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Economic Conditions and the Popularity of the Incumbent Party in Canada*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Calum M. Carmichael
Calum M. Carmichael
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Abstract

This study measures the effects of macroeconomic conditions upon the popularity of the incumbent party in Canadian federal general elections from 1945 to 1988. In so doing it uses a model similar to the retrospective voting models used in electoral studies in the United States. The results suggest that for the elections from 1945 to 1972, bad economic conditions preceding the election benefited the incumbent party. For the elections from 1974 to 1988, these effects were diminished or reversed. Such results have precedents in separate studies that use Canadian poll data. However, they contradict the general conclusion of American studies that bad conditions hurt the incumbent. This contradiction suggests that the model's assumptions about voting behaviour, which appear to be verified by the American studies, do not apply universally.

Résumé

Cette étude mesure les effets des conditions macroéconomiques sur la popularité du parti au pouvoir dans les élections fédérales canadiennes de 1945 à 1988. À cette fin nous avons eu recours à un modèle semblable aux modèles retrospectifs d'analyse utilisés dans les études électorates aux États-Unis. Les résultats suggèrent que dans le cas des élections de 1945 à 1972, le parti au pouvoir a tiré parti de mauvaises conditions économiques précédant l'élection. Mais cet effet est affaibli ou renversé dans le cas des élections de 1974 à 1988. II existe des précédents pour de tels résultats dans des études faites à partir des données des élections canadiennes. Ils contredisent cependant la conclusion d'ensemble des études américaines selon laquelle de mauvaises conditions économiques nuisent au parti au pouvoir. Cette contradiction laisse supposer que les postulats du modèle que les études américaines semblent confirmer ne s'appliquent pas universellement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 1990 , pp. 713 - 726
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1990

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References

1 Monroe, Kristen and Erickson, Lynda, “The Economy and Political Support: The Canadian Case,” Journal of Politics 48 (1986), 616–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Similar results for the New Democratic party over the period 1954 to 1961 are provided by Erickson, Lynda, “CCF-NDP Popularity and the Economy,” this Journal 21 (1988), 99–116.Google Scholar

3 Johnston, Richard, Public Opinion and Public Policy in Canada, Research Studies of the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, vol. 35 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for Supply and Services Canada, 1986), 123.Google Scholar

4 Erickson, “CCF-NDP Popularity.”

5 Clarke, Harold D. and Zuk, Gary, “The Politics of Party Popularity: Canada 1974–1979,” Comparative Politics 20 (1987), 229–315.Google Scholar

6 Clarke, Harold D., Stewart, Marianne C., and Zuk, Gary, “The Political Economy of Party Support in Canada: 1980–1984,” mimeograph (1986).Google Scholar

7 Happy, J. R., “Voter Sensitivity to Economic Conditions: A Canadian-American Comparison,” Comparative Politics 19 (1986), 45–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Economic Performance and Retrospective Voting in Canadian Federal Elections,” this Journal 22 (1989), 377–87.

8 Happy estimates the equations using data on federal elections from 1930 to 1979, without allowing the economic coefficients to change within or between the prewar, war or postwar periods. Clarke and Zuk (“Politics of Party Popularity,” 299) mention that errors could arise from not allowing the coefficients to change over long sample periods. In ways other than the assumption of coefficient stability, the present study differs from those by Happy. For example, the present study uses a set of regional zero-one variables rather than a lagged dependent variable, regional rather than provincial electoral data, and national rather than provincial economic data.

9 A summary of the assumptions made by retrospective voting models can be found in Kiewiet, D. Roderick, Macroeconomics and Micropolitics: The Electoral Effects of Economic Issues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 5–26Google Scholar. A survey of their results can be found in Kiewiet, D. Roderick and Rivers, Douglas, “A Retrospective on Retrospective Voting,” Political Behavior 6 (1984), 369–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Earlier surveys include that of Kramer, Gerald H., “Short-term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior, 1896–1964,” American Political Science Review 65 (1971), 131–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and that of Monroe, Kristen R., “Economic Analysis of Electoral Behavior: A Critical Review,” Political Behavior 1 (1979), 137–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 See, for example, Clarke, Harold D., Jenson, Jane, Leduc, Lawrence, and Pammett, Jon, “Voting Behaviour and the Outcome of the 1979 Federal Election: The Impact of Leaders and Issues,” this Journal 15 (1982), 517–52.Google Scholar

11 For a discussion of these assumptions in a Canadian context, see Archer, Keith and Johnson, Marquis, “Inflation, Unemployment and Canadian Federal Voting Behaviour,” this Journal 21 (1988), 569–84.Google Scholar

12 For a discussion of this possibility in a Canadian context, see Erickson, “CCF-NDP Popularity,” 104–06.

13 Monroe and Erickson, “The Economy and Political Support,” 618.

14 Undoubtedly there are many other factors that might affect the outcome of single elections—a new party leader, a salient issue such as national unity, a contentious policy such as free trade. Factors such as these are not formally introduced to the model, and thus are represented by the error term.

15 One can pool time-series (election) and cross-sectional (region) data if the coefficients on the economic variables are the same for all regions. With an F statistic one can test the null hypothesis that the coefficients are the same. On the basis of such F tests, one cannot reject the null hypothesis for any of the equations presented in Tables 1 and 2. For a description of the test, see Maddala, G. S., Econometrics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977), 323–26.Google Scholar

16 Kramer, “Short-term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior.”

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20 Kiewiet and Rivers, “A Retrospective,” 370.

21 Ibid., 387.

22 Ibid., 374.

23 Real personal disposable income per capita is positively correlated with nominal disposable income per capita and is negatively correlated with the unemployment rate. These pairs of variables are not combined in an equation in order to avoid problems of muticollinearity.

24 Brodie, M. Janine, “Tensions from Within: Regionalism and Party Policy in Canada,” in Thornburn, Hugh G. (ed.), Party Politics in Canada (5th ed.; Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1983), 72–83.Google Scholar

25 The t statistics for each pair of economic coefficients are not included on the tables. For Table 1 these statistics range from 2.23 to 3.46, leading one to reject at the 5 per cent level the null hypothesis that the coefficients are the same for the two sets of elections.

26 Monroe and Erickson, “The Economy and Political Support,” 633.

27 See the citation from Monroe and Erickson (618) on p. 716 above.

28 Monroe and Erickson (“The Economy and Political Support,” 621–23) present survey results suggesting that during the 1970s Canadians held the federal government responsible for the economy.