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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]

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]

Theories of voting have distinguished between prospective and retrospective evaluations of political parties. However, not only may both factors be at work in an election, but they may also be complementary. The 1980 Canadian federal elections were, according to most accounts, both a retrospective and a prospective referendum on the energy issue. However, previous examinations of this election have failed to show any mandate emerging from the contest. This re-analysis of election data from that contest, shows that both prospective and retrospective evaluations mattered, above and beyond the quality of leadership in the country. Moreover, the pattern of voting strongly suggests an elite-led pattern of issue concerns akin to that suggested by the 'two-step flow of communications'. Those with the strongest pattern of issue concerns voted prospectively, while less committed partisans cast their ballots retrospectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]