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Canadian political parties have been using the Internet as a campaign tool since the 1997 election. Rebuilding Canadian Party Politics by Carty, Cross and Young (2000) presents one of the first analyses of Internet-based communications during a Canadian election. It is also one of the most important assessments of Canadian party systems. The book outlines the components that characterize the fourth party system, which they argue, began after the 1993 election. Regionalization is the defining characteristic of this emerging system. The book argues that the Internet, like other communication technologies, is important in this latest party system. Consistent with the notion of regionalized campaign communications, the authors suggest that Canadian political parties use the Internet to target campaign messages to different regional and sociodemographic groups and enter into private conversations with voters. Using original data collected from the 2004 federal election, this paper reflects on these claims. The paper builds the case that the use of the Internet as a campaign tool is not consistent with their argument. Internet-based campaign communications in Canada by the major parties is neither regionalized nor targeted. Rather, this technology makes campaign communication more transparent and centralized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper assesses the influence of electoral rules on vote choice and election outcomes using a quasi-experiment conducted during a recent Canadian provincial election. Respondents were invited to vote under three voting systems (first past the post, alternative voting and proportional representation) and to answer a short questionnaire. We examine how the distribution of votes and seats is affected, and we ascertain how much of the total difference is due to psychological and mechanical effects. We find that a PR system would have increased legislative fractionalization by the equivalent of one effective party and that the mechanical effect is much more important than the psychological effect. As for AV, its mechanical and psychological effects act in opposite directions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

With this paper we study the impact of decentralization on turnout. We test the hypotheses that decentralization increases turnout in subnational elections, lowers participation in national elections, and reduces the gap between regional and national arenas. A comparative cross-national analysis does not show any significant effect of decentralization on turnout in national elections. But we take a closer look at two countries, Canada and Spain, where fiscal decentralization has taken place during the past decades. In both countries the empirical evidence suggests that decentralization has contributed to reducing the turnout gap between regional and national elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a number of scholars have offered a variety of constitutional critiques and political analyses for the 2008 prorogation of parliament, to date no comprehensive theoretical exploration has been attempted. In addition to the widespread agreement that the use of prorogation to avoid a potential nonconfidence vote was problematic, some have acknowledged that efforts to undermine the role of parliament in Canada have become routine. Combined with the role nationalistic tensions played in justifying such a profound departure from the principles of responsible government, this paper accepts the view that the 2008 decision to prorogue parliament constituted a "harm." Using routine activities theory it explores the events before, during, and after prorogation based on the confluence of a motivated actor, a suitable target, and the lack of a capable guardian. While this theory frames past events in a new way, of specific value is how the theory can be used to begin to chart a course to correct what has been called a dangerous constitutional precedent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature on gender effects in the electoral process offers little evidence of significant gender vote share differentials. In this paper it is shown that for the 2006 Canadian federal election, once candidate campaign spending is introduced into the model with appropriate flexibility in the vote share responsiveness across genders, significant differences are found to exist between male and female candidates. The findings suggest that, for equal levels of spending, male incumbents have a vote share advantage relative to female incumbents, though this vote share advantage is found to diminish with increased expenditures. Female non-incumbent candidates, on the other hand, have a vote share advantage over male non-incumbent candidates for higher levels of expenditure and this advantage was found to increase with increased expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While an important component of incumbent support, the effect of economic conditions on vote choice (economic voting) can be undermined by the presence of multilevel institutions; voters are faced with the prospect of evaluating economic conditions and governments at different levels simultaneously. This paper tests the applicability of a model which seeks to account for how and how well voters cope with the complexity of multilevel governance. The accountability-centred model suggests that federal and provincial governments should only be evaluated for those actions and outcomes that they can reasonably be seen to have influence over. Additionally, it is asked whether high information respondents are better able to navigate some of the complexities of Canada's multilevel system. Analyses are conducted using data from the 1993 and 1997 Canadian Election Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper establishes the methodological foundations for a systematic analysis of the direct impact of the media on the vote. We propose to combine two different approaches: the `linkage' approach which relates media coverage to voting intentions, and the `attentiveness' approach which compares the vote choice of those who pay most and least attention to television news. We apply these two methods to the 1997 Canadian election. We find support for the hypothesis that, during the election campaign, voting intentions for a party increased (decreased) when media coverage of that party was systematically positive (or negative), among those who followed the news and decided how to vote during the campaign, but we find no evidence that, on election day, those more attentive to the news voted differently from those less attentive. We conclude that the media temporarily moved voting intentions during the course of the 1997 Canadian election but that they appear to have had no direct impact on the final vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]