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Partisans without Parties: Party Systems as Partisan Inhibitors?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2016

Jason Roy  and
Anna Lennox Esselment
Jason Roy*
Affiliation:
Wilfrid Laurier University
Anna Lennox Esselment*
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
*
Department of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo ON, N2L 3C5, Canada, Email: jroy@wlu.ca
Department of Political Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo ON, N2L 3G1, Canada, Email: alesselm@uwaterloo.ca
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Abstract

In this work we offer results drawn from a dataset of a post-provincial election survey in eight Canadian provinces to assess the impact of party system congruency on partisanship. We postulate that partisanship will be more likely and stronger in provinces that share a similar political party system to the federal level. We extend this preliminary analysis to test the underlying mechanism by examining the impact holding partisan ties at the provincial level has on the likelihood and strength of federal identification, according to party system similarity. Our results show very limited support for the party system congruency factor, raising further questions of its applicability in the Canadian context.

Résumé

Dans cet article, nous présentons les résultats provenant d'un ensemble de données tirées d'un sondage post-électoral provincial réalisé dans huit provinces canadiennes pour évaluer l'impact de la cohérence du systéme des partis sur la partisannerie. Nous partons de l'hypothése que la partisannerie serait plus prévisible et plus importante dans les provinces qui ont le même systéme de partis politiques qu'au niveau fédéral. Nous allons plus loin dans cette analyse préliminaire, afin de tester le mécanisme sous-jacent, en examinant l'impact qu'a le fait d'entretenir des liens partisans, au niveau provincial, sur la probabilité d'une identification fédérale et sur son intensité, en fonction de la ressemblance du systéme des partis. Nos résultats montrent que l'influence du facteur de cohérence du systéme de partis est trés limitée, soulevant de nouvelles questions quant á son applicabilité dans le contexte canadien.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 21 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2016 

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