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Why do some declining industries easily receive the benefits of trade restriction whereas others not? How do elected officials determine industrial sectors to protect? While illuminating several factors that create inter-industry variations in protection, economists regard trade-policy outcomes as a function of lobbying and campaign contributions of import-competing sectors. To redress this gap, this paper analyzes the influence of electoral competition on the inter-industry structure of protection. I argue that all things being equal, sectoral variations in protection is explained by party unity, the extent to which parties act cohesively as strategic units and serve the interest of their core-partisan groups. Party unity, by shaping electoral values of party labels and personal reputations to reelection-minded politicians, determines types of electoral constituencies whom legislators are likely to target in policy decisions. The higher party unity over trade issues, the more likely is the incumbent-party to serve the interest of their core-partisan groups by protecting industries and sectors in their partisan strongholds rather than those in pivotal regions. These hypotheses will be tested with a variety of statistical methods, employing data on trade protection and district-level elections in the United States and Canada. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past four years, the United States and Canada have both implemented new campaign finance laws that sharply restrict the influence of organized interests, particularly businesses and labor unions, in elections. In both nations, these new laws restrict groups' ability to contribute to politicians and air political advertisements on radio or television. In the United States, interest groups have responded by increasing their direct communication with their own members about politics. There is some evidence, as well, that Canadian groups have done this. This project explores the degree to which American and Canadian organized interests have learned political strategies from each other, either directly and indirectly, and it explores the applicability of groups' adaptations to campaign finance reform in each country. Through interviews with major American and Canadian interest groups and analysis of campaign finance data, it explores the degree of direct and indirect coordination by groups in the two countries. This project will help to researchers to understand the effects of campaign finance reforms in both countries, and it will assess the degree to which groups in the two countries share political information. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, election turnout rates in the United States and Canada started to converge, in part due to an increase in interest which led to higher turnout in the United States, and in part due to a generational-induced decline in turnout in Canada. Based on the theory that higher rates of participation are commonly associated with lower socioeconomic bias in participation (Lijphart, APSR 1997), I will use National Election Studies data from both countries to examine whether the recent changes in turnout levels have resulted in lower turnout bias in the United States and higher turnout bias in Canada (using standard SES variables). Possible partisan consequences will be discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]