Search

Modern representative democracies face particular challenges, particularly when it comes to reinvesting public money. Political tensions are both managed and fostered through an interaction between the heterogeneity of citizens' preferences and the rigidity of institutional rules. Using Canadian budgetary data, this paper tests if recent Liberals governments have tended to favour public spending in policy domains beneficial to their natural constituencies. A parsimonious Bayesian linear model suggests that this is not necessarily the case. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Canada prides itself on its universal and comprehensive public health insurance system, is the only country that provides widespread public health benefits but does not provide similar pharmaceutical benefits. This presents both an empirical puzzle and a theoretical challenge, which cannot be accounted for by the literature on variation among national health insurance systems. Canada's outlier status suggests that pharmaceutical benefits cannot simply be subsumed into health insurance policy, and more generally, that closely related aspects of social policy might be subject to quite different dynamics. In this paper, I demonstrate that Canada's failure to provide nation-wide public coverage of pharmaceuticals is a product of its earliest decisions about how to approach health policy, and that over time, ideas and public expectations interact to set strict limits on the opportunities for policy development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]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 ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]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 aims at testing whether there exist spending interactions between Canadian provinces by estimating a dynamic panel data model. We show that there are strategic spatial interactions between provinces with regards to health, education, regional development and total spending. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the history of the relationship and concludes that while there have been some fundamental changes to it there is also a strain of consistency and invariability that continues to serve as its foundation and structure over time. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effect of macroeconomic conditions on incumbent vote in Canadian federal elections during the 1953-2000 period. Building on the extant literature, it proposes an improved model of economic voting that takes into account party politics, suggesting that it affects the extent to which incumbents are punished for economic deterioration. The results of the analysis indicate that party politics does matter, as incumbent governments can (and do) manage to convince the electorate that they can effectively deal with rising inflation or unemployment, and be re-elected in the context of deteriorating economic conditions. We argue that Canadian political parties obtain such prospective support through efficient campaigning, but also as a result of their reputation at managing the economy. [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]

The tendency of Catholics to vote for the Liberal Party of Canada has puzzled Canadian political scientists for decades. This paper evaluates the tendency for Catholics to vote for the Liberal Party from the viewpoint of assessing whether a "Catholic ethos," a concept that has long been entertained by scholars but has yet to be clearly demonstrated, does in fact exist. I define the Catholic ethos as containing two elements - preferences for support for the disadvantaged, and recognition of the role of government in providing this support. I argue that those who hold a Catholic ethos prefer the Liberal Party because it comes closest to representing their views - in other words, it is an ideological choice rather than one based in specific issues or long-standing cleavages. I use data from the 1999-2004 wave of the World Values Survey and the 2000 Canadian Election Survey to evaluate the ideological preferences of Canadians outside Quebec by religious grouping, and then test whether those preferences account for some of the power of Catholic identity in a Liberal vote model. The data show that Catholics do differ from non-Catholics on these two dimensions of a Catholic ethos, but the results for influencing Liberal vote choice are mixed. There is some evidence that the role of government preferences are part of the attraction of the Liberal Party for Catholics, and much stronger evidence that Catholics believe the Liberal Party is best able to deliver on its social policy preferences. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [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 is the first Canadian analysis to consider ethnic differences in voluntary association activity using national sample survey data and applying multivariate controls. Findings from the Economy, Security, and Community Survey of 2000 indicate that most of Canada's major ethnic or racial minority groups differ little in their average number of voluntary association involvements. The main exceptions are relatively low levels of association membership for Latin/Central/South Americans and East Asians, especially before controls, and quite high levels for the Jewish minority. Further analyses reveal that minorities are more likely than other groups to join associations related to their own particular ethnic group and that this partly accounts for the relatively small differences in overall voluntary activity between ethnic minorities, on the one hand, and non-minorities, such as North/West European and British respondents, on the other hand. The implications of these results for understanding the "bridging" and "bonding" roles of voluntary associations in Canadian society are briefly discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How adaptable are immigrants to new host political systems? Theories of political socialization produce competing expectations about the political re-socialization of immigrants. Pre-migration beliefs and actions may be resistant to change; exposure to the new political system may facilitate adaptation; or immigrants may find ways to transfer beliefs and behaviors from one political system to another. Using pooled election study data from an immigrant rich country, Canada, this analysis proposes an alternative strategy for measuring for pre- and post-migration experiences and proceeds to test these three theories. The results indicate that both transfer and exposure matter; there is little evidence that pre-migration beliefs and actions are resistant to change. Moreover, how immigrants adjust to their new host political system depends on which orientation or behavior being considered, and what kind of political environments migrants come from. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [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]

This study shows that Quebecers have lower levels of voluntary association membership than other Canadians, using 2000 national survey data. This is mainly true of French-speaking Quebecers, not all Quebecers. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]