European integration promotes disintegration. Moreover, the processes of decentralization imposed by globalization and European integration are resulting in the substate players having more and more financial resources and areas of jurisdiction. In brief, globalization is expanding the set of actions of the substate nationalist movements to ensure the survival of their nation. Substate nationalist movements can now implement an international policy through their paradiplomacy. The case study ‘Scotland’ is of particular interest since the state of which it is part (United Kingdom) is neither decaying nor totalitarian, but a modern welfare state in which the rule of law governs intra‐societal relations.

Green paradiplomacy and water resource management in North America: the case of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin

Sharing the worlds largest freshwater lake system, Canada and United States have for over a hundred years sought to jointly manage this vital resource. However, in accordance with multi-level governance and paradiplomacy literature, it appears that this collaboration has considerably changed over the last thirty years. From an initial bilateral cooperation between federal authorities, provinces and US states became prominent actors in cross-border water governance, and, in this sense, a green transboundary paradiplomacy has emerged along the 49th parallel. In particular, a specific cross-border organization, the Council of Great Lakes Governors, developed an interesting water regime, and adopted recently a dual tool for water governance in 2005, called the “Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact” and its non-binding twin the “Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Resources Agreement”, which aim to prevent massive water transfer outside the basin. Adopting a green paradiplomacy and multi-level governance perspective, this article aims to analyze in depth this new environmental regime and the legislative implementation process of this dual agreement. Then, we will begin a broader reflection on cross-border and subnational environmental governance in North America.

Green Paradiplomacy in North America: Successes and Limits of the NEG-ECP

In the 1970s, environmental threats at the international and national levels put the issues of environment and sustainable development at the forefront of the political agenda in North America. From then on, concern about environmental protection has been increasing at every level of government, with regard to several issues, such as acid rain, water quality, forestry, and more recently, the causes and impacts of climate change.

Persistence and innovation effects in genetic and environmental factors in negative emotionality during infancy: A twin study

Background Difficult temperament in infancy is a risk factor for forms of later internalizing and externalizing psychopathology, including depression and anxiety. A better understanding of the roots of difficult temperament requires assessment of its early development with a genetically informative design. The goal of this study was to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to individual differences in infant negative emotionality, their persistence over time and their influences on stability between 5 and 18 months of age. Method Participants were 244 monozygotic and 394 dizygotic twin pairs (49.7% male) recruited from birth. Mothers rated their twins for negative emotionality at 5 and 18 months. Longitudinal analysis of stability and innovation between the two time points was performed in Mplus. Results There were substantial and similar heritability (approximately 31%) and shared environmental (57.3%) contributions to negative emotionality at both 5 and 18 months. The trait’s interindividual stability across time was both genetically- and environmentally- mediated. Evidence of innovative effects (i.e., variance at 18 months independent from variance at 5 months) indicated that negative emotionality is developmentally dynamic and affected by persistent and new genetic and environmental factors at 18 months. Conclusions In the first two years of life, ongoing genetic and environmental influences support temperamental negative emotionality but new genetic and environmental factors also indicate dynamic change of those factors across time. A better understanding of the source and timing of factors on temperament in early development, and role of sex, could improve efforts to prevent related psychopathology.

Canada’s Multiple Voices Diplomacy in Climate Change Negotiations: A Focus on Québec

This article sheds light on the complexity of international climate change negotiations in a federal country, like Canada, where there is no clear attribution of full power over international negotiation concerning this issue. Climate change is a multi-level and multi-stakeholder issue, one that can only be tackled successfully if all actors, at all levels of government, are involved in the process. In recent years, Canadian provinces, especially Quebec, have become intensely involved in climate change paradiplomacy. That situation has led to a Canadian paradox where the Government of Quebec worked to respect the Kyoto Protocol and act accordingly, while Canada opted out of the Protocol in 2011.

Heterogeneity in the development of proactive and reactive aggression in childhood: Common and specific genetic - environmental factors

Background Few studies are grounded in a developmental framework to study proactive and reactive aggression. Furthermore, although distinctive correlates, predictors and outcomes have been highlighted, proactive and reactive aggression are substantially correlated. To our knowledge, no empirical study has examined the communality of genetic and environmental underpinning of the development of both subtypes of aggression. The current study investigated the communality and specificity of genetic-environmental factors related to heterogeneity in proactive and reactive aggression’s development throughout childhood. Methods Participants were 223 monozygotic and 332 dizygotic pairs. Teacher reports of aggression were obtained at 6, 7, 9, 10 and 12 years of age. Joint development of both phenotypes were analyzed through a multivariate latent growth curve model. Set point, differentiation, and genetic maturation/environmental modulation hypotheses were tested using a biometric decomposition of intercepts and slopes. Results Common genetic factors accounted for 64% of the total variation of proactive and reactive aggression’s intercepts. Two other sets of uncorrelated genetic factors accounted for reactive aggression’s intercept (17%) on the one hand, and for proactive (43%) and reactive (13%) aggression’s slopes on the other. Common shared environmental factors were associated with proactive aggression’s intercept (21%) and slope (26%) and uncorrelated shared environmental factors were also associated with reactive aggression’s slope (14%). Common nonshared environmental factors explained most of the remaining variability of proactive and reactive aggression slopes. Conclusions A genetic differentiation hypothesis common to both phenotypes was supported by common genetic factors associated with the developmental heterogeneity of proactive and reactive aggression in childhood. A genetic maturation hypothesis common to both phenotypes, albeit stronger for proactive aggression, was supported by common genetic factors associated with proactive and reactive aggression slopes. A shared environment set point hypothesis for proactive aggression was supported by shared environmental factors associated with proactive aggression baseline and slope. Although there are many common features to proactive and reactive aggression, the current research underscores the advantages of differentiating them when studying aggression.

Charting Quebec’s Engagement with the International Community

An exceptionally warm spring in 2012 brought forth an unanticipated blossom to Quebec. The streets of Montreal, Quebec City, and elsewhere were filled with people —sometimes in the hundreds of thousands—marching in protest of the Quebec government’s plans to raise university tuition. A student strike had begun in February, arising in a global context of contestation; Montreal had been caught up in the Occupy phenomenon, with protestors in Victoria Square—unofficially re-christened the Place du Peuple—adding their voices to a transnational outcry against economic inequality that the 2008 financial crisis and its consequences had highlighted. The year preceding the student strike had also witnessed the Arab world gripped by social and political convulsion, so that it was not long before the expression printemps arabe—Arab Spring—found its echo in the printemps érable—Maple Spring—at once a whimsical play on words and a deliberate effort to associate events in Quebec with a global wave of grassroots-organized and social media–driven protest. What began as a conflict over a tuition hike took on dramatic proportions, so that by May there were growing links with student movements from Chile to the United Kingdom. Even more significant, the protest movement had spread beyond Quebec’s student population. By the time that the Liberal government of Jean Charest moved to pass legislation—Bill 78 —to curtail the multiple daily protests and help bring an end to the strike, Quebec society was increasingly polarized. This was reflected in the estimated 500,000 who on May 22 marched through Montreal protesting Bill 78 in what was dubbed the “largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history” (Schonbek 2012). Little surprise, then, that the eyes of the international media were on Quebec; the student strike made the front page of French dailies, newspapers from Britain and the United States sent correspondents to report on events, and viewers of Al Jazeera and CNN were treated to images of confrontations between police and protestors. They also saw entire neighborhoods, taking inspiration from the Latin American tradition of cacerolazo, descend into the street to bang pots to protest the apparent affront to civil liberties. These were not the images that Quebec’s government wished to project onto the world stage. By coincidence, the wave of contestation that gripped Quebec occurred amid the 50th anniversary of the opening of Quebec’s delegation-generale—a quasiembassy—in Paris, recalled in the historical memory as the moment when Quebec strode onto the world stage, ushering in what much of the scholarly literature characterizes as the modern period of Québec’s international engagement. The dramatic AMERICAN REVIEW OF CANADIAN STUDIES, 2016 VOL. 46, NO. 2, 135–148 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02722011.2016.1185598