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Direct comparisons of American and Canadian faculty and students' views concerning issues of race, gender, and affirmative action in higher education are rare. The 1999 North American Academic Study Survey provides a unique opportunity to analyze the role of national and positional factors in faculty and student attitudes towards race, gender, and affirmative action in the US and Canada. The findings indicate that national factors are more important than positional factors on many racial and affirmative-action issues. Differences between students and faculty are more pronounced than are cross-national variations on many gender-related issues.

Apparently, the department of agriculture is the last bastion for ideological pluralism in the modern American academy. Almost everywhere else, according to research by Stanley Rothman et al., a monolithic liberal orthodoxy holds sway, rewarding its own and conferring career disadvantage upon scholars deemed politically inconvenient. As his acceptance address for the NAS's highest award, Professor Rothman proffers statistical corroboration, from his team's survey analyses, of the anecdotal impression that many who aspire to the centers of intellectual curiosity are excluded simply for thinking different thoughts. (Contains 17 notes and 4 tables.)

Satisfaction with the workings of democracy seems to have declined in Canada, as it has in other established democracies. Political scandals are one frequently invoked explanation for that shift. But there is substantial scholarly disagreement about whether political scandals undermine democratic satisfaction. This paper uses evidence from a conveniently timed round of the CES (Canadian Election Study) from 2004, as well as the CES panel from 2004 and 2006, to explore this relationship more definitively than is usually possible. The results indicate that the scandal eroded satisfaction with the way democracy works but did not undermine support for democracy more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Higher Education is the property of Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the factors that lie behind Canada's success at earning the support of its newcomers. It examines the extent to which feelings towards Canada are grounded in immigrants' experiences in the host country, predispositions inherited from their lives prior to migration, and their comparative assessments of the host country and the country of origin. The findings indicate that although feelings towards Canada are partly shaped by post-migration factors, immigrants also interpret experiences in their new host country through the lens of their pre-migration experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Industrial Relations / Relations Industrielles is the property of Universite Laval, Department of Industrial Relations and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article assesses the aggregate effect of information shortfall on the outcome of the last six Canadian elections. Building on Bartels' analysis, the authors find an information effect in three of the six elections examined, and in each case the information gap benefits the Liberal Party. That finding raises the question: why does information matter in some contexts but not in others? It is argued in this article that the information gap is related to lack of visibility. When and where all political parties have some degree of visibility, the less informed vote like the better informed, but when and where a party is hardly visible, the less informed are less likely to support that party. The less informed appear to consider a smaller set of options when they decide how to vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article uses data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study to examine a variety of possible explanations for the gender gap in support for the new right. The authors find structural and situational explanations to be of little help in accounting for the gap. What matters are values and beliefs. The gender gap in support for Canada's new right party reflects differences in views about the appropriate role of the state, law and order, and traditional moral values. It also appears to reflect differences in the salience of politics in men's and women's lives. When all of these attitudinal factors are taken into account, the gender gap ceases to be significant. The implications of the findings are considered in light of comparative analyses of gender gaps in vote choice and support for radical right-wing populist political parties in Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the socio-demographic sources of turnout decline in Canada. The analysis is based on the Canadian Election Studies that have been conducted between 1968 and 2000. There is a small period effect which suggests that the propensity to vote has declined marginally (by about three percentage points) in all demographic groups. There are substantial life cycle effects – that is, turnout shifts within a given cohort as members of that cohort grow older. There are powerful generation effects: turnout differs among the various cohorts even when we compare them at the same stage of their life cycle. The much lower turnout among the post-baby-boomers is the main reason why turnout has declined overall in Canada. The most recent generations are less prone to vote in good part because they pay less attention to politics and because they are less likely to adhere to the norm that voting is not only a right, but also a moral duty. The decline in turnout thus reflects a larger cultural change. Education remains an important correlate of voting. The increase in educational attainment has contributed to dampening the decline in turnout. There is no evidence that the decline in turnout has been more acute among certain sub-groups of the electorate (leaving aside age and education). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Examines the impact of issues and the economy in the 1997 Canadian election among voters outside Quebec. Examination of the vote outside Quebec; Distribution of voters' opinion; Distance between voters and parties; Effect of issues and the economy on vote choice.

This article examines why anti-party rhetoric resonates with some citizens, but not with others, and how this affects their electoral behavior. The data are taken from the 1997 Canadian Election Study. Social background characteristics turn out to have only a very modest effect on anti-party sentiment. Political sophistication is associated with a less critical view of political parties, while economic frustration and perceived system deficiencies make for more negative attitudes, but the key factor is issue alienation from the incumbent party. This is also the most important factor in influencing how citizens express their anti-party sentiment. Anti-partyism is more likely to result in an 'anti-party' vote than in abstention. Those who are more involved and more informed are especially likely to work for change within the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses the reliability of time-of-voting decision recall in Canada. The quality of information provided by individuals in response to recall questions can be influenced by several factors, notably, the complexity of the question, the deficiencies of memory, and the inclination to give socially acceptable answers. This study draws on data that allow for a precise test of the validity of responses to time-of-voting-decision recall. The 1997 Canadian Election Study contains a rolling cross-sectional component and a panel component. A representative sample of 80-140 respondents was interviewed each day of the 36-day campaign to track the dynamics of vote intentions. The results for both close- and open-ended questions display an impressive degree of consistency. There is evidence of great stability among individuals who claim to have decided before the campaign. But similarly stable vote choices are also evident among all groups interviewed after their reported time of decision. By contrast, there is little stability among respondents who say they decided after their preelection interview. To put a summary statistic on these findings, we can estimate the proportion of respondents whose behavior and reported time of decision coincide. All in all, the behavioral pattern of some 80 percent of the respondents turns out to be consistent with their reported time of decision.

The article proposes an empirically based reflection on how to measure party identification cross nationally, using data from the 1997 Canadian Election Study, the 1997 British Election Study, and the 1996 American National Election Study. These studies included both traditional national questions and a new common one, which allows for an assessment of the effects of question wording on the distribution and correlates of party identification. We show that the distribution of party identification is strongly affected by question wording and that the relationship between party identification and variables such as party and leader ratings, and voting behavior does not quite conform to theoretical expectations. We point out problems in the wording of party identification questions and propose an alternative formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asserts that even people who say they know nothing about a leader have real feelings about that leader, and so their responses are meaningful but tentative. People who say that they do not know anything about a leader are the ones who do not follow politics closely and who are poorly informed about politics in general. To wit, people who are less educated, less informed, less exposed to media, and less interested in politics in general were more likely to say that they knew nothing about a leader. The study found out that despite feeling uninformed about a leader, people were willing and able to indicate how they felt about that person. The expectation is that people who identify with a party give the leader of their party higher ratings and that those who distrust politicians in general give all leaders lower ratings. There are many possibilities why people have feelings about leaders but feel uniformed about them. One possibility is that they feel they know very little, close to nothing, and that they think they are not informed enough to say that they know at least a little about the leader. A second possibility is that some of respondents who lack self-confidence may feel compelled to understate their level of political knowledge and to feign ignorance in order not to appear misinformed. A third possibility is that these people, while they do not know something about the leader, are unable to retrieve that piece of information at the time of the interview. The leader evaluations given by these people are based on their feelings about political parties. The practical implication of the study's findings are discussed.

Presents empirical findings showing that structural and value changes have combined to reorient how Canadians relate to their structures of governance. Structural factors that are the foundation for interpreting broad-gauged shifts in citizenship values; Canadian values and how they relate to governance; Indications of cross-time shifts in what might be regarded as core citizenship values.

This article discusses the central role played by the Quiet Revolution in the history of Quebec. Until 1960 the Roman Catholic Church played a central role in Quebec; it was the anchor of a traditional society. Most scholars argue that the social, political and cultural changes of the early 1960's, collectively referred to as the Quiet Revolution, marked the most important turning point in contemporary Quebec history. The Quiet Revolution, said to represent Quebec's coming of age, its sudden but belated modernization, seems a particularly apt phrase because it neatly captures the widely held view that the impact and scope of the changes indicated a fundamental shift in the direction of Quebec society, a shift which represented a decisive break with the past. The dimensions of the Quiet Revolution have to be appreciated against the backdrop of traditional Quebec society. The Roman Catholic Church's ability to direct Quebec for more than a century was the result of a conjunction of a conjunction of factors which have been extensively documented by historians. In brief outline, first, the Church's institutional capacity and reach was unmatched; it extended throughout French Canada, lending force to the Church's claim, made both to alien colonial elites and French Canadian themselves, that it was the only organization with the capacity to speak French Canada. Second, the Church achieved almost total penetration and integration of a French Canada which was originally settled exclusively by natural born French Catholics in good standing.

Argues that the politicization of Native Canadian issues might focus upon a `new politics' perspective, in addition to socio-demographic and regional factors. Outline of Inglehart's postmaterialist theory; Use of the Canadian National Election Survey data to explore three hypotheses; Correlations of the new politics orientations in the Canadian public.

Responds to Alan Cairn's criticism of the authors' analysis of Cairn's Citizen's Constitution Theory. Basis of comparison of `Charter' and `non-Charter' Canadians as an invalid distinction; Questions on the adequacy of the authors' data; The Citizen's Constitution Theory as a special variant of a larger theory.

Applies the Citizen's Constitution Theory, formulated by Alan Cairns to provide a powerful explanation of the changes in Canadian politics during the 1980s, and evaluates the empirical support for it. Outline of the central elements of the theory; Discussion on how Cairns relates the core concepts to each other; Alternative theoretical perspective.

The article evaluates the 1993 Canadian federal election. The Canadian party system corresponds to what political scientists call the classic two-party plus system. In this configuration two major parties occupy the center of the electoral stage and there is the reasonable expectation that one of those two major parties will win enough seats in the legislature to control the government without having to resort to a coalition strategy. There is also a reasonable expectation that each of the major parties has a good chance to replace the other at election time. Two features of the Canadian political setting affect the workings of the classical design. One has to do with the unusual population distribution of the country, the fact that a majority of Canadians live in central Canada. Second, Canada's major parties have hardly ever won a federal election without winning an electoral majority in the province of Quebec. The extent to which the 1993 outcome broke a longstanding pattern comes into sharper focus when we consider the election to election aggregates for major parties and then the minor ones. since 1945 and until 1993, each of the two major parties in the two-party plus tradition typically got support of about 30 to 45 percent of the voting public. In the 1993 election, the Liberals took 41 percent of the vote and the other parties trailed a very long way behind. Notice that only one part, the Liberals, came out of the 1993 election with the kind of vote share that typically goes to major parties in the two-party plus scheme of things. Seen this way, the outcome of the 1993 election entailed a change in the party system.

The article uses exploratory factor analysis to examine nine questions in the survey, which on substantive grounds, appeared to tap feminist orientations. It begins by setting forth two explanations for the gender gap. The first explanation held that on issues, which have a differential impact on men and women, the two groups would pursue different policy options for instrumental reasons. One also notes, however, that this line of explanation is of limited utility in exploring gender differences beyond the relatively narrow domain of gender self-interest. The second explanation held that men and women will differ in their policy preferences not because of the nature of the issue, nor because of their gender per se, but because they are lodged disproportionately in particular segments of the population, segments that have different socially grounded interests that encourage distinctive policy orientations across a wide issue domain. The linkage between gender and politics is often limited to an analysis of the political preferences women and men bring to public affairs. However, support for women's issues is an attitudinal orientation that neither includes all women nor is it limited to women. Using attitudinal survey data gathered from a gender-stratified sample of 1,124 youth elites in the United States and Canada, this article examines how dispositions towards the status of women operate as an attitudinal divide across a variety of policy domains.

This article uses an alternative test of Inglehart's postmaterialism hypothesis, drawing on volunteered responses to open-ended election survey questions, instead of structured responses to the standard forced-choice scale, and on responses to quality of life survey questions concerning personal as well as public goals. Data from three Canadian national election studies (1974, 1979, and 1980) yield little support for Inglehart's generational explanation for postmaterialism. They do, however, reveal an unanticipated asymmetry between indicators of materialism and postmaterialsim and the possibility of life cycle effects. Analysis of Quality of Life data (1977) provides some indication of linkage between public values and private needs and at the same time compelling evidence of the multidimensionality of postmaterialism. It is suggested that personal goals relating to self-actualization and economic security are subject to life cycle effects, while public postmaterial goals can he accounted for more readily by generational factors. The data also point to a significant and unexpected interaction between two value domains, suggesting that postbourgeois man may not he as liberal and democratic as generally supposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: The paper compares three alternative approaches employed by the Canadian Election Study to measure voters'' perceptions of parties'' chances of winning in their local constituency. The first approach, used in 2000, consists of asking respondents to rate parties'' chances on a 0 to 100 scale in a random sequence. The second, used in 2004, entails first asking whether each party had a chance of winning and then inviting people to rate the chances. In the third approach, adopted in 2006, respondents are first asked which two parties had the best chance of winning and, then, if any other party has a chance, before requesting that they rate the mentioned parties. By comparing “objective” and “perceived” chances of winning, the paper concludes that the third approach provides a more valid measure of voters'' expectations. The paper discusses the implications for the measurement of expectations in different types of electoral systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We examine whether turnout has a partisan bias; specifically whether higher turnout would benefit parties and policies of the left. Using data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study, we analyze differences in opinion between voters and non-voters across a wide spectrum of policy areas in order to assess the extent of divergent views between voters and abstainers. Next, by simulating universal turnout we test the hypothesis that the outcome of the 2000 Canadian Federal Election would have been appreciably different if all citizens were to have voted. We find scant evidence for a partisan effect of turnout in Canada. Voters'' opinions are, by and large, representative of the larger population and universal turnout would not have changed the election result. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]