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Riding style, party ethos : nominations, candidates and local campaigns in Canadian federal elections

University of British Columbia

Despite having the appearance of a single event, federal elections in Canada concatenate nearly 300 individual constituency contests. Yet little is known of how constituency campaign teams operate, or how they interact with each other. In order to provide a better understanding of local campaigns, this thesis describes and explains the nature of local riding associations, the candidates they select, and the environment in which they operate. In so doing, it traces the impact of both riding and partisan forces on the character of constituency politics, and on Canadian politics more generally. The thesis focuses on major party campaigns in seven ridings in British Columbia in the 1988 federal election. It begins with a socio-political profile of each riding, including the media resources available to local campaigns. The dynamics of the local association, nomination, and campaign are then reconstructed using information gleaned from interviews with candidates, campaign managers, party strategists, and volunteers. Similarly, personal interviews with journalists who covered each of the local contests give further insights into the nature of constituency politics, and the methods by which local campaigns communicate with voters. Information on ridings and associations is then used to develop a typology of candidates and campaigns. This typology suggests that there are four archetypal candidates: local notables, party insiders, stopgaps, and those with a high profile. Each tends to be selected by a certain type of association, and to run a distinctive campaign. This typology is then applied to a number of the actual campaigns from 1988. The patterns of politics identified by this typology suggest that local associations are central to the nature of Canadian politics and democracy. Each association combines riding and partisan forces together in idiosyncratic ways. Associations are also distinctive in a comparative sense. Unlike local party organizations in other countries, they are neither beholden to their party, nor to the personal politics of a particular candidate.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-04-22

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7499

Political Science

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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