Partisanship, Voting Behavior, and Election Outcomes in Canada

Abstract

Perhaps the most salient feature of Canadian federal elections in the recent past has been the similarity of their outcomes. In the period since the end of World War II, the Liberal party has dominated the electoral arena, winning seven of ten general elections. This party has formed the government of Canada continuously since 1963, its share of the popular vote varying on average by only 4.8 percent over the last five elections. At present, however, the basis of that Liberal dominance is imperfectly understood since relatively few studies have been made of the psychological basis of electoral choice in Canada or of the relationships between individual voting behavior and election outcomes.' To enhance understanding of these phenomena, this study will examine the nature of partisanship in the Canadian electorate and the interplay between voters' partisan attachments and the stimuli provided by short-term forces generated during particular election campaigns. The pattern of electoral outcomes in Canada, together with the strength and salience of certain social cleavages (e.g., region, religion, ethnicity) might lead one to assume that voters' partisan predispositions are highly stable-reflecting, and in turn reinforcing, the enduring political significance of these cleavages. Yet, research in Canada and other political settings suggests that a note of caution may be in order, as interpretations of voting behavior in Western democracies have undergone substantial revision since the advent of the earliest American studies. The American Voter (1960), and some of its predecessors,2