Abstract: Marxists and other sociologists alike have suggested that homeowners will be more involved in politics and hold more conservative attitudes than will tenants. However, there has been only limited research done on these topics, with very little of it having to do with Canadians. Underlying this hypothesis is an assumption that homeowners are more socially and economically integrated than are tenants, and that, therefore, homeowners act more conservatively and participate more. This study tests the predictions for a national sample of Canadians. It asks whether the predictions hold overall, and whether the effect extends to people who express dissatisfaction with their material standard of living. Further analyses also ask whether there are differences between homeowners with and without a mortgage. Some theoretical implications of the findings are discussed. Resume: Tant les marxistes que les liberaux ont formule l'hypothese selon laquelle les individus qui sont proprietaires de leur logement sont a la fois plus politises et plus conservateurs que ceux et celles qui sont locataires. La recherche a ce sujet demeure cependant limitee, tout particulierement dans le cas canadien. Cette hypothese repose sur la premisse selon laquelle le conservatisme et la plus grande participation des proprietaires proviennent de leur plus grande integration sociale et economique. La pressente etude soumet cette hypothese -- dite de l'incorporation politique -- a une nouvelle verification, utilisant un echantillon de Canadien(ne)s. L'auteure se demande si cette hypothese se confirme dans le cas des proprietaires dont le bas niveau de vie constitue une source d'insatisfaction, et cherche a determiner si la detention d'une hypotheque (ou non) introduit une variation significative. Enfin, l'auteure reflechie sur quelques implications theoriques de l'etude. Introduction The Hypothesis that Homeownership Affects Political Activity and Political Attitudes Scholars from differing theoretical perspectives have shared the view that homeowners will think and act in ways that protect their stake in the system. It is suggested that because homeowners gain materially through domestic property ownership they will be both more likely than tenants to participate in mainstream political activities and to assume more conservative political attitudes on economic and social issues. This set of predictions is articulated, for example, in the Marxist incorporation and in British neo-Weberian consumption sector theories. Of course, there are also marked differences within and among these two schools of thought. This study is concerned with testing the political incorporation predictions concerning homeownership and politics. Engels first articulated the political incorporation thesis concerning homeownership in The Housing Question (1972[1936]). This is the position that workers will become incorporated into the ideology supporting capitalist class relations to the extent that their demands for decent working and living conditions are satisfied. Since Engels' work, various neo-Marxists have discussed the results of labour's struggles outside of the workplace for improved provisions of collective consumption (e.g., Castells, 1977; 1978; Harvey, 1976; 1978). According to Harvey (1976), one of the ways in which capital responded to workers' protests around housing was to promote homeownership. He argues that extending homeownership to the working class serves to reinforce capitalist hegemony because it legitimizes market-based approaches to the provision of housing and promotes the acceptance of victim-blaming themes to explain housing inequalities (also see Edel, 1982; Jaret, 1983). The more general Marxist proposition that worker affluence serves to diminish working class loyalty is captured in the thesis. In the postwar period, embourgeoisement theorists predicted a decline in working class politics as workers became more affluent and assumed bourgeois consumption habits and values. …