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"The Local Bases of National Parties"
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Local Conflict Within National Parties: The Case of Canada
R. Kenneth Carty
## email not listed ##
and
Munroe Eagles
## email not listed ##
Abstract
A central part of the organizational bargain governing Canada’s federal parties is a tradeoff of autonomy in local candidate selection in return for strict discipline within the parliamentary party. In Canada, local party associations use nominating meetings open to party members to make their candidate selections. Most candidates are selected by acclamation, but a significant minority of ridings (about 40%) experience intra-party contests involving two or more candidates for the party’s endorsement. It is traditional to see these contests as a source of party revitalization, as would-be candidates strive to enlist new members to vote for them at the nominating convention. However, in some cases, the conflict among candidates can escalate, with the resulting acrimony and bitterness exacerbating differences that may harm the party’s electoral fortunes. What, if any, are the general consequences for local party associations of nomination contests? Our paper addresses this neglected question in the context of two elections, 1988 and 1993. The answers we uncover are not simple in that nomination contests are associated with different impacts in different parties, and within the same party at different elections. However, on balance, our analysis confirms thetraditional view of party invigoration through contested nominations, albeit one that decays over time.
KEYWORDS: Canadian political parties; candidate nominations; Canadian election campaigns
Prepared for delivery at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 28 - August 31, 2003. Copyright by the American Political Science Association. An earlier version was presented at the International Political Science Association conference, Durban, South Africa, June 29-July 4
th
, 2003. The authors are
particularly grateful to Professor Lynda Erickson, Simon Fraser University, for generously giving us access to the results of her 1993 survey of parliamentary candidates, and to Professor Masaru Kohno for helpful comments.
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|
Local Conflict Within National Parties: The Case of Canada
R. Kenneth Carty
## email not listed ##
and
Munroe Eagles
## email not listed ##
Abstract
A central part of the organizational bargain governing Canada’s federal parties is a tradeoff of autonomy in
local candidate selection in return for strict discipline within the parliamentary party. In Canada, local
party associations use nominating meetings open to party members to make their candidate selections. Most
candidates are selected by acclamation, but a significant minority of ridings (about 40%) experience intra-
party contests involving two or more candidates for the party’s endorsement. It is traditional to see these
contests as a source of party revitalization, as would-be candidates strive to enlist new members to vote for
them at the nominating convention. However, in some cases, the conflict among candidates can escalate,
with the resulting acrimony and bitterness exacerbating differences that may harm the party’s electoral
fortunes. What, if any, are the general consequences for local party associations of nomination contests?
Our paper addresses this neglected question in the context of two elections, 1988 and 1993. The answers
we uncover are not simple in that nomination contests are associated with different impacts in different
parties, and within the same party at different elections. However, on balance, our analysis confirms the
traditional view of party invigoration through contested nominations, albeit one that decays over time.
KEYWORDS: Canadian political parties; candidate nominations; Canadian election
campaigns
Prepared for delivery at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science
Association, August 28 - August 31, 2003. Copyright by the American Political Science
Association. An earlier version was presented at the International Political Science
Association conference, Durban, South Africa, June 29-July 4
th
, 2003. The authors are
particularly grateful to Professor Lynda Erickson, Simon Fraser University, for
generously giving us access to the results of her 1993 survey of parliamentary candidates,
and to Professor Masaru Kohno for helpful comments.
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