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 ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]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]