Partisanship And Party Ideology Comparing Canada And The United States Of America

Essay from the year 2007 in the subject Politics - Region: USA, grade: 1,7, Free University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: Canada and the United States of America have equally developed a form of structural federalism, both use a single-member plurality election system and have similar social and economic class structures. In contrast to the two-party tradition of the US in a presidential system, Canada has developed a multiparty parliamentary system in which the legislative parties are cohesive and disciplined due to the historical influence of British Westminster System. In general party identification has been defined as “an attachment to a party that helps the citizen locate him/herself and others on the political landscape.” The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility of shifts in ideological party identification with respect to the significantly different party systems in Canada and the United States, with special focus on the time span between 1984 and 2000. The central question discussed in this paper is whether or not there has been a significant change in partisan ideology in Canada compared to the United States between 1984 and 2000, and whether Canadian Partisans are more volatile compared to their southern counterparts in terms of ideological party identification.

Conservatism in Canada explores the ideological character of contemporary Canadian conservatism, its support in the electorate, its impact on public policies such as immigration and foreign policy, and its articulation at both federal and provincial levels.

Religion is usually thought of as inconsequential to contemporary Canadian politics. This book takes a hard look at just how much influence faith continues to have in federal, provincial, and territorial arenas. Drawing on case studies from across the country, it explores three important axes of religiously based contention – Protestant vs. Catholic, conservative vs. reformer, and, more recently, opponents vs. defenders of accommodating minority religious practices. Although the extent of partisan engagement with each of these sources of conflict has varied across time and region, the authors show that religion still matters in shaping political oppositions. These themes are illuminated by comparisons to the role faith plays in the politics of other Western industrialized societies.

In a campaign for state or local office these days, you’re as likely today to hear accusations that an opponent advanced Obamacare or supported Donald Trump as you are to hear about issues affecting the state or local community. This is because American political behavior has become substantially more nationalized. American voters are far more engaged with and knowledgeable about what’s happening in Washington, DC, than in similar messages whether they are in the South, the Northeast, or the Midwest. Gone are the days when all politics was local. With The Increasingly United States, Daniel J. Hopkins explores this trend and its implications for the American political system. The change is significant in part because it works against a key rationale of America’s federalist system, which was built on the assumption that citizens would be more strongly attached to their states and localities. It also has profound implications for how voters are represented. If voters are well informed about state politics, for example, the governor has an incentive to deliver what voters—or at least a pivotal segment of them—want. But if voters are likely to back the same party in gubernatorial as in presidential elections irrespective of the governor’s actions in office, governors may instead come to see their ambitions as tethered more closely to their status in the national party.

What do we really mean by phrases such as "western Canadian political culture," "the centrist political culture of Ontario," "Red Toryism in the Maritimes," or "Prairie socialism"? What historical, geographical, and sociological factors came into play as these cultures were forged? In this book, Nelson Wiseman addresses many such questions, offering new ways of conceiving Canadian political culture. The most thorough review of the national political ethos written in a generation, In Search of Canadian Political Culture offers a bottom-up, regional analysis that challenges how we think and write about Canada.

Can election results be explained, given that each ballot reflects the influence of countless impressions, decisions, and attachments? Leading young scholars of political behaviour piece together a comprehensive portrait of the modern Canadian voter to reveal the challenges of understanding election results. By systematically exploring the long-standing attachments, short-term influences, and proximate factors that influence our behaviour in the voting booth, this theoretically grounded and methodologically advanced collection sheds new light on the choices we make as citizens and provides important insights into recent national developments.

Canada and the United States: Differences that Count investigates why and how the United States and Canada--while so close and seemingly so similar--remain different in so many ways. In seventeen analytical yet readable chapters, leading authorities look at the American and the Canadian ways of doing things. The questions they address affect us all in ways great and small: as citizens, as students, and as policymakers. Our similarities and our differences are not always as we have assumed them to be, and this volume helps us learn from one another's experiences. The fourth edition features new chapters on taxation, revenues, and budgets; health care; banking and financial regulation; legislatures; foreign policy; prime ministers and presidents; and state-province comparisons. Every chapter has been updated to take into consideration major developments and changes since the third edition, including the economic meltdown of 2008, changing electoral outcomes, new census data, and new policy directions in both countries--especially concerning health care and the environment.

While Quebec is well known for its provincial-level party politics and thriving nationalism, voting behaviour and electoral campaigning at the municipal level have failed to gain much attention to date. Voting in Quebec Municipal Elections seeks to transform the state of municipal elections research in Quebec through a systematic study of the 2017 Montreal and Quebec City elections. Drawing upon data from the Canadian Municipal Election Study, the authors demonstrate not only the importance of Quebec municipal politics, but the many ways that municipal elections research can inform our broader understanding of voting behaviour in the province. This volume considers the features particular to the Quebec local context, such as the importance of language and nationalism, the effects of local party labels for down-ballot races, and the role of ideology. Voting in Quebec Municipal Elections represents the largest-ever collection of work on local elections in the province’s history, making a significant contribution to our understanding of the municipal voter in Quebec.