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The Spatial Analysis of Political Cleavages and the Case of the Ontario Legislature*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Conrad Winn  and
James Twiss
Conrad Winn
Affiliation:
Carleton University
James Twiss
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Type
Research Article
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Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 287 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1977

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References

1 “Canadian Political Parties: A Study of the Economic and Racial Bases of Conservatism and Liberalism in 1930,” in Courtney, John C. (ed.), Voting in Canada (Toronto: Prentice-Hall. 1967).Google Scholar

2 On spatial analysis as a multivariate statistical set of techniques, see Green, Paul E. and Carmone, Frank, Multidimensional Scaling and Related Techniques in Marketing Analysis (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1970).Google Scholar

3 Horowitz, Gad, Canadian Labour in Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), 3–57.Google Scholar Horowitz mustered evidence from public policy when he argued that a willingness to use the state for economic purposes was “especially notable in the history of Canada's Conservative party” (10). In the domain of party ideology, he observed that W. L. Morton, “a conscious ideological Conservative,” exhorted fellow Conservatives “to embrace the welfare state…” (21). In the domain of elite attitudes, he expressed the view that R. B. Bennett, Arthur Meighen, and George Drew are characterized by an “emphasis on loyalty to the crown and to the British connection (and also by) a touch of the authentic tory aura—traditionalism, elitism, the strong state, and so on” (20).

4 For an elucidation of the input-throughput-output paradigm and for a Canadian application, see Falcone, David J. and Whittington, Michael S., “Output Change in Canada: A Preliminary Attempt to Open the ‘Black-Box,’” paper presented at the meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association, June, 1972.Google Scholar

5 Horowitz, , Canadian Labour, and Grant, George, Lament for a Nation (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965).Google Scholar

6 Pross, Paul, “Canadian Pressure Groups in the 1970's: Their role and their relations with the public service,” Canadian Public Administration 18 (1975), 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Jackson, Robert and Atkinson, Michael, The Canadian Legislative System (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1974).Google Scholar

7 Their assessment of federal to provincial switching is based on some aggregate as well as survey data relating to the 1967 provincial election. However, that particular election might have been atypical. For example, Wilson and Hoffman found that the relationship between federal Liberal votes and provincial abstentions was “particularly striking” in Hamilton. Wilson, John and Hoffman, David, “The Liberal Party in Contemporary Ontario Politics,” this Journal 3 (1970), 184.Google Scholar Yet, Cunningham, Robertet al. found “the relationship to be all but nonexistent” in 1971.Google Scholar See Cunningham, Robert, Rubas, Janet, and White, Graham, “Differential Loyalties: Split Identification and Voting at the Federal and Provincial Levels,” paper presented at the meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, June, 1972, 2.Google Scholar

8 Jenson, Jane, Clarke, Harold, Leduc, Lawrence, Pammett, Jon, “Patterns of Partisanship in Canada: Split Identification and Cross-Time Variation,” paper presented at the meetings of the American Political Science Association, September, 1975, 18.Google Scholar

9 No tests of statistical significance were used. See table 3, ibid.

10 A mean federal stability score of 64.5 per cent is contrasted with a mean provincial score of 74.1 per cent. See table 5, ibid.

11 “Ontario Provincial Elections, 1934–55: A Preliminary Survey of Voting,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 23 (1957), 402.

12 See tables 3 and 4 in Jenson et al., “Patterns of Partisanship.”

13 Ontario's stability score was 79.8 per cent. See table 5, ibid. George Perlin and Patti Peppin also drew attention to the special character of Ontario political behaviour, especially the province's “affect for federal politics.” See their “Variation in Party Support in Federal and Provincial Elections: Some Hypotheses,” this Journal 4 (1971), 286.

14 See Hoffman, David and Ward, Norman, Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the Canadian House of Commons (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1970)Google Scholar; Kornberg, Allan, Canadian Legislative Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1967)Google Scholar; and Porter, John, The Vertical Mosaic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 13. On non-parliamentary elites and activists, see Jacek, Henryet al., “The Congruence of Federal-Provincial Campaign Activity in Party Organizations,” this Journal 5 (1972), 190–205Google Scholar; Henry Jacek, “Party Loyalty and Electoral Volatility,” ibid., 8 (1975), 144–45; Courtney, John, The Selection of National Party Leaders in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan, 1973), 105–26Google Scholar; and McMenemy, John and Winn, Conrad, “Party Personnel—Elites and Activists,” in Winn, Conrad and McMenemy, John, Political Parties in Canada (Scarborough, Ont.: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1976).Google Scholar

15 Fox, Paul, “Les partis fédéraux,” in Sabourin, Louis, Le Système politique du Canada (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1968).Google Scholar

16 Laponce, Jean, “Note on the Use of the Left-Right Dimension,” Comparative Political Studies 2 (1969–70), 481–501CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and People vs. Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 111–92, passim.

17 Laponce, J. A., “Post-dicting Electoral Cleavages in Canadian Federal Elections, 1945–68: Material for a Footnote,” this Journal 5 (1972), 284.Google Scholar See also Laponce, J. A. and Uhler, R. S., “Measuring Electoral Cleavages in a Multiparty System: The Canadian Case,” Comparative Political Studies 7 (1974/1975), 3–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Young, Walter, Democracy and Discontent (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1969), 106–109Google Scholar, and Chi, N. H., “Class Cleavage,” in Winn, Conrad and McMenemy, John, Political Parties in Canada (Scarborough: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1976).Google Scholar See also Wiseman, Nelson and Taylor, K. W., “Ethnic vs. Class Voting: The Case of Winnipeg, 1945,” this Journal 7 (1974), 314–28.Google Scholar

19 See note 1, above.

20 “Religious Affiliation and Electoral Behavior: A Case Study,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 22 (1956), 481–96, reprinted in Courtney, John C., Voting in Canada (Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1967).Google Scholar Although the cultural dimension includes religious and linguistic components, there is no agreement about their relative import. There is considerable evidence that religion is a better statistical predictor of partisan choice. See, for example, Regenstreif, Peter, The Diefenbaker Interlude: Parties and Voting in Canada (Toronto: Longmans Canada, 1965), 93–94.Google Scholar However, Irvine's recent analysis of survey data suggests that religion is being supplanted by language as the basis of cleavage. See Irvine, William, “Canadian Partisan Identity,” this Journal 7 (1974), 560–63.Google Scholar

21 Political Parties and the Canadian Social Structure (Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1967), 252.

22 The Pattern of Politics (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970), 159.

23 See Denis Smith, “Prairie Revolt, Federalism, and the Party System,” in Courtney, Voting 149 (model no. 6); Liberal National Committee, “Reference Handbook” (Ottawa, 1945), quoted in Granatstein, J. L., The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 1939–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), 3Google Scholar (model no. 7); Meisel, John, “The Stalled Omnibus: Canadian Parties in the 1960's,” Social Research 30 (1963), 375–78Google Scholar (model no. 8); McNaught, Kenneth, The Pelican History of Canada (Hammondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970), 301Google Scholar (model no. 9); Morton, Desmond, “Perspectives for the NDP in the Seventies,” in Lapierre, Laurieret al., Essays on the Left: Essays in Honour of T. C. Douglas (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974), 251–63Google Scholar; and Meisel, John, “Canadian Parties and Politics,” in Leach, R. H. (ed.), Contemporary Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), 124–47Google Scholarpassim (model no. 10). A fuller discussion of the literature on Canadian parties appears in Winn, Conrad, “Spatial Models of Party Systems” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1972)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

24 See note 5, above.

25 Laponce, “Post-dicting Electoral Cleavages,” 284.

26 Jacek, Henryet al., “The Congruence of Federal-Provincial Campaign Activity in Party Organizations: the Influence of Recruitment Patterns in Three Hamilton Ridings,” this Journal 5 (1972), 190–205Google Scholar, and Chi, N. H., “Class Voting in Canada,” in Kruhlak, Orest M.et al., The Canadian Political Process (Toronto: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1973), 226–447.Google Scholar

27 Kornberg, Canadian Legislative Behavior. See also McMenemy and Winn, Political Parties in Canada.

28 A valuable discussion of the Canadian economics literature appears in Bird, Richard M., The Growth of Government Spending in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 1970).Google Scholar

29 See Falcone, David J. and Whittington, Michael S., “Output Change in Canada: A Preliminary Attempt to Open the ‘Black-Box,’” paper presented at the meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association, June, 1972Google Scholar; Falcone, David J., “Legislative Change and Output Change: A Time-Series Analysis of the Canadian System” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1974)Google Scholar; Poel, Dale H., “Canadian Provincial and American State Policy: A Qualitative Explication of an Empirical Difference,” paper presented at the meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association, June, 1972.Google Scholar Falcone and Poelx arrived at their conclusions about the unsystematic policy-influence of parties as a result of the analysis of government expenditures. An analysis of government revenue which comes to a similar conclusion appears in Douglas McCready and Conrad Winn, “Redistributive Policy,” in Winn and McMenemy, Political Parties in Canada.

30 Wrong, “Ontario Provincial Elections, 1934–55,” 402–403.

31 Surich, Joachim, “The Political Socialization of Ontario Voters: The Case of Middlesex South,” paper presented at the meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association, June, 1970, 29, 33.Google Scholar

32 Drummond, R. J., “Voting Behaviour: The Blueing of Ontario,” in MacDonald, Donald C., Government and Politics of Ontario (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1975), 310–12.Google Scholar The cultural model of Ontario voting is also implicit in Wilson and Hoffman, “The Liberal Party in Contemporary Ontario Politics.”

33 Heubel, E. J., “Michigan and Ontario Legislators: Perspectives on the Federal System,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 32 (1966), 449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 The items were intended to correspond closely to the evaluation dimension (e.g., good vs. bad) rather than to the potency (e.g., weak vs. powerful) and activity dimensions (e.g., active vs. passive) of semantic differential research. For a basic statement, see Osgood, C. E., Tannenbaum, P. H., and Suci, G. J., The Measurement of Meaning (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1957).Google Scholar For ease of response and subsequent processing, the semantic differential-type items were grouped on one page. However, anchor effects were not anticipated. For evidence about the absence of such effects, see ibid., 84–85; Sommer, R., “Anchor Effects and the Semantic Differential,” American Journal of Psychology 78 (1965), 317–18CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and Heise, David R., “The Semantic Differential and Attitude Research,” in Sommers, Gene, ed., Attitude Measurement (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1970), 240.Google Scholar

35 The statements were non-empirical and biased in order to measure affect. They were also constructed with the view to increasing response variance.

36 The questionnaire is available from the authors while the dataset and questionnaire are available from the Data Archives, Carleton University, Ottawa, KIJ 5B6. A full description of the survey appears in Twiss, James E., “The Structure of Party Solidarity in the Ontario Legislative Assembly” (unpublished M.A. thesis, Wilfrid Laurier University, 1974).Google Scholar

37 The eigen-valve one criterion was used for rotation along with squared multiple correlations as communality estimates.

38 The high loading on factor 1 of attitude to public auto insurance may also result from the fact that it was a highly visible, partisan issue in the preceding provincial election, held in 1971. Conservative and NDP respondents, polarized already on factor 1, may have been more inclined to adopt polar positions on auto insurance because it had become a partisan as well as a left-right issue.

39 Besides, recent NDP caucuses at Queen's Park included Professors Pitman, Cassidy, and Bounsall while the leaders of the Ontario Waffle were Professors Laxer and Watkins.

40 Horowitz, Canadian Labour.

41 In this respect, Conservative elites are undoubtedly different from the mass of their supporters, especially in rural Ontario.

42 Wilson and Hoffman noted the unusual support granted to provincial Conservatives by Franco-Ontarian voters. “The Liberal Party in Contemporary Ontario Politics,” 187–88.

43 An examination of the relationship between Catholicism and anti-semitism in Quebec appears in Betcherman, Lita-Rose, The Swastika and the Maple Leaf (Don Mills, Ontario: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1975).Google Scholar

44 Grant, Lament and Horowitz, Canadian Labour.

45 Eysenck, H. J., The Psychology of Politics (London: 1954)Google Scholar, chap. 4. See also Lipset, Seymour M., “Class, Politics and Religion in Modern Society: The Dilemma of the Conservative,” in Lipset, Seymour M. (ed.), Revolution and Counter-Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1968).Google Scholar

46 Hoffman and Ward, Bilingualism and Biculturalism.

47 According to data provided by the respondents. On religion as a system of social stratification, see Porter, The Vertical Mosaic, 98ff.

48 Grant, Lament, 64n.

49 Winn, and Twiss, , “Some Levels of Analysis Problems in the Spatial Analysis of Political Cleavage,” IPSA Congress, Edinburgh, August, 1976.Google Scholar

50 Meisel, “Religious Affiliation and Electoral Behaviour.”

51 See Lijpart, Arend, “Consociational Democracy,” World Politics 31 (1969), 207–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Noel, S. F. R., “Consociational Democracy and Canadian Federalism,” this Journal 4(1971), 15–17.Google Scholar