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As shown by Bélanger and Nadeau (2009), Québec's traditional identity-based axis appears less and less predominant on the political scene. This situation created a need for a different strategy in the various sovereigntist parties. In this context, how has the Bloc Québécois tried to reposition itself? To explore this question, we collected over 7,500 press releases issued by the party between 2002 and 2021. Using automated content analysis methods and a Latent Semantic Scaling approach developed by Watanabe (2020), we illustrate and discuss the prevalence of the sovereigntist issue throughout this period, as well as the party's tone on this issue. The results indicate that elections and election results play a crucial role in the Bloc Québécois' communications on the topic of sovereignty. More generally, we observe significant fluctuations in the attention paid to this issue, and significant variations in the framing of this issue around elections. This research note sheds new methodological light on the theories surrounding the political realignment underway in Quebec and the salience of the sovereignty divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé: À partir d'une expérience s'étant déroulée au Québec auprès de plus de 200 personnes, cet article évalue dans quelle mesure l'humour peut alimenter les stéréotypes culturels et religieux. Si sur le plan des effets directs, les différences s'avèrent moins importantes, on remarque que le degré de participation religieuse joue un rôle significatif dans l'entretien d'une perception négative à l'égard des immigrants et de la communauté arabo-musulmane. Ce constat souligne la nécessité de considérer des facteurs modérateurs pour mesurer les impacts des diverses manifestations de la communication politique, dont l'humour, sur certaines attitudes liées à la diversité. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note reports on a new effort to track candidate diversity in Canadian elections. The dataset covers 4,516 candidates who ran in the 2008, 2011, 2015 and 2019 federal elections and includes novel data on their race, Indigenous background and age, alongside information on gender, occupation, prior electoral experience and electoral outcome. We outline the process for collecting and systematizing these data, which relied on genealogical methods and the principle of triangulation. The data can be used to track diversity among electoral candidates over time or merged with other sources to answer district-level questions about representational diversity, electoral dynamics, vote choice and political communications. The method could also be replicated and applied to other levels of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the literature on leadership, the Certainty Axiom holds that leaders exercise leadership through reassuring uncertain citizens. It is thought that policy entrepreneurs particularly must supply much certainty to lead people to adopt new policies. A new theory—the Strategic Manipulation of Uncertainty (SMU) model—challenges this axiom. Its propositions hold that political leaders may strategically address public uncertainty to secure specific objectives. Risk-averse, traditional ("transactional") leaders communicate more certainty, and less uncertainty, than their transformational counterparts. Risk-acceptant, entrepreneurial ("transformational") leaders supply less certainty, and more uncertainty, than their transactional counterparts. Testing these hypotheses through analyzing the public speeches of Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow and Alberta Premier Ralph Klein supports the SMU model. As a transactional leader, Premier Romanow communicated more certainty, and less uncertainty, than Premier Klein. Premier Klein communicated less certainty, and more uncertainty, than Premier Romanow. The results challenge the utility of the Certainty Axiom and suggest that leaders address citizens' uncertainty strategically, increasing it or reducing it, in pursuit of particular policy objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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