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In this paper, we explore how the power wielded by regional incumbents has impacted subnational innovation agendas. Our findings suggest that the design of mission-oriented innovation policies should be more attentive to regional innovation policies and their relationship to how innovation may serve to bolster incumbents and not undermine them. We use a case-study of innovation in fossil fuels. Recently, innovation policy literature has explored innovation policy and global climate as a major topic. On the one hand, carbon lock-in has been used to explain why there has been such difficulty in reducing carbon emissions, in many cases, despite an increasing emphasis of mission-innovation policies. On the other hand, mission-innovation policies are believed to be a key to the development of disruptive innovations that could break this carbon intensive path dependency. Although the two literatures explore the same problem, there could be more integration. While carbon lock-in is being considered in the mission-innovation literature, it nevertheless has been largely overlooked at the mission-setting stage. On the other hand, the lock-in literature has tended to overlook the findings of mission-oriented innovation literature in offering solutions, which suggests that there is a more productive role for mission-oriented innovations in breaking free of previous constraints to serve in the low-carbon energy transition. To make our case, we argue it is important to distinguish among the various impacts disruptive innovations have on the market shares of incumbents'. We propose the following three schema: new market, market rewarding and market destroying. By variegating the potential impact of innovations, we suggest that mission-oriented innovation polices may be designed to only support certain types of innovations that do not directly undermine the market share of incumbents. Using a detailed case study of the Province of Alberta, Canada, we then explore the role of the province's mission-oriented policy in the development of technology to produce the Canadian oil sands. The case study illustrates how incumbents influenced the establishment and direction of the mission's goal. Shifts in incumbency opposition toward the province's mission-oriented innovation policy coincided with the changing impact of the innovation from being market destroying to market rewarding. We suggest that future research should be more attentive to the role of incumbents in influencing mission-oriented innovation policy and the importance of their influence at the mission-setting stage. Furthermore, we suggest that to meet the grand challenge of addressing climate change through mission-oriented innovation policies, these policies must be designed to break free of these institutional constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a new dataset of nearly 2,000 municipal elections from 1874 to 2018 to estimate the size of municipal incumbency advantage in Canada for the first time. Incumbency increases the probability that a candidate will win the next election by more than 30 percentage points and accounts for well over half of overall incumbent success. Incumbency advantage varies modestly by institutional context but varies substantially over time, with a distinct decrease during a period of partisan elections in the mid-twentieth century. These findings represent one of the first estimates of municipal incumbency advantage in an advanced democracy outside the United States and provide a new approach to estimating and comparing incumbency advantage in multi-member and single-member districts. The findings suggest important similarities between Canadian and American municipal elections, demonstrate that incumbency advantage has varied significantly at the municipal level over time, and illustrate the value of historical election data for scholars of urban electoral politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature has posited that agglomeration economies and the formation of social relationships resulting from the geographic concentration of incumbents constitute the forces that "pull" new entrants into industry clusters. However, this proposition overlooks how the collective action of incumbents in pursuit of their own benefits affects new entrants. This study examines how business associations as collective action organizations established by incumbents to promote and safeguard group-wide interests contribute to de novo entrants. The empirical evidence from Canada's telecommunication equipment manufacturing industry between 1995 and 2005 reveals that the prevalence of local business associations encourages de novo entrants. However, the impact is curvilinear such that excessive collective action on the part of local fellow incumbents can create a clubby environment and "push" new entrants away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using official electoral results from provincial elections since 1973, we evaluate the incumbency effect in Quebec by measuring the impact of a combination of characteristics related to candidates and political parties. We verify whether the presence of an incumbent candidate is necessary to ensure that the incumbent party benefits from an electoral advantage. We also compare the magnitude of the incumbency effect between governing and opposition parties. Making use of parametric multivariate statistical tools, we conclude that political parties benefit from an electoral advantage in Quebec. Except for ministers who make a small difference, simple Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) do not improve their electoral performance, while in some cases new candidates with incumbent parties perform better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a theory of racial mediation and examines how candidate race affects media coverage of political viability. Using two different types of content analysis—manual and automated—the article assesses print media coverage of white and visible minority candidates in the 2008 Canadian federal election. The study reaches two substantive conclusions. First, it appears that candidate race does not influence reporting on political viability in the aggregate, but does affect how non-incumbent candidates with racial minority backgrounds are portrayed. Although non-incumbent white candidates receive fairly positive coverage of their electoral qualifications, this is not the case for visible minority candidates. Incumbency washes away these differences, suggesting that once minority candidates have, in effect, proven themselves with an electoral win, they will receive coverage that is equivalent—and sometimes even more favourable—than their white competitors. Second, this study demonstrates how methodological choices influence the conclusions reached by content analysts. The article highlights how a researcher using an automated approach to content analysis could reach different conclusions than a researcher relying on a manual approach. The article concludes with a discussion of the trade-offs that researchers face when studying the media coverage of minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Could the municipal political scandals uncovered by the Charbonneau Commission exert an influence on a main characteristic of municipal politics: the stability of its politicians? This paper intends to explore this issue during the 2013 Quebec elections. To verify adherence and/or deviation from established trends, we adopt a diachronic view that considers the two previous elections (2005 and 2009). Three factors are taken into consideration when interpreting voter trends: (1) voter participation and the competitiveness of the elections; (2) the role of municipal political parties; and (3) the incumbency advantage. We observed (1) more competitive elections; (2) a shrinking number of political parties but evidences of their general stabilization; (3) a slight renewal of municipal politicians due more to withdrawal from office than to electoral defeat. Finally, our analysis of electoral data also uncovered variable dynamics within Quebec communities of different sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does lawmaker behavior influence electoral outcomes? Observational studies cannot elucidate the effect of legislative proposals on electoral outcomes, since effects are confounded by unobserved differences in legislative and political skill. We take advantage of a unique natural experiment in the Canadian House of Commons that allows us to estimate how proposing legislation affects election outcomes. The right of noncabinet members to propose legislation is assigned by lottery. Comparing outcomes between those who were granted the right to propose and those who were not, we show that incumbents of the governing party enjoy a 2.7 percentage point bonus in vote total in the election following their winning the right to introduce a single piece of legislation, which translates to a 7% increase in the probability of winning. The causal effect results from higher likeability among constituents. These results demonstrate experimentally that what politicians do as lawmakers has a causal effect on electoral outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advance notice provisions require shareholders to provide notice of director nominations to incumbent management in advance of annual and special meetings. In doing so, advance notice provisions prevent a dissident from "hiding in the weeds" to take advantage of a poorly attended meeting to elect the nominees of his or her choice. In Northern Minerals Investment Corp v Mundoro Capital Inc and Maudore Minerals Ltd v Harbour Foundation, incumbent directors' use of advance notice provisions was upheld under corporate law. Although neither decision found that the advance notice provision in question violated corporate law, there is still a risk that incumbent corporate directors may use an advance notice provision in a manner that violates corporate or securities law. In particular, the provision and its manner of adoption may violate the oppression remedy found in section 241 of the Canada Business Corporations Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada in BCE Inc v 1976 Debentureholders. Further, directors' use of an advance notice provision may be contrary to the public interest as protected by provincial securities regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We apply a regression discontinuity approach to determine incumbency advan-tages in the Canadian Parliament, finding that incumbents enjoy a 9.4-11.2% increased probability of winning over non-incumbents. Owing to the presence of multiple parties, an incumbency advantage in terms of vote share does not always translate to an increased probability of winning, because incumbents do not necessarily obtain votes from their closest opponent. Also, under the assumption that strategic exit is not an issue, we are able to split the incumbency advantage into party incumbency and individual candidate in-cumbency components, finding that the advantage is almost entirely due to the individual. On utilise une approche par la méthode de régression avec discontinuité pour déterminer les avantages qu'il y a à être l'élu en place dans les élections au Parlement du Canada. On découvre que les élus en place ont une probabilité de gagner de 9.4 à 11.2% de plus que leurs adversaires. A cause de la présence de multiples partis politiques, l'avantage de l'élu en place en termes de proportion du vote ne se traduit pas toujours par une probabilité accrue de gagner parce que les élus en place ne capturent pas nécessairement les votes de leur plus proche adversaire. De plus, en présumant qu'il ne s'agit pas de sortie stratégique, on peut départager l'avantage de l'élu en place en composantes correspondant à l'effet de parti et l'effet de l'individu. On découvre que l'avantage est presque complètement attribuable à l'individu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prime ministers often have to work with prime ministerial aspirants, senior ministers who regard themselves as possible successors. But can these challengers seize the job when the prime ministers are reluctant to stand down? Using evidence from Canada, Britain and Australia, the article explores the conditions in which successions have taken place and the capacity of the prime ministerial aspirants to expedite the process. It identifies three alternative strategies that are shaped by the party rules in the different countries. The aspirants may flee, fight or fulminate. Which strategy will best improve their chances of winning the top job depends on the traditional or developing modes of leadership election that their parties have adopted. Some processes provide the means to assassinate the leader. Others have no opportunity to act; rivals can do nothing but wait, either in or outside parliament. The article finds that the broader the constituency that elects the leaders, the more secure those leaders are when their reputation declines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we argue that the extent to which Canadian federal incumbents are punished for past economic deterioration is contingent upon the political party forming government. Examining the effect of national macroeconomic conditions on incumbent vote in Canadian federal elections over a 50-year period (1953-2000), the article proposes an aggregate-level model of economic voting that takes into account the partisan affiliation of the incumbent government. The results of the pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis indicate that Liberal incumbents are not as strongly affected by macroeconomic conditions as Conservative incumbents. Contrary to what prior scholarship has suggested, the observed difference does not appear to be caused by the parties' respective ideological priorities, but rather by the parties' reputation (or perceived competence) in handling economic problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada's federal government and several provinces have recently moved to fixed election cycles on the assumption that the ability to pick the election date endogenously (1) gives the incumbent government an unfair advantage and (2) curbs the discretionary powers of the Governor General. Electoral opportunism is posited as a problem that fixed election cycles will remedy by virtue of ensuring greater turnover among governments. This article subjects these claims to empirical scrutiny. It examines why Canada did not follow the American example in the first place. It surveys some of the unintended consequences of fixing election cycles. And it ponders some of the complications that might arise when trying to reconcile a key constitutional principle of the Westminster parliamentary system, responsible government, with fixed election cycles. Evidence for the apparent democratic merits of a fixed election cycle is found to be less conclusive than its proponents acknowledge. The article concludes by speculating about the motivations behind Canada's new-found passion for electoral reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The development of legislative professionalization is well documented in U.S. state legislatures, where it is closely associated with the advent of careerism. This association is partly responsible for the term limit movement. In this paper we show that Canadian provincial legislative assemblies have undergone a similar trend toward professionalization but that careerism has been less evident. Turnover rates are higher than under similar conditions in U.S. state legislatures because the electoral advantage of incumbency is substantially smaller in Canadian provincial elections. We identify five reasons why incumbents are less advantaged in the Canadian system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]