The Canadian findings provide some important insight into how parties themselves may
affect the use of their label as an information short-cut. The NDP treatment was the most
influential cue in our study. This is not too surprising, as the NDP is the party most likely to
present a clear ideological program for voters. However, it does run somewhat contrary to
evidence that the NDP is the least well-known party in Canadian politics (Fournier 2002). While
the Liberal Party is the best known party, being the party that has held office most often, the
party’s success is often traced to its ability to broker compromise amongst the various regions
and demands of the country – in other words, to the party’s ability to shun strong ideological
stances and instead produce a political compromise. Thus, that the Liberal party label is not very
effective may be a reflection of the party’s general lack of ideology and therefore informative
role.
The Conservative party is a unique case. At the time the data were collected, the party
had been in existence for four months and had just completed its first leadership convention.
The party did not have a clear policy program to persuade voters. It is possible that our student
subjects, who were unlikely to have had any previous voting experience, were unaware of the
party’s pedigree and thus the likely direction of its policy stances. That being said, the one issue
on which the Conservative Party’s stance is clearest is same-sex marriage, and we find in our
analysis of that issue, the cue has a significant, and expected, effect. This suggests that, at least
in Canada, party cues may vary in their influence according to the party’s clarity or prominence
in a particular policy issue area, but not necessarily by complexity.
Mexico
Given that Mexico’s competitive party system is a mere fledgling compared to the United
States and Canada, it is quite interesting to find that party labels do have the capacity to act as
heuristic aids in this context. Mexico’s one-party dominant state came to an end in 2000, with
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Convention