Canadian Politics

A17(b) - Canadian Political Development in Comparative Perspective

Date: Jun 1 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location: Classroom - CL 316 Room ID: 15744

Chair/Président/Présidente : Elizabeth Baisley (Princeton University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : John C. Courtney (University of Saskatchewan)

Session Abstract: In recent years, there has been considerable interest in studying Canadian politics through a political development lens. This panel responds to calls for Canadian political development (Lucas & Vipond, 2017; Smith, 2009), including in comparative perspective (Lieberman, 2017). It also builds on the momentum of workshops on American, British, and Canadian political development. The papers on this panel showcase the diversity of this nascent field. They cover a range of places (from west to east), scales (including urban, provincial, and federal politics), and time periods (from the 1850s until the 1990s). Although historical, the papers tackle broad issues that continue to be relevant to debates today: electoral reform, the political representation of marginalized groups, populism, and the role of social conservatives in politics. Not only are these topics normatively important, but they also speak to debates in both Canadian and comparative politics. Despite this diversity, the papers are united by a common approach: Canadian political development. The approach borrows insights from the fields of American political development, comparative politics (especially comparative-historical analysis), as well as a rich tradition of historical political science in Canada. This approach involves the systematic examination of processes unfolding over time. Such an approach is attentive to context, timing, sequencing, and self-reinforcing and reactive processes. Using this approach, the papers illustrate how historical events and processes have continuing relevance for questions of contemporary politics.

Guaranteed Under-Representation: Informal Quotas for Language and Denomination in New Brunswick: Quinn M. Albaugh (Princeton University)
Abstract: Until the adoption of single-member districts in 1974, New Brunswick's major parties mirrored each other in the linguistic and religious composition of their tickets in the province’s multi-member districts. This pattern presents puzzles for theories of consociationalism and political parties. This paper describes this informal quota system using electoral results and biographical sketches from the Canadian Parliamentary Guide, the Graves Papers. These data and historical sources suggest that this ticket-balancing system was an informal institution of New Brunswick politics. It arose due to the legacies of the formative moment of settlement by United Empire Loyalists in the 18th Century and the patterns of clientelism and social stratification during the process of incorporating Irish Catholics and Acadians into politics in the 19th Century. While this institution has some surface similarities to guaranteed representation schemes, such as quotas or reserved seats, it systematically disadvantaged francophones in the Legislative Assembly. These results suggest a need to examine the dark side of cleavage management institutions and the importance of social inequalities for understanding party organizations.

Social Conservatives and Political Cleavages in Canada and the United States: Elizabeth Baisley (Princeton University)
Abstract: Although Canadians are divided in their attitudes on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and trans rights, these issues have not (yet) formed the basis of a political cleavage in Canada as they have in the US. Why has this social cleavage translated into a political cleavage in the US but not (yet) in Canada? Existing work points to differences between the two countries – in terms of public opinion, movement strength, and political parties – but so far it has not traced the link between these differences on the one hand and the presence or absence of a political cleavage on the other. Drawing on a range of sources – including public opinion data, movement and party archival materials, and newspapers – this paper argues that existing explanations fall short. Focusing especially on intra-party battles over these issues from the 1960s through the 1990s, it emphasizes instead the importance of movement-party interactions for translating (or not) social cleavages into political ones.

Female Suffrage in the Prairie Provinces, 1910-1920: A Comparative Historical Analysis in Canadian Political Development: Gerard W. Boychuk (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: The paper undertakes a comparative historical analysis of the enfranchisement of women in the prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) from 1910 to 1920 focusing, in contrast with much of the existing literature on female suffrage in Canada, on the differences among them. Despite the similar dates of female enfranchisement, it argues that female enfranchisement was more difficult and more tenuous in Manitoba than in Saskatchewan or Alberta. In the latter two, the paper argues that the issue of prohibition played a key role in determining the nature and timing of female franchise. The separation of the issues of prohibition and the franchise allowed for the female franchise in Alberta while it was precisely the linking of prohibition and the franchise in Saskatchewan that explains the timing of enfranchisement there. Thus, rather than being indicative of political cultural differences across these provinces or a function of demographic differences (gender ratios) among them, differences were the result of contingent factors with the ultimate similarity among them – female enfranchisement in all three provinces in 1916 -- being the result of distinct paths of causation.

Franchise Reform and Urban Political Development in Western Canada: Jack Lucas (University of Calgary)
Abstract: Scholars of American Political Development have recently emphasized the potential for comparative democratization theory to illuminate patterns of democratic advance and reversal in the United States and other early democracies. Building on this emerging literature, this paper identifies and explains patterns of enfranchisement and disenfranchisement in western Canada's four largest cities - Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg -- from 1900 to 1930. To identify patterns of enfranchisement and disenfranchisement, I first examine two new datasets: a dataset on formal enfranchisement and disenfranchisement, built on statutory changes to franchise rules in each city, and a dataset on long-term patterns of overall voter "inclusion", built on annual archival lists of registered voters and city populations. I use these datasets to locate transformative moments of franchise reform, both formal and informal, in each city. I then compare these patterns and events to simultaneous changes in each city at the provincial levels. Having identified relevant moments of franchise transformation, I use newspaper and archival data to explain the strategic and programmatic motivations for reform, along with the coalitions that mobilized to support or oppose franchise reform. Given substantial evidence that similar reforms occurred across cities and across levels of government within quite narrow time windows, I suggest that franchise reform was motivated more for reasons of first-order policy than for reasons of second-order electoral strategy.