The Space between Worlds: Federalism, Public Issues and Election Issues

Abstract

This paper reconciles two strands of literature on federalism and mass political behaviour behaviour, but the reconciliation is not a happy one. One strand of literature pointed out optimistically that Canadians keep their two political worlds—provincial and federal—more separate than citizens in any other federation. Another strand points to the obvious difficulty citizens would have in separating the contribution of the two levels of government to policy results on the ground. Are these arguments fundamentally at odds? These two strands of literature can be reconciled by showing how federalism, particularly the Canadian version, forces parties, voters, and the media to make elections about issues that feature less intergovernmentalism. Unfortunately, these issues are usually of less concern to citizens than the highly intergovernmental policy areas systematically ignored in both federal and provincial elections. In short: Canadian elections are about the wrong things and federalism is to blame.