Political Turbulence in a Dominant Party System

Abstract

Over 40 years ago, Leon Epstein (1964) published a comparative study of Canadian political parties in the American Political Science Review that still merits a careful read. His aim in that essay was to juxtapose the Canadian experience against the American in order to learn something of the latter, but in doing so, he provided a succinct analysis of important dynamics structuring the Canadian party system. His account reminds us that, like the United States, Canada is “a diverse nation in a large land area,” has “developed a structural federalism,” has an “American-style social and economic class structure,” and uses “a single-member, simple-plurality election system.” Perhaps reflecting these underlying similarities, Canadian parties' (like their American counterpart's) “extra-parliamentary organizations are loose and non-doctrinal at every level” and structured federally.