From a two-party-plus to a one-party-plus? Ideology, vote ...

Electoral Studies 23 (2004) 463–483www.elsevier.com/locate/electstud

From a two-party-plus to a one-party-plus?Ideology, vote choice, and prospects for a

competitive party system in Canada

Thomas J. Scottoa,∗, Laura B. Stephensonb, Allan Kornberga

a Duke University, Durham, NC 27706, USAb University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada

Abstract

Conventional wisdom, buttressed by numerous empirical studies, has questioned the impor-tance of both class and ideological factors on voting behavior in Canada. However, two recentstudies of the 1997 Canadian national election [Gidengil et al., Canadian J. Political Sci. 32(1999) 247; Nevitte et al., Unsteady State: The 1997 Canadian Federal Election, Oxford Uni-versity Press, Ontario, 2000] indicate that ideological factors played an important role indetermining the outcome of the election, since they affected the direction of the vote for theseveral parties in both Quebec and the rest of Canada. In this paper, we clarify and extendthese analyses with data from the 2000 election, as well as the 1997 election. We find that anumber of ideological dimensions underlie the issue positions of voters in Quebec and therest of Canada in both the elections and that these have important implications for the mainte-nance of the multiparty system that seemed to emerge in the last decade. More specifically,we find that ideological factors affect partisan volatility in Canada, and that the inclusion ofthese factors improves the explanatory power of a standard vote choice model in both electionyears. We infer from our findings that ideological differences among Canadian voters can helpsustain a multiparty system in the foreseeable future but that it is a system that currently favorsthe Liberal Party—so much so, in fact, that the ability of any other party to successfullydisplace the Liberals as the government in the future is problematic. However, there is acurious periodicity to the electoral fortunes of Canadian parties at both the federal and provin-cial levels. Political parties can govern for years and then experience an electoral disaster ofa magnitude sufficient to make them a distinctly minority party. 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

∗ Corresponding author.E-mail addresses: [email protected] (T.J. Scotto); [email protected] (L.B. Stephenson); kornberg@-

duke.edu (A. Kornberg).

0261-3794/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/S0261-3794(03)00054-4

464 T.J. Scotto et al. / Electoral Studies 23 (2004) 463–483

1. Introduction

For political parties and their leaders, democratic elections are usually risky busi-ness. Perhaps never was this demonstrated more forcefully in recent years than inthe 1993 Canadian national election in which the governing Progressive ConservativeParty (PC) was nearly annihilated, losing 167 of the 169 parliamentary seats it hadwon in 1988. The party’s share of the vote dropped from 43% to 16%. The left-of-center New Democratic Party (NDP) suffered almost as great a calamity with itsseat total dropping from 43 to 7 and its vote total falling from 20% to 7%. In sharpcontrast, two new parties (less than a decade old) emerged as big winners: the Que-bec-only Bloc Quebecois (BQ) elected 54 MPs and received 14% of the vote whilethe western-based Reform Party garnered 19% of the vote and elected 52 MPs.

In their paper analyzing the meaning of the 1993 election, Clarke and Kornberg(1996) question whether the striking changes in party support are likely to endureor whether they are yet another illustration of the “plus ca change” adage. They notethat Epstein (1964) characterized Canada as a “ two-party-plus” system. At the time,only the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties had ever formed a nationalgovernment, yet historically there had been a number of occasions when a “ third”party seemed poised either to transform the national party system into a genuinemultiparty system or to displace one of the two old-line Liberal or Tory parties.However, in the quarter century since Epstein wrote, neither event transpired; thesystem he described remained essentially unchanged. Nonetheless, the results of the1997 and 2000 Canadian elections seem to indicate that the party system has under-gone a transformation into a genuine multiparty system. Despite the fact that theLiberals won both the elections, their current dominance rests largely on their abilityto win seats in Ontario—98 out of a total of 177 seats the party won in 1993 werein Ontario, as were 101 out of 155 in 1997, and 100 out of 172 in 2000. The Con-servatives and New Democrats made modest comebacks in 1997 (the Conservativeswinning 20 seats in Parliament while the NDP captured 21 seats) but lost steam in2000 (the Conservatives won only 12 seats and the NDP 13). The Reform Party(which in 2000 “morphed” into the Canadian Alliance) improved its showing acrossthe two elections, suggesting that it was not merely a “fl ash party” , a label coinedby Converse and Dupeux (1966) to describe short-lived contenders in French elec-tions. Rather, Reform/Canadian Alliance appeared to have “ legs” . It won 19% ofthe 1997 vote but no seats in Ontario, Canada’s largest province, increased its voteshare to 24%, and won two seats in the province in the 2000 election. The partyalso managed to supplant the BQ as the official opposition by electing 60 MPs tothe Bloc’s 44 in 1997 and 66 to the Bloc’s 38 in 2000.

A further indication that the old two-party-plus system might have developed intoa multiparty one was the publication of two studies of the 1997 election. Gidengilet al. (1999) argued that in some instances the ideological positions of supportersof the several parties and the salience of ideological considerations more generally,although they varied by region, were important in structuring vote choice. Nevitteet al.’s (2000) study of the 1997 election went further. Nevitte and his colleaguesargued that outside of Quebec, Canadian voters appear to have a basic outlook on

465T.J. Scotto et al. / Electoral Studies 23 (2004) 463–483

a variety of social and financial issues and that—in addition to partisan identificationand candidate affect—electoral support for each of the parties in part was groundedin such issues.1

The findings are especially interesting and potentially of genuine importancebecause they are in contrast to what has long been the conventional wisdom—thatCanadian politics are not structured in terms of class-based ideological considerations(e.g. Alford, 1963; Pammett, 1987). This is usually attributed to the importance offederalism and the salience and duration over time of ethno-linguistic(Francophone/Anglophone) differences.2 There is also a generation of empirical stud-ies of national elections which conclude that because of the relative weakness (forexample, in comparison to Britain or the United States) of partisan identifications,national elections are heavily influenced by short-term factors, notably party andleader affect and issues—even, at times, (such as the 1988 election) by single issues.These studies include those by Alford (1963), Clarke et al. (1979, 1984, 1991, 1996,2000), Johnston et al. (1992), Kornberg and Clarke (1992), and Pammett and Dor-nan (2001).

As just noted, the finding by Nevitte et al. (2000) suggests that the emergingmultiparty system could be sustained because voter support for the several partiesis partially grounded in sets of attitudes and values that cohere sufficiently to belabeled an ideology. Given this possibility, in this paper, we will elaborate on andextend their findings by conducting analyses of both the 1997 and 2000 nationalelections. These analyses will show that their views have merit in the 2000 as wellas the 1997 election. By way of illustration, distinct ideological factors (four inQuebec and the rest of Canada (ROC) in 1997, four in Quebec and three in the restof Canada in 2000), underlie the positions of Canadian voters on a variety of issues.In both elections, these factors contribute significantly to explaining the vote outsideof Quebec. In Quebec, although four dimensions underlie the issue positions of Que-

1 Interestingly, an earlier comparative study of ideology in Canada and the United States by Gibbinsand Nevitte (1985) found that left–right labels reflected weaker attitudinal coherence in Canada than inthe United States and concluded that “ there has been neither the need nor the opportunity for Canadiansto structure their political world along conventional ideological lines” (598).

2 The theory that historically the relative absence of class-based, ideologically grounded electoral poli-tics in Canada is no accident was best articulated by John Porter (1965) in his landmark study of socialstratification and the distribution of power. Porter argued that over time, Canadian political and economicleaders have combined pious exhortations to unite with themes (Anglophone/Francophone differences)and practices (federalism, constitutional revision) that divide in order to maintain their own positions aselites. For example, he concluded that “ the major themes in Canadian political thought emphasize thosecharacteristics, mainly regional and provincial loyalties, which divide the Canadian population. Conse-quently, integration and national unity must be constantly reiterated to counter such divisive sentiments.The dialogue is between unity and discord rather than between progressive and conservative forces…Can-ada must be one of the few major industrial societies in which the right and left polarization has becomedeflected into disputes over regionalism and national unity” (Porter, 1965: 368–369). On the conservativeand elitist tendencies inherent in the operation of the Canadian federal system, also see Garth Stevenson(1989). Somewhat differently, in a series of essays party scholar John Meisel (1975) indicted Canada’sfederal political parties, principally the Liberals, for failing to generate or campaign on coherent packagesof policies that transcend regional differences.


bec voters, those pertinent to the province’s relations to the rest of Canada (andwhich load on the first dimension) overshadow all others.

As an additional demonstration of the importance of these factors, below we willshow that they influence partisan volatility in both Quebec and the ROC and thatthe inclusion of these variables in a standard vote model improves our ability topredict vote choice better than a model in which they are not included. Given thesefindings, we contend that the federal multiparty system that emerged during the pastdecade can be sustained in the current decade. However, such a multiparty systemgreatly favors the Liberal Party, so much so, in fact, that the prospects of otherparties overcoming the Liberal dominance in federal elections in this decade are, atbest, slim.

2. A note on data and methods

To estimate whether ideological considerations influence Canadian vote choice,one must determine whether there is an underlying basis to issue preferences. Factoranalysis of voter responses to policy questions in the 1997 and 2000 Canadiannational election studies (CNES) is an appropriate technique to employ for this analy-sis. Nevitte et al. (2000) and Gidengil et al. (1999) used this analytic tool withsatisfactory results. We were concerned, however, that the methods each groupemployed may have excluded some important information in the CNES datasets.More specifically, Nevitte et al. (2000) ran two separate factor analyses with onlya select set of variables. But since a primary purpose of exploratory factor analysisis to search for underlying constructs or dimensions (Kline, 1993), and since veryfew theories exist to guide the exercise, in selecting variables to include in an analysis“ the guiding principle should be to obtain wide coverage of the domain, so as notto miss any important common factors” (Tucker and MacCallum, 1997: 132). There-fore, the starting point of our analysis is a tabula rasa.3

We use two techniques to elaborate and, hopefully, to improve upon Nevitte etal.’s analysis. First, to prevent biased results, we use all of the Likert-scaled issuequestions in the 1997 and 2000 Canadian election survey, pre- and post-tests, stan-dardizing the issue variables to run from 0 to 1.4 In each survey, we also collapsethe responses to domestic spending questions into a “Social Spending Cut Index” toavoid erroneous results due to high correlations.

We also deal differently with the problem of missing data than do Nevitte et al.

3 Since the research of Gidengil et al. and Nevitte et al. stand in contrast to most of the previousscholarship on Canadian voting behavior, we provide additional confirmation for their work, by includingas many issues as possible and running analyses on both the 1997 and 2000 data.

4 Complete results of the factor analyses are available from the authors. Likert scales involve the useof a standardized set of responses that can be used to answer a variety of questions or statements. Jaccardand Wan (1996) suggest that assuming these questions create interval level variables does not significantlyincrease the probability of either type I or type II errors. Variables that load on our identified dimensionsare listed in Appendix A.


With such a large set of variables, it is not surprising that a large portion of oursamples did not respond to at least one of the questions included in the analysis.The standard technique to correct for this—list-wise deletion—eliminates a substan-tial portion of our dataset, making any analysis weaker. Nevitte et al. (2000)addressed the missing data problem with the use of pair-wise deletion. However, webelieve that using this technique in a factor analysis might produce erroneous results.5

To avoid the possible pitfalls of pair-wise deletion and still retain as many cases aspossible, we employ mean substitution to deal with missing values. Additionally, toassess the validity of the factor analysis generated with mean substitution, we useda multiple imputation technique with a simplified algorithm developed by King etal. (2001). The factor analyses generated using the imputation technique producedsimilar results to those generated by mean substitution.6 Accordingly, we are confi-dent that our findings are reliable.

As did Nevitte et al., we divided the respondents in both elections into thosedomiciled in Quebec and those domiciled in the ROC. We then conducted four factoranalyses: 1997 ROC, 1997 Quebec, 2000 ROC, and 2000 Quebec. In the 1997 elec-tion, for the respondents in the ROC, four factors were extracted that had eigenvaluesgreater than 1; after orthogonal rotation, we were able to label each dimension. Thefirst dimension, which we label the “ liberal–conservative” factor, encompasses mostof the specific questions dealing with spending priorities, social issues, Canadiandemocracy, and the role of business and unions. But it also includes feelings aboutthe consequences of Quebec separation. The other three dimensions encompass fewerissues. The second focuses on policy questions dealing with Quebec and aboriginals,which we label a “minority issues” dimension. The third deals with views on issuesthat pertain to people’s feelings of political competence in affecting public policyand government’s accountability to them in these matters (e.g. “government doesn’ tcare what people like me think” ). For convenience, we simply label this factor as“alienation” . The fourth dimension encompasses issues pertinent to feminism andthe government’s role in the economy. Again, for convenience, we label this dimen-sion the “cultural conservatism” factor.

As indicated above, for the respondents from Quebec, the 1997 factor analysisalso reveals four dimensions, albeit with slightly different content. The first dimen-sion focuses mostly on issues important to Quebec (e.g. positions on sovereignty,government’s treatment of Quebec, relations between Quebec and the ROC if Quebecseparates). It also includes satisfaction with democracy in Canada, unsurprising giventhat Quebec separatism is rooted in the desire to exist as a nation in a separate state.The second dimension contains issues that loaded on the fourth factor for the ROC,as well as a question about the prospects of Canada and the US uniting into a singlestate. The third dimension for the Quebec subset is the same as for the ROC (politicalalienation). The fourth dimension is about support for minorities, encompassing ques-

5 With pair-wise deletion, matrices may not be “positive-definite” since each element of the covariancematrix used in the factor analysis is computed from differing subsets of cases (Arbuckle, 1996). A non-positive-definite matrix creates negative variances that produce erroneous results.

6 Analysis is available to interested readers from the authors upon request.


tions that are included in the ROC’s second dimension. What is evident from theseresults is that although there are real differences on a variety of issues between votersin Quebec and those in the rest of the country, opinions load on the same ideologicaldimensions, albeit in a different order.

For the 2000 election, we again divided the respondents into two groups, thosein Quebec and in the ROC. For the latter, three dimensions were delineated by thefactor analysis. The first dimension reflects a general left–right ordering and includesopinions about Quebec and spending for minorities. This dimension seems toencompass elements from the first and second dimensions found in the 1997 ROCdataset. The second dimension corresponds to the third in 1997—responses to polit-ical alienation questions. The third dimension is similar to the second dimensionfrom 1997, focusing on minority issues, coupled with views about abortion. The2000 Quebec dataset is similar to that for 2000 ROC in that there is a politicalalienation dimension (#3), a general left–right dimension (#4), and one about min-ority issues (#2).7 As was the case in 1997, the most prominent ideological dimensionencapsulates opinions on issues pertinent to Quebec’s national aspirations.

Our findings regarding the multidimensionality of issue positions of voters are inaccord with those of Campbell and Christian (1996:1) who observed that beliefsamong Canadians are couched in ideologies dealing with “ liberty, individualism,social coherence, hierarchy, and equality” . Also, in an earlier study Kornberg et al.(1975) found that Canadian MPs and an elite sample of the public as well as a cross-sectional one arrayed their own issue positions and those they ascribed to the fournational political parties along several dimensions. Although in the current study theitems that cohere along each dimension are interrelated, they do not always fit “ logi-cally” . In this regard, they differ from the conventional view of an ideology as a setof interrelated beliefs, one or more of which occupies a position of centrality so thatif it (they) change(s), logically so should the other issues (Converse, 1964). Theclosest to such a conception of ideology is the first factor extracted from the viewsof Quebec voters in both 1997 and 2000.8 That said, in the remainder of the paper,we periodically use the terms “ ideology” and “dimensions” interchangeably.

3. Ideology matters: some empirical evidence

Table 1 reports the median placement of voters on each dimension by their partisanidentification in ROC and Quebec for the 1997 and 2000 elections. For 10 of the15 dimensions, the party averages complement one another with the more liberaland more conservative parties being on opposite ends. The political alienation dimen-sion is somewhat surprising. In the ROC, as would be expected, Liberal supporters

7 The minority issues dimension also includes some questions that load on the left–right dimensionfor the ROC, such as spending on foreign aid and whether the government should do more for minorities.

8 Hinich et al. (1998) come to the same view of Quebec voters’ positions on policy issues in theiranalysis of the 1993 Canadian national election.


Tab

le1

Med

ian

fact

orsc

ores

inQ

uebe

can

dth

eR

OC

(res

tof

Can

ada)

for

1997

and

2000

Can

adia

nna

tiona

lel

ectio

ns

Dim

ensi

on1

Dim

ensi

on2

Dim

ensi

on3

Dim

ensi

on4

1997

RO

CL

iber

al–C

onse

rvat

ive

Min

ority

issu

esA

liena

tion

Cul

tura

lco

nser

vatis

mL

iber

al0.

361

0.17

3�

0.16

90.

031

PC0.

362

�0.

130

0.04

6�

0.14

2N

DP

0.44

10.

494

0.17

60.

563

Ref

orm

0.29

4�

0.55

00.

347

�0.

256

No

iden

tifica

tion

0.27

20.

023

0.23

70.

094

2000

RO

CL

iber

al–C

onse

rvat

ive

Alie

natio

nM

inor

ityis

sues

Lib

eral

0.21

10.

273

0.09

8–

PC�

0.24

90.

105

0.07

0–

ND

P0.

691

�0.

391

0.51

0–

Alli

ance

�0.

492

�0.

357

�0.

340

–N

oid

entifi

catio

n0.

082

�0.

139

�0.

129

–

1997

Que

bec

Que

bec

issu

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Lib

eral

�0.

752

�0.

093

0.06

80.

165

PC�

0.32

90.

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�0.

220

�0.

133

BQ

0.81

90.

236

�0.

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�0.

099

No

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272

0.04

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0.09

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6

2000

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bec

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ive

Lib

eral

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862

0.23

60.

081

�0.

126

BQ

0.95

1�

0.18

00.

024

0.17

5N

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n�

0.32

3�

0.27

1�

0.17

10.

216


show the lowest median levels of alienation.9 However, the Reform/Alliance mem-bers tend to be less efficacious than their PC counterparts; we expected the oppositegiven the rapid rise of the former to its “Official Opposition” status and the monu-mental decline of the latter at the federal level. These data show that despite theirparty’s successes, Reform/Alliance partisans remain distrustful of government andseemingly doubt their abilities to bring about change in Ottawa. On the liberal–conservative dimension in 1997, the median factor scores for the dimension werebi-modally distributed, with the majority of cases clustering either between factorscores of 0 and 1 or between factor scores of �1.5 and �2.0. To support our viewthat the ideological positions of voters in Quebec and the ROC can provide a modi-cum of support for the maintenance of the multiparty system that emerged in the1990s, first we will demonstrate that they affect partisan volatility and hence thedirection of the vote. Although Canadians change their partisan identifications morefrequently than do Americans or Britons, the intensity and direction of partisanshipnonetheless is a powerful predictor of voting in Canada.

We first ran a series of logistic regressions of partisan identification onto severalcontrol variables together with the four ideological dimensions.10 With regard topartisan volatility, a number of studies (Clarke et al., 2000:193) have indicated thatpartisan identification in Canada is less stable than it is in the United States, forexample. There are a variety of reasons that have been given for why Canadianschange their partisan identity, such as leader affect. Table 2 reports the extent towhich ideological factors add to the propensity of Canadians to change their partisanidentification. More specifically, we may note the change in the probability of ident-ifying with a particular party when a respondent’s factor score moves from a con-servative (low factor score) to a liberal (high factor score) position.11 Regarding the1997 election, we find that in Quebec, Quebec issues (Dimension 1) had a negativeeffect on the probability of changing to a Liberal identification and an enormouslypositive effect on the probability of switching to a BQ identification. Dimension 2(cultural conservatism) also had a significant positive impact on prospects of switch-

9 Due to the negative factor loadings on the alienation dimension for 1997 in the ROC and 2000 inQuebec, the least alienated have negative factor scores while those most alienated have high medianfactor scores.

10 The full analyses of the logistic regressions are available from the authors upon request. For eachdataset (1997 ROC, 1997 Quebec, 2000 ROC, 2000 Quebec), several models were run to reveal theimpact of the ideological dimensions upon the likelihood of accepting different partisan identificationsor refusing any identification. Each dependent variable was coded 1 for accepting the identification (orrefusing any) and 0 otherwise. Control variables include the party leaders’ thermometer scores, region,short-term issues, socioeconomic forces, age, and gender. In all the models that analyze behavior inQuebec, primary language and religion controls were added.

11 For ease of interpretation, a “conservative” position for a dimension is considered to be a factor scoreat the thirty-third percentile while the “ liberal” position is considered to lie at the sixty-sixth percentile. Forthe analyses where partisan identification is the dependent variable, the socioeconomic variables are setto their median values and the respondent is assumed to reside in Ontario and be without a short-termissue. The values for the party leaders are set to their medians and the factors not being analyzed are setat their mean scores (zero). For the Quebec analyses, the respondent is assumed to speak French and bea Catholic. All analyses were carried out using the “CLARIFY” software described in King et al. (2000).


Tab

le2

Impa

ctof

ideo

logi

cal

dim

ensi

ons

(%in

crea

sein

likel

ihoo

dof

chan

ge)

onpr

open

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toch

ange

part

yid

entifi

catio

nin

Que

bec

and

the

RO

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r19

97an

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ian

natio

nal

elec

tions

Dim

ensi

on1

Dim

ensi

on2

Dim

ensi

on3

Dim

ensi

on4

1997

RO

CL

iber

al–C

onse

rvat

ive

(%)

Min

ority

issu

es(%

)A

liena

tion

(%)

Cul

tura

lco

nser

vatis

m(%

)L

iber

al2.

64.

3�

11.3

�5.

5PC

�3.

4�

15.9

�0.

5�

13.8

ND

P12

.161

.814

.535

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efor

m�

15.9

�23

.343

.5�

33.3

No

iden

tifica

tion

�1.

1�

1.2

11.0

11.8

2000

RO

CL

iber

al–C

onse

rvat

ive

(%)

Alie

natio

n(%

)M

inor

ityis

sues

(%)

Lib

eral

7.3

26.4

7.1

–PC

�30

.514

.31.

5–

ND

P59

.315

.823

.3–

Alli

ance

�22

.61.

1�

1.4

–N

oid

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n2.

8�

13.5

�6.

8–

1997

Que

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Que

bec

issu

es(%

)C

ultu

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ism

(%)

Alie

natio

n(%

)M

inor

ityis

sues

(%)

Lib

eral

�57

.5�

15.3

8.5

27.6

PC�

36.3

�7.

3�

17.5

�7.

2B

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0.0

30.6

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�5.

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9.3

�19

.6

2000

Que

bec

Que

bec

issu

es(%

)M

inor

ityis

sues

(%)

Alie

natio

n(%

)L

iber

al–C

onse

rvat

ive

(%)

Lib

eral

�75

.837

.515

.7�

5.4

BQ

580.

3�

5.3

1.1

7.5

No

iden

tifica

tion

�35

.9�

13.6

�5.

36.

7

Perc

enta

ges

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lics

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cate

that

the

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able

for

the

give

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men

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inth

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atth

ep

�0.

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ing to the a BQ, whereas minority issues (Dimension 4) had a significant positiveeffect on moving to the Liberals and diminished the probability of becoming a non-identifier. In the 2000 election, Quebec issues had an even greater effect on theprospects of movement towards BQ identification and again had a constraining effecton movement to the Liberals or to non-identification. Minority issues (Dimension2) had significant negative effects on non-identification. Both Dimension 3(alienation) and Dimension 4 (liberal–conservative) had no significant effects onparty identification. In short, issues pertinent to Quebec nationalism (and to a lesserextent minority issues) had a profound effect on party identification and, indirectly,on the outcome of the vote in that province in both elections.12

As for the rest of Canada with the exception of Reform, liberal–conservative issues(Dimension 1) had no significant impact on partisan identification in 1997 but hadsignificant effects on the probabilities of identifying with all parties except the Lib-erals in the year 2000—negative in the case of the Alliance and the Tories andpositive on movement to the NDP and the Liberals. In 1997, Dimension 2 (minorityissues) inhibited the movement toward identifying with Reform and the PCs but hada positive effect on the probability of identifying with the NDP. Dimension 3(alienation) had a significant positive impact on the movement toward Reform, andnon-identification in 1997 and a positive effect on movement toward the Liberals inthe 2000 election.13 Finally, in 1997, the fourth dimension (cultural conservatism)not surprisingly had a highly significant positive effect on a switch to the NDP anda negative effect on changing to identification with Reform or the Tories.

Our next step is to show that the inclusion of the ideological dimensions in astandard model of the vote matters by demonstrating that they improve the explana-tory power of Clarke et al.’s (1996) standard vote choice model. More specifically,we want to ascertain whether one or a combination of the ideological dimensionsincreases or decreases the probability of voting for a party other than the incumbentLiberals. Accordingly, we estimate multinomial logit models comparing the Liberalswith the other federal parties—Progressive Conservatives, New Democrats Reform(1997), Alliance (2000), and, in Quebec only, the Bloc Quebecois. We first add anumber of control variables to our models consistent with the model proposed byClarke et al., thereby including in our analyses controls for party identification, affectfor all party leaders, and other standard controls.14

Table 3 depicts the results of significance tests on the four dimensions. Even withregion, the importance of short-term issues, partisan identifications, and affect forthe party leaders controlled, the three or four ideological dimensions helped explain

12 Note that in 2000, we exclude the Progressive Conservatives from the analysis because there wereso few Conservative respondents in Quebec.

13 Recall that due to negative factor loadings, substantially greater levels of “alienation” in 1997 increasethe probability of identifying with Reform. The opposite is the case for 2000.

14 Due to space considerations, results are available upon request from the authors. Because of theability of NDP identification to perfectly predict a vote against the Alliance in 2000, both NDP and non-identifiers were consigned to the base category. Alternative specifications of the model, which includeddropping NDP identifiers altogether, were undertaken and yielded no substantive differences.


Tab

le3

Impa

ctof

ideo

logi

cal

dim

ensi

ons

onvo

tech

oice

inQ

uebe

can

dth

eR

OC

for

1997

and

2000

Can

adia

nna

tiona

lel

ectio

ns

Dim

ensi

on1

Dim

ensi

on2

Dim

ensi

on3

Dim

ensi

on4

1997

RO

CL

iber

al–C

onse

rvat

ive

Min

ority

issu

esA

liena

tion

Cul

tura

lco

nser

vatis

mL

iber

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the vote choices of Canadians. That is, for each of the four models, log-likelihoodtests were performed and all four models that included the additional ideologicaldimensions both fit the data better and improved our ability to explain vote choicethan did the model without them.

More specifically, political alienation in 2000 significantly influenced a voter’schoice between the old-line Liberals and all other parties, whereas the other dimen-sions played a significant role in the decision to vote for a particular party in eitherthe 1997 or the 2000 elections. In Quebec, not surprisingly, issues germane to theprovince weighed very heavily on a decision to vote for the BQ over the Liberals.Feelings towards minorities (Dimension 4 in 1997 and Dimension 2 in 2000) alsoplayed a significant part in the voting decision, although the impact of these issueswas dwarfed by the importance of the Quebec-specific issues.

In another illustration of the strength of ideological issues, we constructed scen-arios in which we varied the values of certain significant issue dimensions whileholding other socioeconomic control variables in the model at their median values.15

These scenarios indicate that, ceteris paribus, the voter’s ideological positions onissues had a significant impact on the probability of their casting a vote for a parti-cular party. For example, in the ROC in 1997, as one moves from a conservativeposition on minority issues to a more liberal one, the probability of voting Reformdecreases by 10%. In the 2000 election, becoming more liberal on the liberal–con-servative, alienation, and minority dimensions combined decreases the probability ofAlliance identification by 17%. For Quebec in 1997, as one moves to a more favor-able position on issues pertinent to Quebec nationalism, the probability of a Liberalvote declines from 48% to 17%, the probability of voting PC declines from 39% to37%, while in contrast, the probability of voting BQ increases from 12% to 46%.In the 2000 election in which the Conservatives were not really a factor, a morefavorable position on Quebec nationalism issues increases the probability of a non-identifier voting for the BQ by 51%!

To recapitulate, we have demonstrated that in two successive national elections,the positions of Canadians in Quebec and in the rest of Canada can be arrayed alongseveral ideological dimensions. We have shown that the dimensions have a signifi-cant impact on both the propensity of Canadians to change their partisan identifi-cations and their vote preferences. Regarding the latter, a standard model of the votethat included the several ideological dimensions adds appreciably to its explanatorypower and several scenarios we constructed provided additional evidence of theinfluence of ideology on vote choice in both election years. There is reason, therefore,to assume that the ideological positions of Canadians have facilitated the emergenceof a genuine multiparty system in the 1990s and that they may help to sustain such

15 In our analyses, factor scores were varied from the thirty-third percentile to the sixty-sixth percentilewhile other factor scores were held at their means (zero). Substantively, this is akin to moving from acenter-right to a center-left position on the dimension. For the “alienation” dimensions, as an individualmoves along a dimension, she becomes more efficacious. We also assumed that a typical voter in thetwo elections was not identified with any of the parties and affect levels for all four party leaders wereheld at their respective medians.


a system in the future. However, now we will show that it is also a system thatdisproportionately benefits the governing Liberal Party. Moreover, to the extent thatcurrent conditions can be extrapolated, they also enhance the probability that theCanadian party system may have changed from the “ two party plus” system, in whichthe NDP was the perennial “plus,” to one in which all of the federal parties occupythat position vis a vis the Liberals.

4. From a two-party-plus to a one-party-plus-plus-plus-plus?

Table 4 shows the distribution of strong, moderate, and weak identifiers by party.In the 1997 data, NDP and Reform include a larger proportion of strong identifiersthan do the old-line Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, and, other than for theNew Democrats, this condition also obtained in the year 2000. In Quebec, the pro-portions of strong identifiers in both the BQ and Liberal parties were relatively simi-lar in both election years. Note, however, that the intensity of identification with thetwo parties increased dramatically in the 2000 election. Indeed, in 2000, the pro-portion of strong identifiers with the Bloc and Liberal parties almost doubled.

Given the importance ascribed to the intensity of identification for both the propen-sity and direction of voting, we would anticipate that in the ROC larger proportionsof Reform/Alliance and New Democrat identifiers voted for their parties in both1997 and 2000 than did identifiers with the two old-line parties, and that in Quebec,

Table 4Distribution of strong, medium, and weak Identifiers (% of identifiers in each category) by party in Quebecand the ROC for 1997 and 2000 Canadian national elections

Strong (%) Medium (%) Weak (%)

1997 ROCLiberal (515) 22.3 53.0 23.9PC (312) 25.3 52.6 21.2NDP (167) 33.5 49.1 13.9Reform (205) 37.1 52.7 9.81997 QuebecLiberal (187) 13.9 55.1 29.4BQ (48) 14.4 56.9 28.7PC (188) 10.4 70.8 16.72000 ROCLiberal (395) 29.1 45.8 24.1PC (145) 15.2 53.8 31.0NDP (96) 22.9 61.5 15.6Alliance (225) 38.7 52.4 8.42000 QuebecLiberals (201) 26.9 49.3 22.9BQ (213) 33.3 52.6 13.6

Figures in parentheses are each party’s number of identifiers in the 1997 and 2000 elections.


this was also true of Bloc identifiers. Inspection of Table 5 indicates instead that inthe ROC there is something of a progression with Reform/Alliance partisans themost loyal, New Democratic and Liberal identifiers almost equally loyal and Toryidentifiers the least inclined to support their party in both elections. In 2000, loyaltyamong Alliance, NDP and Liberal identifiers is almost equal while PC identifierswere apt to defect to either the Alliance or the Liberals. In Quebec, BQ identifiersare the most loyal in 1997 and 2000, but the differences between them and theLiberals are relatively modest. Particularly striking is that in the 2000 election, vir-tually 100% of each party’s cohort of identifiers voted for their respective parties,suggesting a “politics of commitment” in Quebec that does not obtain outside thatprovince.

5. Summary and conclusions

We noted at the beginning of this paper that the multiparty system that emergedin the 1990s, and that seemingly displaced the long time “ two party plus” system,works to the advantage of the governing Liberals. Indeed, it makes the possibilityof a party other than the Liberals winning a national election in the relatively nearfuture somewhat problematic. That is because the Liberal Party has by far the largestproportion of identifiers in the electorate, and despite the frequency with which Can-adians change their partisanship, the latter variable continues to be a powerful pre-dictor of Canadian voting behavior.16 Although both Reform and the New Democratshad a larger proportion of strong identifiers than did the Liberals in 1997, the actualnumber of NDP and Reform identifiers was much smaller than the number of Liberalidentifiers. Specifically, 10% of the 1997 national sample of voters identified them-selves with the New Democrats, 12% accepted a Reform identification, but fully41% identified with the Liberal Party while 19% identified with the other old-lineparty, the Tories. In the 2000 election, the number of NDP identifiers declined from10% to 8%, and the number of Tory identifiers declined from 19% to 12%. It istrue that the percentage of Alliance identifiers rose from 12% to 18%, but they werestill dwarfed by the 32% of the sample who professed a Liberal identification. InQuebec, the proportions of BQ and Liberal identifiers were almost similar, with eachparty’s identifiers constituting slightly over one-third of the sample, and less than10% of the sample identifying with the Conservatives. Given these numbers, it ishard to envisage a scenario in which any of the opposition parties could displacethe Liberals as the Government. Of course, the continuing hope of Alliance Partyleaders is that the Conservatives will join them in a united right-of-center alternativeto the Liberals. To date, their hopes have not been realized. Nor, we contend, arethey likely to. The Tory party, despite its low standing currently in federal elections,

16 In their panel study of individual changes in partisanship, Clarke et al. (2000:193) estimate that 40%of the electorate changed partisan identities between 1979 and 1984, that the number of “movers”increased to 48% between 1983 and 1988, and declined to 42% between 1988 and 1993.


Tab

le5

Vot

ech

oice

bypa

rty

iden

tifica

tion

inQ

uebe

can

dth

eR

OC

for

1997

and

2000

Can

adia

nna

tiona

lel

ectio

ns

Lib

eral

PCN

DP

Ref

orm

/Alli

ance

BQ

1997

RO

CL

iber

alid

entifi

catio

n71

.89.

19.

19.

9PC

iden

tifica

tion

15.9

52.5

4.1

30.6

ND

Pid

entifi

catio

n13

.84.

274

.37.

8R

efor

mid

entifi

catio

n1.

51.

50.

596

.6N

oid

entifi

catio

n33

.214

.316

.036

.519

97Q

uebe

cL

iber

alid

entifi

catio

n80

.213

.95.

9PC

iden

tifica

tion

16.7

75.0

8.3

BQ

iden

tifica

tion

2.1

6.9

91.0

No

iden

tifica

tion

32.2

34.3

33.6

2000

RO

CL

iber

alid

entifi

catio

n80

.07.

64.

87.

6PC

iden

tifica

tion

11.0

55.2

5.5

28.3

ND

Pid

entifi

catio

n15

.64.

280

.20

Alli

ance

iden

tifica

tion

3.6

5.3

0.4

80.0

No

iden

tifica

tion

37.9

17.1

12.0

33.0

2000

Que

bec

Lib

eral

iden

tifica

tion

93.0

7.0

BQ

iden

tifica

tion

4.4

95.6

No

iden

tifica

tion

54.3

45.7


continues to be a power in provincial politics. The well-named “Big Blue Machine”has by far the strongest political party organization in Ontario, having governed thatprovince almost continuously since 1943. It remains a force in the Atlantic Provincesand in Alberta and Manitoba. In contrast, the Alliance has virtually no provincialorganization, and its current prospects of winning a provincial election seem remote,even in its Alberta and British Columbia heartland. However, given the gains theparty made in the 2000 federal election and the several significant ideological differ-ences between the Alliance and Tory supporters delineated in our analyses, it isunlikely that by the next election, any great number of Alliance supporters will wantto return to the Tory fold. Consequently, the prospect of any party displacing theLiberals in the next election, or even in the one following, is problematic.

That is on one hand. On the other, despite a tendency towards one-partyism atboth the federal and provincial level, there is a curious periodicity to party fortunesin Canada. Parties may enjoy years of electoral success and then rapidly fall fromgrace. For example, the Liberals captured 65% of all parliamentary seats in the 1953federal election and only 19% in 1958—a decline of more than 40% in a 5-yearperiod. The Conservatives, for their part, won 80% of the seats in 1958, but only36% 5 years later. Additionally, the Liberals, other than for a brief hiatus, governedCanada continuously between 1963 and 1984. In the latter election, however, theysuffered a defeat in which they were left holding only 13% of the parliamentaryseats, as opposed to the 52% that they had held only 4 years earlier (Kornberg etal., 1992). Finally, as we observed at the beginning of this paper, after governingfor 9 years, in the 1993 election, the Conservatives were virtually shut out of Parlia-ment, losing 167 of the 169 seats they had won 5 years earlier. In short, there isreason to believe that the phoenix-like ability of the Conservatives and other Canad-ian political parties to emerge from the ashes of electoral defeat to election victorymay again assert itself. The continued good health of one of the world’s oldestdemocracies demands it.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank John Aldrich, Jeffrey Grynaviski, Jon Pammett,Richard Potthoff, and Elizabeth Zechmeister for helpful comments. However, theauthors bear responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation that may be con-tained in this paper.

Appendix A. Issue questions that load on above dimensions

Eigenvalues are given next to description of dimension, and factor loadings aswell as CNES variable names are listed next to issue variable descriptions. Variableswith loadings above 0.300 are listed. Full results of the factor analyses are availablefrom the authors upon request.


1997 Canada excluding Quebec

A Dimension 1: Liberal–Conservative (5.27)

i Should more be done for women—pese110 (0.792)ii Canada’s ties with the United States—pese4: (0.724)iii Satisfaction with democracy in Canada—pesa5b: (0.706)iv High employment should lead to government defeat—pese16: (0.679)v Standard of living in wake of Quebec separation—pese10a-c: (0.626)vi Economic unity should still exist if Quebec separates—pese27: (0.598)vii Spending on defense—pese6a: (0.581)viii Quebec and Canada economic ties if separation—pese11d: (0.566)ix Aid given to unions—pese3: (0.555)x Spending on foreign aid—pese6g: (0.553)xi Aid given to business—pese2: (0.541)xii Gun control—pese12: (0.485)xiii Spending index on social program—pese6b-f: (0.438)xiv Trust ordinary people or the government—pese21: (0.431)

B Dimension 2: Minority issues (2.72)

i Spending on aboriginals—cpsj10: (0.569)ii Should the government do more for minorities—cpsf1: (0.498)iii More should be done for Quebec-cpse3a-c: (0.483)iv Aboriginals are treated better than other Canadians—cpsj9: (0.405)v Position on the death penalty—pese13: (0.342)vi Right of Quebec to be treated as distinct—cpsj3: (0.330)

C Dimension 3: Alienation (1.56)

i Government does not care about what people think—cpsb10: (�0.673)ii Ordinary people have a say in government—cpsb10b: (�0.592)iii Politicians lie to get elected—pese15: (�0.421)iv Politics is too complicated—cpsb10c: (�0.410)v Parties keeping their promises—cpsj13: (�0.397)vi Elected officials out of touch—cpsb10a: (�0.379)vii Canadian immigration policy—cpsj18 (�0.300)

D Dimension 4: Cultural conservatism (1.12)

i Only married people should be having children—cpsf2: (0.542)ii A woman’s place is in the home—cpsf3: (0.476)iii Government should leave it to private sector to create jobs—cpsf6: (0.432)iv Government cannot solve unemployment problem—cpsf4: (0.389)v To maintain social programs, eliminate deficit—cpsf5: (0.345)


vi Abortion position-pese5a-c: (0.338)

1997 Quebec

A Dimension 1: Quebec issues (2.95)

i Position on Quebec sovereignty—cpsj3a: (0.739)ii Standard of living in wake of Quebec separation—pese10a-c: (0.680)iii Federal government’s treatment of Quebec—cpsj12: (�0.556)iv More should be done for Quebec—cpse3a-c: (0.519)v Important to defend Quebec’s interests—cpsa2h: (0.510)vi Economic unity should still exist if Quebec separates—pese27: (0.454)vii Satisfaction with democracy in Canada—pesa5b: (�0.336)

B Dimension 2: Cultural conservatism (1.96)

i A woman’s place is in the home—cpsf3: (0.601)ii Only married people should be having children—cpsf2: (0.521)iii Government should leave it to private sector to create jobs—cpsf6: (0.378)iv Abortion position—pese5a-c: (0.324)v Good thing for Canada and US to be one nation—pese25: (-0.318)vi To maintain social programs, eliminate deficit—cpsf5: (0.303)


i Government does not care about what people think—cpsb10: (0.617)ii Ordinary people have a say in government—cpsb10b: (0.433)iii Politicians lie to get elected—pese15: (0.409)iv Politics is too complicated—cpsb10c: (0.389)v Elected officials out of touch—cpsb10a: (0.360)vi Parties keeping their promises—cpsj13: (0.338)

D Minority issues (1.03)

i Spending on aboriginals—cpsj10: (0.600)ii Aboriginals are treated better than other Canadians—cpsj9: (0.492)iii Should the government do more for minorities—cpsf1: (0.412)

2000 Canada excluding Quebec

A Dimension 1: Liberal–Conservative (3.749)

i Should the government do more for minorities—cpsc11: (0.626)ii Should more be done for women—cpsc10 (0.609)iii Spending index on social programs—pese1b-f: (0.546)


iv More done to reduce gap between rich and poor—cpsc13: (0.492)v Should surplus be spent on federal programs—cpspla24: (0.429)vi More should be done for Quebec—cpsc12: (0.366)vii Power of unions—pesd2: (0.351)viii Sympathies towards feminism—pesg20: (0.324)ix Spending on foreign aid—pesd1g: (0.303)

B Dimension 2: Alienation (2.207)

i Parties foster solutions to important problems—pesk8b: (0.609)ii Parties do a good job presenting issues—pesk8a: (0.598)iii Parties represent the concerns of ordinary people—pesk8d: (0.557)iv Satisfaction with democracy in Canada—cpsa8: (0.476)v Government does not care about what people think—cpsb10d: (0.460)vi Parties keeping their promises—cpsj13: (0.458)

C Dimension 3: Minority issues and social matters (1.23)

i Position on the death penalty—cpsc15: (0.460)ii Canadian immigration policy—cpsj18: (0.456)iii Gay and lesbian marriage—cpsf18: (0.454)iv Aboriginals are treated better than other Canadians—cpsj9: (0.417)v Ways to deal with violent offenders—cpsj51: (0.412)vi Abortion position—pesg8: (0.33)

2000 Quebec

A Dimension 1: Quebec issues (3.70)

i Position on Quebec sovereignty—pesc6: (�0.865)ii Quebec’s right to separate—pesg18: (0.775)iii Standard of living in wake of Quebec separation—pesc9: (�0.657)iv Power of province vs. federal power—pese1a, pese1b: (�0.539)v Status of French language if Quebec separates—pesc8: (�0.531)vi Is French language threatened in Quebec—pesc7: (�0.449)

B Dimension 2: Minority issues (1.95)

i Canadian immigration policy—cpsj18: (0.454)ii Position on the death penalty—cpsc15: (0.454)iii Aboriginals are treated better than other Canadians—cpsj9: (0.430)iv Government should leave it to private sector to create jobs—cpsf6: (0.394)v Ways to deal with violent offenders—cpsj51: (0.364)vi Should the government do more for minorities—cpsc11: (0.323)vii Spending on foreign aid—pesd1g: (0.314)



i Parties do a good job presenting issues—pesk8a (-0.620)ii Parties foster solutions to important problems—pesk8b: (-0.579)iii Parties represent the concerns of ordinary people—pesk8d: (-0.570)iv Satisfaction with democracy in Canada—cpsa8: (-0.357)v Parties keeping their promises—cpsj13: (-0.351)vi Government does not care what people think—cpsb10d: (�0.311)

D Dimension 4: Liberal–Conservative (1.13)

i Spending index on social programs—pese1b-f: (0.518)ii Should more be done for women—cpsc10: (0.446)iii More done to reduce gap between rich and poor—cpsc13: (0.407)iv Should surplus be spent on federal programs—cpspla24: (0.310)

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