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This paper aims to report on a census of high-level sustainability initiatives at all accredited post-secondary institutions in Canada by documenting the institutions that have undertaken sustainability assessments, have signed one or more sustainability declarations, have sustainability offices or officers or have sustainability policies. The aim was to better understand the broad-scale patterns of commitments by post-secondary institutions to these sustainability initiatives by exploring the interrelationships among them, and with geographic and institutional characteristics.

Data were collected on existing high-level sustainability initiatives at Canada’s 220 accredited post-secondary institutions. Patterns in the data were analyzed using exploratory statistical techniques. This paper proposes a sustainability initiative score to help understand the diversity and patterns of sustainability initiative uptake.

Institutions located in larger communities, and in British Columbia and Québec, tended to have higher sustainability initiative scores. Institutions in Saskatchewan and the territories had the lowest sustainability initiative scores. It was found that sustainability office(r)s, assessments and policies co-occurred disproportionately, potentially suggesting positive reinforcement mechanisms. On the other hand, having signed a declaration was not strongly linked to other sustainability initiatives. Terminological preference had shifted from “environment” and “sustainable development” to “sustainability”.

The scope was limited to a discrete set of high-level sustainability initiatives appropriate for a nation-wide census, at a moment in time, and is therefore not exhaustive in subject or temporal extent. This broad-scale comparative analysis compels further study into the relationship between the sustainability policy environment and sustainability practices on the ground, as well as implications for how post-secondary institutions engage with sustainability. The patterns and interrelationships this paper discovered help to structure future critical and comparative in-depth analyses of sustainability policies and practices within post-secondary education.

Almost no extensive, comparative empirical studies of sustainability policy and practice in post-secondary institutions exist. This void is addressed by documenting and analyzing high-level sustainability initiatives across all accredited post-secondary institutions in Canada.

Les premiers textes déclaratifs des droits de l'homme en Occident n'ont pas comporté immédiatement la reconnaissance de droits sociaux. Ainsi, à la suite de la Déclaration des Droits—“Bill of Rights”—imposée à la Monarchie anglaise le 13 février 1689, la Déclaration modèle adoptée en Virginie le 12 juin 1776, sous l'autorité de George Mason, comme la Déclaration d'Indépendance américaine du 4 juillet 1776, et enfin la Déclaration francaise des droits de l'homme et du citoyen, proclamée par l'Assemblée nationale le 26 août 1789, étaient consacrées à l'affirmation des droits civils et politi‐ques face aux pouvoirs dont l'emprise devait être restreinte et contenue, plutôt que confirmée et étendue par l'attribution de nouvelles fonctions, même justifiées par l'intention d'améliorer le sort des plus malheureux. Résolus à ouvrir une bràche décisive dans le système de gouvernement absolutiste, les pionniers des droits de l'homme étaient tenus d'accorder la priorité aux droits conquis de libre disposition sur les droits acquis de protection, de sorte que l'autonomie des citoyens à l'égard de l'Etat était revendiquée avec toutes ses conséquences économiques et sociales. Même l'expression neuve du droit à la vie et à la poursuite du bonheur, qui apparaît dans les déclarations américaines du XVIIIe siècle, s'entendait d'une aspiration irrépressible à la liberté et non point comme l'avers d'obligations sociales imposées à la collectivité, du moins jusqu'à ce que le Préambule de la Constitution des Etats‐Unis d'Amérique du 17 septembre 1787 inscrivît la promotion du bienêtre général—“to promote the general welfare”—au nombre de ses objectifs.

The welfare state as suggested and recommended by the Beveridge Report of 1942 and as subsequently applied since the mid 1940s, is a far cry to the welfare state which exists today in Great Britain, for, as a result of economic pressures, the recession, various other factors, and particularly the political ideology of the present Tory government under Mrs. Margaret Thatcher and Mr. John Major which has been in power since 1979, it becomes clear that the golden age of the welfare state has lost much of its shine. Should the present government continue in office after the next general election, it could well be that the welfare state will dwindle into non‐significance. Indeed, there is currently a crisis in the British welfare state when compared with the ideals of Beveridge of freedom from want and providing people with their needs.

Outlines the evolution of the idea of private property in the West and in early Islamic states; and its practical translation into property rights in land in the UK, Islamic territories and South Asia. Provides a glossary of terms which may be unfamiliar to Western readers and argues that the East India Company’s Permanent Settlement Regulation in South Asia recognized existing rights and did not create new ones. Believes that understanding this is important for any evolutionary theory of the South Asian economy.

During the six years of war the whole of the civilized world followed with the greatest anxiety the news concerning the fate of continental libraries. It has happened twice in the lifetime of our generation that not only human beings were killed, destroyed, and dispersed but also their silent friends—books. We became quite used to the phrase so frequently heard in the news: ‘Owing to shell‐fire or air‐bombardment a hospital, a church, or a library has been destroyed or severely damaged.’ I thought on such occasions: ‘Just like Louvain …’—as I never forgot the deep shock I experienced in my youth on hearing the tragic news of the destruction of this famous Belgian library.

The trajectory of François Perroux across the Vichy regime poses about all possible range of methodological issues to the historian of ideas: individual versus collective biography, ideational versus ideological reading, internal versus external analysis, etc. The chapter outlines key elements about Perroux’s trajectory showing the entanglements and boundaries of science and politics in the transition from democratic to authoritarian rule and vice versa. A particular emphasis on uncertainties and adjustments shows, against the tendency to a teleological explanation induced by a linear interpretation of his career, that different paths were considered by Perroux, but that his choices were nevertheless constrained by the forces of both the scientific and political fields.

This paper aims to analyse health reforms carried out in a sample of European countries.

Using a country‐specific approach, outstanding health reform features such as: greater competition between sickness funds in Germany; fund‐holding practices in the UK; managed care models in Switzerland; health networks in France; and healthcare system decentralisation in Italy are analysed.

There have been different approaches to controlling healthcare costs. Some states relied on public sector competition by creating quasi‐markets (UK), insurance sector competition, particularly in Switzerland and Germany, organisational reforms in France by creating health networks and decentralisation in Italy.

Societal and legal aspects are not discussed.

The paper compares healthcare reform effectiveness in a number of western European countries.