Running for elected office: Indigenous candidates, ambition and self-government

Abstract

ABSTRACT Over the last 40 years, Indigenous communities in Canada have negotiated self-government agreements that allow them to express politically their unique identities, traditions and beliefs within the confines of the federal system. In this paper, we examine the motivations and range of candidates that have run for political office at the regional level in Nunatsiavut, an Inuit self-governing community in northern Labrador created through the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement in 2005. In particular, we examine whether existing political behavior theories are applicable to Indigenous candidates running for office in these kinds of regions. To do so, we qualitatively analyze data from Nunatsiavut elections held between 2006 and 2017, including 11 elite interviews with candidates that ran for the office of Ordinary Member in 2014 and 10 interviews with candidates from other years. Our findings suggest that gender, and to a lesser extent, family dynamics, as well as, public attitudes towards candidates and negative attacks, may be barriers to running for office.