Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T07:37:26.567Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Effects of Information and Social Cleavages: Explaining Issue Attitudes and Vote Choice in Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2007

Amanda Bittner
Amanda Bittner
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Abstract. This paper examines the relationship between social group identity and the level of political information in explaining Canadians' issue attitudes and vote choices. Traditional accounts of Canadians' partisan political leanings have placed a great deal of emphasis on social group identity in explaining attitudes. However based on data from the Canadian Election Studies from 1988–2004, it is argued that both social group identity and information influence the nature of vote choice and public opinion in Canada. In fact, the level of voter information has two contradictory effects on the political attitudes of different social groups. In some cases voters' level of information reduces the role of social group identity in explaining attitudes and vote choices; information acts to bridge the differences between different social groups (for example Catholics/non-Catholics and urban/rural Canadians). In other cases, voters' level of information acts to amplify the importance of social group identity in predicting attitudes (for example women/men and religious/nonreligious). These findings suggest that not only is social group identity a less effective predictor of attitudes than has traditionally been thought but that there are also significant underlying differences between the so-called “old” and “new” cleavages in Canada when it comes to understanding their impact on political values.

Résumé. Cet article examine le lien qui existe entre l'appartenance à un groupe social donné et le niveau d'information politique lorsqu'il s'agit d'expliquer l'attitude des Canadiens et des Canadiennes devant certaines questions d'intérêt politique et leur choix de vote. Les analyses traditionnelles des tendances partisanes au Canada mettent surtout l'accent sur l'appartenance à un groupe social particulier pour expliquer les positions. Toutefois, en nous fondant sur les données des Études électorales canadiennes de 1988 à 2004, nous soutenons que l'appartenance au groupe social tout comme le niveau d'information exercent une influence sur le choix de vote et sur l'opinion publique au Canada. En réalité, le niveau d'information des électeurs produit deux effets contradictoires sur la position politique de groupes sociaux différents. Dans certains cas, le niveau d'information des électeurs affaiblit le rôle du groupe social dans l'explication des positions et des choix de vote; il permet d'outrepasser les distinctions de groupe social (par exemple catholiques vs non-catholiques et Canadiens en milieu urbain ou en milieu rural). Dans d'autres cas, le niveau d'information amplifie l'importance du groupe social comme facteur permettant de prédire les positions (par exemple femmes vs hommes et électeurs religieux ou non religieux). Ces découvertes suggèrent que pour prédire les positions politiques, le groupe social est un indicateur moins fiable que ne le supposent les analyses traditionnelles. De surcroît, il existe d'importantes différences sous-jacentes entre les soi-disant “anciens” et “nouveaux” clivages au Canada lorsqu'il s'agit d'interpréter leur incidence sur les valeurs politiques.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 935 - 968
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almond, Gabriel and Sidney Verba. 1963. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Archer, Keith, Roger Gibbins, Rainer Knopff, Heather MacIvor and Leslie A. Pal. 2002. Parameters of Power: Canada's Political Institutions, 3rd ed. Scarborough: Thomson Nelson Learning.
Bartels, Larry. 1996. “Uninformed Votes: Information Effects in Presidential Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 40 (1): 194–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bélanger, Paul and Munroe Eagles. 2005. “The Geography of Class and Religion in Canadian Elections Voting Revisited: A Research Note.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, London, Ontario.
Berelson, Bernard R., Paul F. Lazarsfeld and William N. McPhee. 1954. Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Blais, André. 2005. “Accounting for the Electoral Success of the Liberal Party in Canada.” Presidential address to the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association. London, Ontario.
Blais, André, Elisabeth Gidengil, Richard Nadeau and Neil Nevitte. 2002. Anatomy of a Liberal Victory: Making Sense of the Vote in the 2000 Canadian Election. Peterborough: Broadview Press.
Brady, Henry and Paul Sniderman. 1985. “Attitude Attribution: A Group Basis for Political Reasoning.” American Political Science Review 79: 1061–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cairns, Alan. 1968. “The Electoral System and the Party System in Canada, 1921–1965.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 1 (1): 55–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cairns, Alan. 1977. “The Governments and Societies of Canadian Federalism.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 10 (4): 695–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes. 1960. The American Voter. Chicago: John Wiley & Sons.
Converse, Philip E. 1964. “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics.” In Ideology and Discontent, ed. D. E. Apter. New York: Free Press.
Cutler, Fred and Richard W. Jenkins. 2000. “Where One Lives and What One Thinks: Implications of Rural-Urban Opinion Cleavages for Canadian Federalism.” Paper presented at Transformation of Canadian Political Culture and the State of the Federation, Institute of Intergovernmental Affairs. Kingston, Ontario.
Dyck, Rand. 2000. Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches, 3rd ed. Scarborough: Nelson Thomson Learning.
Elections Canada. Canada's Federal Electoral Districts. http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=gen&document=ec92605&dir=bkg&lang=e&textonly=false (February 16, 2006).
Elections Canada. Historical 301 Electoral Districts Database. http://www.elections.ca/scripts/edwa301_historical/Default.asp?L=E&Page=SearchStart (February 16, 2006).
Elections Canada. Transposition of population from 1996 Representation Order to 2003 Representation Order. http://www.elections.ca/cir/tran/transpop.pdf (February 16, 2006).
Everitt, Joanna. 2002. Gender Gaps on Social Welfare Issues: Why Do Women Care? In Citizen Politics: Research and Theory in Canadian Political Behaviour, ed. B. O'Neill and J. Everitt. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Gidengil, Elisabeth, André Blais, Richard Nadeau and Neil Nevitte. 2003. “Women to the Left? Gender Differences in Political Beliefs and Policy Preferences.” In Women and Electoral Politics in Canada, ed. Manon Tremblay and Linda Trimble. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Horowitz, G. 1966. “Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation.” The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 32 (2): 143–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald and Pippa Norris. 2000. “The Developmental Theory of the Gender Gap: Women's and Men's Voting Behavior in Global Perspective.” International Political Science Review 21 (4): 441–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irvine, William P. 1974. “Explaining the Religious Basis of the Canadian Partisan Identity: Success on the Third Try.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 7: 560–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irvine, William P. and H. Gold. 1980. “Do Frozen Cleavages Ever Go Stale? The Bases of the Canadian and Australian Party Systems.” British Journal of Political Science 10 (2): 187–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iversen, Torben and Frances Rosenbluth. 2006. “The Political Economy of Gender: Explaining Cross-National Variation in the Gender Division of Labor and the Gender Voting Gap.” American Journal of Political Science 50 (1): 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, Richard. 1985. “The Reproduction of the Religious Cleavage in Canadian Elections.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 18 (1): 99–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, Richard, André Blais, Henry E. Brady and Jean Crete. 1992. Letting the People Decide: Dynamics of a Canadian Election. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet. 1944. The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan. 1967. “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: an Introduction.” In Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives, ed. S. M. Lipset and S. Rokkan. New York: Free Press.
Lupia, Arthur and Matthew McCubbins. 1998. The Democratic Dilemma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Luskin, Robert. 1990. “Explaining Political Sophistication.” Political Behavior 12: 331–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIvor, Heather. 1996. Women and Politics in Canada. Toronto: Broadview Press.
Matthews, J. Scott. 2006. The Campaign Dynamics of Economic Voting. Doctoral dissertation. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.
Meisel, John. 1956. “Religious Affiliation and Electoral Behaviour: A Case Study.” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 22 (4): 481–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendelsohn, Matthew and Richard Nadeau. 1997. “The Religious Cleavage and the Media in Canada.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 30 (1): 129–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegfried, André. 1907. The Race Question in Canada. London: E. Nash.
Sniderman, Paul, Richard Brody and Philip Tetlock. 1991. Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Statistics Canada. Population and Dwelling Counts, for Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2001 and 1996 Censuses—100% Data. http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/standard/popdwell/Table-CMA-N.cfm?T=1&SR=1&S=3&O=D (February 16, 2006).
Statistics Canada. 2001 Population and Dwelling Counts and Population Rank, for Urban Areas, 2001 Census. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
Tomz, Michael, Jason Wittenberg and Gary King. 2003. Clarify: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results. Journal of Statistical Software 8 (1) 〈http://www.jstatsoft.org/v08/i01〉.Google Scholar