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Early studies of Canadian partisanship argued that the concept of partisan identification, as understood in the U.S., does not apply to the study of Canada. This began a debate about whether partisan identification in Canada was similar to the type of attachment held by Americans. Throughout this debate, the role of political parties in influencing the nature of their partisans has been only modestly studied. Other than arguing that weak partisanship is the result of institutional arrangements or the brokerage style of the parties, studies of partisanship have not considered whether the nature of the identification varies between the parties. In other words, do some parties encourage American-style partisanship and others something else? The connection between parties and partisans is of particular interest given the changes that occurred in the Canadian party system since 1993. Not only do the current parties vary in age, reputation and focus, but they also differ in terms of their ideological intensity. This paper addresses the characteristics of partisanship in the various parties of the Canadian party system since 1993. Is Canadian partisanship uniform, or does it vary by party? Are certain partisans more loyal, more intense, and more stable? Do these characteristics vary systematically by party? This paper tackles these questions using data from the Canadian Election Studies of 1988-2006. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines attitudes toward policies intended to enhance the political rights and representation of indigenous populations. The analysis is based on a parallel set of questions about the under-representation and the expansion of rights for minority groups that were asked of populations in three countries. Election studies administered in Australia, Canada and New Zealand asked respondents a series of questions regarding support for government assistance for aborigines, self-government, and guaranteed representation. We examine several explanations for variations in the support of majority populations for these policies. Specifically, we examine how perceptions of threat, values such as post-materialism and personal identity structure preferences for the expansion of rights. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of the results for building support for expansion of political rights for indigenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, using the recent debate over same-sex marriage as a case study, concludes that Canadian conservatives have re-committed themselves to winning office and so overcome the 'Tory Syndrome'. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theory of strategic issue framing in electoral campaigns. Unlike issue priming theory, our theory argues that in many elections parties face pressures to address the same issues. As a consequence, parties battle during campaigns to increase the popular appeal of their preferred frames. These mediated frames, in certain circumstances, contribute to modify voters' perceptions of party leaders and voting decision. The theory is tested with data from the 2000 Canadian federal election. Content analyses of party campaign material and media coverage demonstrate how the incumbent Liberals successfully framed the healthcare issue to undermine the credibility of the official opposition. Statistical analyses show that the Liberal framing strategy contributed to significantly alter the election results. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a notable secular decline in turnout in Canada in recent elections, but there has been little research to date on the partisan consequences of that decline. In this paper, we simulate various turnout rates in the 1997 Canadian national election in Quebec and the rest of Canada based on probabilities derived from multinomial logit estimates. In Quebec, higher turnout is associated with greater support for the Bloc Quebecois and weaker support for the Liberals. In the rest of Canada, higher turnout is associated with greater support for the Liberals and weaker support for Reform. Support for the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives is not significantly affected across broad ranges in turnout rates. We interpret these results as support for the conventional wisdom of turnout’s effects on partisan outcomes, and believe that our methodology offers the opportunity to investigate the probable effect of turnout on partisan outcomes in a variety of electoral contexts where survey data are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from the Canadian Election Studies to analyze the evolution of gender gaps in vote choice since 1965. It shows that a ‘modern gender gap’ has emerged in Canada, not because women have been moving to the left, but because women have been less likely than men to move away from the left. It then goes on to determine whether the changing nature of the gender gap in NDP voting can be explained by structural and situational changes in women’s–and men’s–lives. It concludes that these changes can provide only a very partial explanation of the process of gender realignment in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is mostly interested in issue effect on vote choice. The same-sex marriage issue is used as a key element for both the 2004 and 2006 Canadian Elections, and we answer principally to three empirical questions: how many voted because of this issue? What has been the impact of this issue on parties? Do other issues were more important? In order to demonstrate the effect of same-sex marriage on Canadian vote choice, we use the Canadian electoral study data for 2004 and 2006. Multinomial analyses allow us to conclude that even if same-sex marriage has influenced vote choice, the result of the election would have been unchanged without this issue. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the role of issue ownership in individual vote choice in the 1997 & 2000 Canadian federal elections. As a correction to the original model, we find that issue ownership's effect on vote is conditional upon the salience of the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the occurrence and frequency of election night corruption by examining the victory margins of races in Japan, Canada, and the United States. If election night corruption (the adjusting of vote totals late on election night when it is known how many votes are enought to secure a victory) occurs, we expect to see anomalous numbers of ultra close races. Our hypothesis is that election night corruption will be less likely in Canada and Japan because of the lesser levels of overall political corruption in Canada and the centralization and independence of the election bureaucracy in Japan. However, we find statistically significant evidence of election night corrution in both the United States and Canada. We also find that the net effect of the corruption benefits the Liberal Party in Canada and the Democratic Party in the United States. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative study of the impact of party leaders and their personality traits on election outcomes is diverse and non-cumulative-it has followed a number of directions, and the literature is conflicted in almost all of these areas. One of the main branches within the leaders literature focuses on the evaluation of personality traits, and scholars are unable to agree about which traits voters take note of; whether traits actually affect election outcomes; if they do which are more important; and why or how traits are evaluated in the first place. When one looks more closely at the literature, it becomes clear that what is needed is a larger comparative analysis that incorporates election studies across time and space, in order to be able to make more definitive conclusions about the role of leader evaluations. However, one of the challenges to this endeavor stems from the nature of the data available. Different traits are included in different election studies over time, and often even where trait continuity does exist, the question format changes, making comparability over time and across space very difficult. This paper examines the impact of question format, using pooled data from election studies conducted in two countries, Canada and the United States. The analysis suggests that question format does indeed have an effect on respondents' evaluations of party leaders, but more research is needed before we can make conclusions about the implications of these effects for the comparative study of the role of leaders. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author attempted exit polling during advance poll voting and the general election in January 2006 to understand how and if party and candidate mobilization occurs. The polling was generally scuttled by Elections Canada and by other problems involved in trying to conduct exit polling remotely. The paper shares the problems that occurred and a few results reached by a very small N and offers suggestions to scholars who desire to exit poll in Canada in the future. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of polls on perceptions of the race, preferences, and vote choice under three different electoral systems: pure plurality (Canada), pure PR (the Netherlands), and a mixed member proportional system with a threshold (New Zealand). We test the hypothesis that poll effects are greatest in Canada, where the incentives for strategic voting are strongest, and smallest in the Netherlands, where the incentives are weakest. The data come from the 1997 Canadian Election Study (CES), the 1998 Dutch Election Study (DES), and the 1999 New Zealand Election Study (NZES). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of electoral systems, and ultimately electoral reform, are important to examine because choosing an electoral system is one of the most important institutional decisions for any democracy. The significance of electoral systems lay in the fundamental aspect that they translate the votes of the electorate into the legislative body that will form the government. The Canadian electoral system of First Past the Post (FPTP), a plurality voting system that was adopted from the British model, has been criticized as being undemocratic in its distribution of votes and allocation of power. The system of FPTP was adopted in a time when the composition of Canadian society was very different; the principles and values of the current Canadian population do not correlate with the present electoral system. Women and minorities, whom make up a significant percentage of the Canadian electorate, are not adequately represented in the legislative body that is, in theory, meant to protect all members of society. Different electoral systems create different incentives and disincentives for political parties to achieve equality in political representation. It is crucial to recognize how different electoral systems distribute political power and how certain electoral systems are designed to actively and consciously enhance the representation of women and minorities. Elections are the venues in which eligible citizens are free to choose which candidate they believe should hold political office and it is reasonable to consider that there exists a better electoral system for Canadian democracy than the current system of FPTP. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]