Search

This paper considers some of the factors that determine whether a political party can achieve electoral success. Utlilizing the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party in the 2007 provincial election as a reference point, this paper will examine the importance of such determinants as leadership and ideas in shaping electoral outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cabinet reshuffles have received little attention in the literature on parliamentary governance. Reshuffles regularly attract considerable coverage in the media, yet the extent of academic attention has been limited to complaints that reshuffles undermine the competence of the cabinet because the limit the ministers ability to specialize. These complaints have moreover rarely been subjected to theoretical or empirical scrutiny. In this paper we study the timing of cabinet reshuffles in Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, Ireland, and Japan. We build on our previous formal work on cabinet reshuffles, which demonstrates that cabinet reshuffles can benefit both the prime minister and his party. While our previous work emphasized the role of cabinet reshuffles as a management tool to limit ministerial drift (i.e., the minister’s choice of a policy that deviates from the prime minister’s ideal policy or the party platform), we now turn our attention to the intra-party competition, and in particular, the vulnerability of the prime minister to challenges to his leadership. Our formal work indicated that the greater the incentive and/or opportunity for ministerial drift, the greater the incentive to use reshuffles was. In line with this reasoning we argue that the incentive to reshuffle is greater when the rules governing leadership selection render the prime minister vulnerable to challenges from within the ranks of his own party and when the prime ministers’ ability to manage the cabinet is weak. Our initial results support our hypotheses. We find that intra-party politics appear to have an impact on the frequency on reshuffles both directly, through institutional factors, such as those discussed above, as well as indirectly, through public opinion polls where the prime minister’s popularity has a greater impact on the likelihood of a reshuffle than his party’s popularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rules governing the choice of Canada's prime minister are obscure; it would seem that the prime minister is simply the leader who holds the most seats in the House of Commons. However, the constitutionality of the choice of prime minister is actually much more complicated, and involves principles such as the rule of law, responsible and representative government, and the need for effective government. Although rarely ever called upon to exercise such judgement, ultimately (and theoretically) the choice is made by Canada's governor general. This paper outlines the constitutional rules governing the choice of prime minister, in particular those that apply when no one party holds a majority in the House of Commons. The paper raises several issues as to whether the current configuration of the office of governor general provides the appropriate political authority for choosing a prime minuster were there ever to be a challenge or uncertainty as to who should be chosen. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the changes in partisan identification that occurred in Canada in 1993, where region played a larger role in determining partisan identification than it had previously. To do this, this paper explores the Constitutional melodrama that plagued Canadian politics from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. These constitutional upheavals created a divide in the country along regional lines that permeated partisanship and lead to a realignment of the electorate. In exploring this realignment, it is also important to consider alternative explanations like language, class, religion, age, party leader and view on the economy for changes in partisan identification. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore how the trajectories of Canadian immigrants' partisanship differ depending on their countries of origin. British Canadians show greater variety in their partisanship relative to other immigrants who typically identify with the Liberals. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys George Grant's deep sympathies with the Heideggerian critique of technology. It develops Grant's late theological position, formed as a riposte to Heidegger's historicism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed paper will evaluate the central claims of deliberative democratic theory with direct reference to timely cases of deliberative democratic decision-making in Canada. ..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]

Direct mail is a pervasive feature of modern political campaigns. But does it work? This paper presents evidence from a field experiment into the effects of direct mail. Working with a front-running campaign during the race for the leadership for the Liberal Party of Canada, we randomly assigned a subset of convention delegates to receive a direct mail treatment. We then measured the effects of this treatment on delegates' ratings and preference ordering of leadership candidates using a survey instrument. Our results indicate that despite its ubiquity, the direct mail had minimal persuasive power. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of healthcare has been dominant in recent Canadian elections and has remained a key issue on the policy agenda beyond elections. This paper aims to expose media framing effects on public perceptions of the actual state of healthcare. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on models of e-government, this paper evaluates the current state of e-government in Canada. Particular emphasis is placed on the potential for increased collaboration between Members of Parliament and the public. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to explain why the Canadian government in the 1970s and early 1980s failed to implement effectively the programs of the ?Third Option.? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this project is to examine the discourse and actions surrounding the establishment of a single financial market regulator in Canada. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine advance voting in the 2004 Canadian election. Advance voters differ from normal voters, and some parties do better than others in advance voting. But, advance voting success does not predict victory and likely does not change outcomes. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada, there have been numerous calls to reform its electoral system.  How might such reforms increase both the numeric and substantive representation of Canada's Indigenous population? ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The campaign polls during the 2004 Canadian federal election and the media coverage of those polls are examined to determine how the predicted outcome of the election could be so wrong. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]