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Agentic women are frequently stereotyped negatively in politics. While public opinion suggests higher levels of egalitarian gender attitudes toward women in politics, these analyses miss important variations in explicit sexism. Using a survey experiment in the Canadian multi-party context, we show that for those reporting high levels of explicit sexism, agentic women are, as potential candidates, disadvantaged compared to similarly agentic men. Given the uneven distribution of sexist attitudes among partisans, these results suggest that gender representation differences between parties can be traced both to party recruitment strategies and the political behavior of party members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberal democracies are expected to provide residents with both negative rights, such as limitations against the abuse of police powers, and some range of positive (social) rights, such as access to social benefits. These rights are commonly deemed to apply equally, without respect to individuals' ascriptive backgrounds. Existing research, often in the US context and focused on social programs, shows both support for abstract rights and group-specific prejudices. We interrogate whether similar patterns exist in Canada and innovate by directly examining negative and positive rights in the same study. Using a series of novel survey experiments, we demonstrate the degree to which categorical inequalities based on race and legal status affect public support for rights provision in Canada. Both rights are more recognized for citizens relative to out-of-status migrants, and legal status at times interacts with racialized minority status. Rights appear far from universal in the minds of Canadians. Résumé: On s'attend des démocraties libérales qu'elles accordent aux résidents et résidentes à la fois des droits négatifs, tels que des limitations contre l'abus des pouvoirs de la police, ainsi qu'une gamme de droits (sociaux) positifs, tels que l'accès aux prestations sociales. Ces droits sont généralement considérés comme s'appliquant de manière égalitaire, sans égard aux antécédents des individus. Les recherches existantes, souvent menées dans le contexte états-unien et axées sur les programmes sociaux, soutiennent à la fois les droits abstraits et les préjugés spécifiques à un groupe. Nous nous demandons si des tendances similaires existent au Canada et innovons en examinant directement les droits négatifs et positifs au sein de la même étude. À l'aide d'une série d'expériences d'enquête originales, nous démontrons dans quelle mesure les inégalités catégoriques fondées sur la race et le statut juridique affectent le soutien du public à l'égard de la protection des droits au Canada. Les deux droits sont plus reconnus pour les personnes citoyennes que pour celles migrantes sans statut, et le statut juridique interagit parfois avec le statut de minorité racialisée. Les droits semblent loin d'être universels dans l'esprit des Canadiennes et Canadiens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In multiparty systems, maintaining a distinct and positive partisan identity may be more difficult for those who identify with minor parties, because such parties lack the rich history of success that could reinforce a positive social standing in the political realm. Yet, we know little about the unique nature of minor partisan identities because partisanship tends to be most prominent in single-member plurality systems that tend toward two dominant parties, such as the United States. Canada provides a fascinating case of a single-member plurality electoral system that has consistently led to a multiparty system, ideal for studying minor party identity. We use large datasets of public opinion data, collected in 2019 and 2021 in Canada, to test a Lasso regression, a machine learning technique, to identify the factors that are the most important to predict whether partisans of minor political parties will seek in-group distinctiveness, meaning that they seek a different and positive political identity from the major political parties they are in competition with, or take part in out-group favouritism, meaning that they seek to become closer major political parties. We find that party rating is the most important predictor. The more partisans of the minor party rate their own party favourably, the more they take part in distinctiveness. We also find that the more minor party partisans perceive the major party as favourable, the more favouritism they will show towards the major party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing a comparative experimental design drawing on over 18,000 interviews across eleven countries on four continents, this article revisits the discussion about the economic and cultural drivers of attitudes towards immigrants in advanced democracies. Experiments manipulate the occupational status, skin tone and national origin of immigrants in short vignettes. The results are most consistent with a Sociotropic Economic Threat thesis: In all countries, higher-skilled immigrants are preferred to their lower-skilled counterparts at all levels of native socio-economic status (SES). There is little support for the Labor Market Competition hypothesis, since respondents are not more opposed to immigrants in their own SES stratum. While skin tone itself has little effect in any country, immigrants from Muslim-majority countries do elicit significantly lower levels of support, and racial animus remains a powerful force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multicultural policy is an increasingly salient, and contested, topic in both academic and public debate about how to manage increasing ethnic diversity. In spite of the longstanding commitment to multiculturalism policy in Canada, however, we have only a partial understanding of public attitudes on this issue. Current research tends to look at general attitudes regarding diversity and accommodation–rarely at attitudes towards specific multicultural policies. We seek to (partly) fill this gap. In particular, we focus on how support for multiculturalism policy varies across benefit types (for example, financial and other) and the ethnicity/religiosity of recipient groups. Using a unique survey experiment conducted within the 2011 Canadian Election Study (CES), we examine how ethnic origin (Portuguese vs. Turkish) and religious symbols (absence and presence of the hijab) influence support for funding of ethno-religious group activities and their access to public spaces. We also explore whether citizens’ general attitudes toward cultural diversity moderate this effect. Results provide important information about the state of Canadian public opinion on multiculturalism, and more general evidence about the nature, authenticity and limits of public support for this policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on a unique survey experiment in the 2011 Canadian Election Study data set, this paper examines the ways in which racial cues influence attitudes towards redistributive policy. While work in the USA points to a strong racialization of welfare attitudes, little research explores the ways in which racial cues may structure attitudes about welfare elsewhere. In the Canadian context, Aboriginal peoples have faced both historic persecution and continue to face severe discrimination. They also experience much higher levels of poverty than other groups in Canada. Our results examine the effect that (hypothetical) Aboriginal recipients have on public support for social assistance. Results suggest that respondents' support for redistribution is lower when recipients are Aboriginal rather than white. As we have seen in the USA, then, support for welfare is related to racialized perceptions about those who benefit from social assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]