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Political Turbulence in a Dominant Party System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2006

R. Kenneth Carty
R. Kenneth Carty
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Extract

Over 40 years ago, Leon Epstein (1964) published a comparative study of Canadian political parties in the American Political Science Review that still merits a careful read. His aim in that essay was to juxtapose the Canadian experience against the American in order to learn something of the latter, but in doing so, he provided a succinct analysis of important dynamics structuring the Canadian party system. His account reminds us that, like the United States, Canada is “a diverse nation in a large land area,” has “developed a structural federalism,” has an “American-style social and economic class structure,” and uses “a single-member, simple-plurality election system.” Perhaps reflecting these underlying similarities, Canadian parties' (like their American counterpart's) “extra-parliamentary organizations are loose and non-doctrinal at every level” and structured federally.

Type
SYMPOSIUM—THE POLITICS OF CANADA
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , October 2006 , pp. 825 - 827
Copyright
© 2006 The American Political Science Association

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