Voting In Canada Research Articles

Long-Term Economic Hardship and Non-Mainstream Voting in Canada

Abstract.Canadian voting behaviour from 1979 to 2000 is examined by relating long-term economic changes to support for “non-mainstream” parties, defined as parties other than the Liberals or Progressive Conservatives. This long-term perspective is unique, in that standard economic voting research focuses mostly on how short-term economic changes affect support levels for the incumbent. In order to illustrate the effects of long-term economic decline, federal voting results are related with short- and long-term economic data, namely unemployment and labour-force participation rates, all aggregated at the provincial level. The pooled data produces results that confirm the relevance of short-term changes to explain support for the incumbent party, while support for non-mainstream parties is, instead, explained by long-term economic changes.Résumé.Cet article examine le comportement électoral des Canadiens de 1979 à 2000 en reliant les changements économiques à long terme à l'appui accordé aux partis “ non dominants ”, à savoir les partis autres que les libéraux et les conservateurs. Cette perspective à long terme est unique en son genre car les recherches standard sur le vote économique étudient surtout le retentissement des changements économiques à court terme sur l'appui au parti sortant. Pour illustrer les effets du déclin économique à long terme, nous avons relié les résultats des élections fédérales aux données économiques à court et à long terme, notamment les taux de chômage et de participation de la population active, calculés à l'échelon provincial. Les données agrégées donnent des résultats qui confirment la pertinence des changements à court terme pour expliquer l'appui au parti sortant, tandis que le soutien aux partis “ non dominants ” s'explique au contraire par les changements économiques à long terme.

Electoral Accountability in a Federal System: National and Provincial Economic Voting in Canada

Are federal incumbents punished for national and/or provincial economic performance, and are provincial incumbents held accountable for the state of the provincial and/or national economy? Using a pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis of electoral results and macroeconomic data for 1953–2001, this article explores the extent to which provincial and federal incumbents in Canadian elections are affected more by national or provincial economic conditions. The results of the analysis suggest that federal incumbents would not gain many votes by claiming credit for the economic prosperity of any particular province when, on average, national economic conditions are deteriorating. The results further suggest that provincial incumbents are not held accountable for economic conditions in their provinces, but are rather punished for national economic deterioration when the incumbent federal party is of the same partisan family.

La dimension régionale du vote économique canadien aux élections fédérales de 1988 à 2000

Recent works on economic voting have shown that the economy's impact on electoral behaviour could sometimes be mediated by differences in political conditions. This article specifies and tests the mediating role of one such factor, namely regionalism, on economic voting in Canada. The potential effect of two structural factors is tested: the regional configuration of the federal party system (clarity of available alternatives), and the regional structure of the economy. The data used come from the last four Canadian Election Studies (1988 to 2000). The results show that economic voting slightly differs among regions according to the presence or not of strong regional political parties, Quebec being the region where the relationship between the economy and the vote is the weakest. Even more significant differences in economic voting behaviour can be observed between ''have'' and ''have not'' regions, the shape of economic voting in the Atlantic provinces being distinct from the one in Ontario and the West.

Clivage linguistique et vote économique au Canada

AbstractThis study deals with the question of economic voting in Canada, notably that the electoral impact of economic perceptions with regard to the performance of the federal government has not been homogeneous among the whole Canadian electorate during the period of Liberal dominance in Quebec. Contrary to our Findings on voters in other provinces, francophone Quebeckers did not vote according to their judgment of the government on economic matters, their fidelity to the Liberal party having inhibited them in this respect. These results suggest that the absence of economic voting in Quebec during the Liberal regime may clarify, at least in part, the puzzling conclusions of previous research, that show a fragile relationship between the economy and the electoral outcomes in Canada. These findings break new ground for a better understanding of the specific electoral rationality used by minorities in long-established democracies.

The Politics and Economics of Constitutional Choice: Voting in Canada's 1992 National Referendum

National referendums have been used with increasing frequency in democracies to decide important political issues, but systematic studies of voting behavior in these events remain in short supply. This article employs national survey data to study voting in Canada's 1992 national referendum on constitutional reform. Attitudes toward the referendum proposal and process and its possible consequences for the country had important effects on the vote. However, net of these and other factors, voters' economic evaluations were influential. The political economy of the vote was such that widespread dissatisfaction with a faltering economy eroded support for the referendum proposal by lowering support for a government that had negotiated the constitutional accord and campaigned vigorously on its behalf.

Education, occupation and vote in Canada, 1965–1984

Plusiers travaux de recherche sur le comportement électoral canadien ont démontré la faiblesse des effets de la classe sociale sur le vote. Cet article se sert des données de toutes les enquêtes nationales électorates (national election studies) entre les années 1965 et 1984. II cherche à illuminer les rapports statistiques entre d'une part l'appui electoral pour le parti néo‐démocrate et d'autre part l'éducation et le statut socio‐professionel. L'analyse multivariable des données suggère que la faiblesse du rapport classe‐vote s'explique à la fois par les effets contraires des variables culturelles (éducation) et économiques (statut socio‐professionel) et par la façon dont ces effets, qui sont differents dans les cinq régions du pays, se mêlent et se fondent quand on les examine à l'échelle du pays entier. Nos résultats indiquent qu'au Québec et dans les provinces de l'est, il y a une politique de classe basée sur l'éducation, tandis qu'en Ontario et dans les provinces de l'ouest, c'est une politique de classe plus conventionnelle qui prime. Cette étude révèle l'importance d'analyser les divers éléments des programmes électoraux des partis pour une comprehénsion exacte de leur bases sociales dans l'électorat.In an effort to clarity the typical finding of weak class effects on voting in Canada, this article uses data from all the national election studies between 1965 and 1984 in a multivariate investigation of the relations between education, occupation and vote. The major finding is that there are cross‐cutting regional effects for education and occupation on vote for the New Democratic Party (NDP) which effectively obscure one another when viewed from a national perspective. Log‐linear analyses reveal a class politics based on education in Quebec and Atlantic Canada whereas in Ontario, the Prairies and B.C. we find evidence of a more conventional class politics based on occupation. The implications of these findings for understanding the overall pattern of electoral politics in Canada are

On Class, Status, and Voting in Canada

On Class, Status, and Voting in Canada

On the Inference of Voter Motivation: A Comparison of the Subjective Class Vote in Canada and the United Kingdom

On the Inference of Voter Motivation: A Comparison of the Subjective Class Vote in Canada and the United Kingdom

Region, Knowledge, and Class Voting in Canada

Region, Knowledge, and Class Voting in Canada

Class awareness and class voting in Canada: a reconsideration of the Ogmundson thesis

The argument that class voting in Canada would be noticeably higher if one of the two dominant parties were to offer the electorate a ‘for‐the‐working‐class’ choice (1) does not explain the continuing minority status of the ndp, and (2) neglects to consider low working‐class awareness and the absence of class‐related opinions on economic issues. The present account argues that the two dominant parties fail to differentiate themselves in class terms because they are responding to the preferences of the modal Canadian voter.La thése que I'habitude de vote déterminé par la classe au Canada serait plus forte d'une façon perceptible si I'un des deux partis dominants offrait aux électeurs un choix ‘pour la classe ouvrière’ ni explique pourquoi le pnd reste en minorité constante, ni considère la conscience faible de class ouvrière ou I'absence d'opinions fondées sur la classe quant aux questions d'économie. Dans cette étude on soutient que le défaut des deux parties dominants de se différencier en tant que classes constitue une adaptation rationnelle aux préférences de l'électeur canadien typique.

Differences in the Canadian and American Class Vote: Fact or Pseudofact?

This paper reassesses Alford's comparative analyses of class voting in Canada and the United States and updates them to 1976. It is argued that Alford's finding that the class vote in Canada is substantially lower than that in the United States is an artifact of his classification scheme, which incorrectly superimposes the American party structure on Canadian political parties. When Canadian political parties are classified according to the major party/third party division which more accurately reflects the realities of the ``democratic class struggle'' in Canada and when the correct techniques for measuring class voting are applied, it is shown that class voting in the two countries is virtually identical. It is not the level of class voting which distinguishes the two societies but rather the differential manner in which the democratic class struggle in each has been organized as a result of their different electoral systems.

Two Modes of Interpretation of Survey Data: A Comment on Schreiber

In a recent article, Schreiber competently investigates the nature of cultural cleavages between occupational categories in Canada. He finds that such cleavages are minimal and goes on to argue that this finding suggests that the low level of the vote in Canada may be attributed mainly to the nature of the electorate and not, as recently suggested by myself (a, b, c) to the nature of the two major parties. The purpose of this comment is neither to criticize any specific aspect of Schreiber's paper, nor to make a substantive defense of my own position. (Forthcoming papers will do this.) Rather my purpose is to comment on an implicit assumption which Schreiber, in common with most Anglophone North American social scientists, makes in the interpretation of survey data. This assumption takes for granted a question which ought to be considered problematic: the degree to which our society is democratic. Let us take the findings of Schreiber at their face value-there is minimal cultural cleavage in Canada. Now the question: Why? In which direction does the causal influence flow? Does the minimal cleavage at the mass level cause the minimization of by elites, or does it simply reflect this minimization? Schreiber, adopting the conventional mode of interpretation, tends to believe that the attitudes and actions of ordinary people, in the aggregate, determine the nature of society. Thus, when minimal cleavage is found at both mass and elite levels, it seems logical to maintain that the characteristics of the general population explain the characteristics of elite activity. In effect, this scientific position assumes the direction of causal influence. By doing so, it also assumes the effective functioning of democracy, and therefore has the ideological implication of legitimization of present arrangements. There is, however, another way to interpret these very same survey results. One can simply reverse assumptions about the direction of causal flow. The apparent lack of cultural cleavage may be taken to reflect minimization (some would say suppression) of issues by cultural leaders. Certainly, a variety of independent studies have indicated that issues receive minimal attention, not only from the major political parties, but from virtually all other Canadian opinionmaking agencies. To illustrate, the newspapers have been described by John Porter as the instrument of an established upper class (463). School texts have been found to ignore Canada's long history of bitter labor dispute and to instead inaccurately portray Canada as a land of bland consensus (Pratt). Canadian novelists, historians, and social scientists, have, perhaps until recently, ignored the

Party Class Images and the Class Vote in Canada

Canada stands out sharply as a country in which the ralationship of social class to electoral politics appears to be almost non-existent. The class vote in Canada is re-examined using a new measure which takes into account voter perceptions of the class positions of the political parties. The results indicate that voter interest in class issues is greater than previously thought. This, in turn, suggests that the main source of the anomaly associated with the Canadian case resides, not with the Canadians themselves, but with the nature of the electoral options presented to them. This finding suggests that one cannot assume that the politics of a democracy faithfully reflect the salient concerns of its citizens. The results also suggest that conventional measures of voting behaviour, which normally fail to take into account the variable nature of electoral options, provide a poor indicator of the nature of mass sentiment.

Voting Research in Canada: Problems and Prospects

The volume and variety of published works on voting in Canada suggest to us it is time to take stock of where we have been and where we should go. It is our belief that developments have not matched the rosy prognosis implicit in Donald Smiley's 1967 statement that “undoubtedly the most extensive developments in Canadian political science in the past two decades have been in the field of studies of voting behaviour and political parties.” To be sure, the body of literature has expanded considerably, but we are struck by major gaps in its coverage and by certain conceptual and technical shortcomings.Traditionally review articles have treated a limited number of works in detail or have attempted an overview of an entire body of literature. We have eschewed the former approach since it presupposes the existence of a few outstanding works, comprehensive in nature, which can be fruitfully compared because of the diversity of approaches or interpretations they present. Such a situation does not yet obtain in the field of Canadian voting behaviour. The latter approach is less necessary since the recent appearance of a propositional inventory by John Terry and Richard Schultz, and a long summary chapter by Mildred Schwartz.Therefore, we propose to outline major trends in the last decade or so and to suggest new directions.

Party Loyalty and Electoral Volatility: A Comment on the Study of the Canadian Party System

I should like to comment on the fine article, “Party Loyalty and Electoral Volatility: A Study of the Canadian Party System,” by Paul M. Sniderman, H.D. Forbes, and Ian Melzer in the June 1974 (vii, no. 2) issue of this journal. This article should be a major corrective in the study of Canadian political parties. In addition, the authors provide a number of useful insights which should fruitfully guide future research on parties.In the beginning of their article they point out that there is a “consensus among students of Canadian politics on the functions of parties and the nature of voting in Canada,” which consensus they call “the textbook theory of party politics.” Among the elements of this theory, according to the authors, is the interpretation that both major, old-line Canadian parties, the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, are brokerage parties, and are, therefore, indistinguishable. Although the authors present evidence that calls into serious question other aspects of the “textbook theory,” such as the supposed lack of validity of the concept of party identification in Canada and the purported high level of electoral volatility of the Canadian voter compared to the British and American voter, the authors at the end of their article still accept important elements of the “textbook theory.” Thus, on page 286 they incorporate into their conclusion the idea that “it is surely true… that the major parties advance very similar platforms and share the same overall economic ideology.”

Parties and Voting in Canada: A Backward and Forward Glance in the Light of the Last Election

Parties and Voting in Canada: A Backward and Forward Glance in the Light of the Last Election

The Pattern of Party Voting in Canada

The Pattern of Party Voting in Canada