The comparative literature has devoted considerable attention to why individuals join political parties. This is especially important in the context of the declining party membership and activism that political parties face in contemporary politics. While the question of why members join parties has been well-documented, considerably less work has considered incentives to join other party positions. In the Canadian case, for example, we know very little about the incentives to join an electoral district association (EDA). This is surprising given the consequential role—both formal and informal—that local party associations and their presidents have been known to play in intra-party politics (influencing candidate nomination, membership recruitment and so forth). This study applies Clark and Wilson's (1961) framework of material, solidary and purposive incentives to local party association membership and asks why individuals join their local party executive and whether this motivation shapes the subsequent character of the EDA.

Depuis le lancement en 2016 du mégaprojet d'exploitation minière à ciel ouvert de l’« Arc minier de l'Orénoque » au Venezuela, plusieurs groupes armés appelés sindicatos ont pris possession de certains territoires d'extraction. En faisant nôtre la définition wéberienne de l’État, nous formons l'hypothèse selon laquelle le groupement politique du sindicato présent sur l'un de ces territoires, celui de Las Claritas, peut être qualifié d’État embryonnaire. Poursuivant alors les interrogations de Bourdieu sur l’émergence de l’État, nous cherchons à documenter le processus d’étatisation et à témoigner de la façon dont les « bandits » deviennent des « princes ». Basée sur une démarche ethnographique et documentaire, notre recherche nous conduit à mettre en avant quatre mécanismes participant au processus d’étatisation : l'institutionnalisation, la monopolisation, la légitimation et la démarcation.

This article examines statements issued by municipal governments, local organizations, and Indigenous communities that cancelled Canada Day celebrations in 2021, following news confirming physical evidence of unmarked graves at former residential schools. We argue that the statements reflect political logics of the past, present, and future, including dominant national narratives of liberal multiculturalism, residual logics of white nationalism, and emergent, transformative projects of Indigenous-defined reconciliation and resurgence. Through dominant narratives, the policy of cancelling Canada Day is presented as an expression of Canadian values, while settler-colonialism is obscured. Meanwhile, the residual white nationalism of the post-Confederation movement surfaces as statements tend to speak to an imagined normative Canadian subject who—only temporarily—suspends their celebration of the nation-state. Finally, the statements evidence emergent political forces, including Indigenous articulations of transformative reconciliation, resistance to settler-colonialism, and expressions of sovereignty, which signal the potential for major shifts in practices of national celebration in Canada.

The proliferation of agencies and arm's-length bodies provides opportunities for elected governments to reassert political control in a fragmented public service through staffing and board appointments. We have little basis to make systematic claims about the politicization of agencies in Canada. This study addresses this gap by drawing on the Government of Canada's Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey (SNPS) micro data from 2018 and 2021, which surveys employees in departments and agencies with questions related to political impartiality in carrying out government duties. We ask: Do employees in agencies in the Government of Canada report a climate of less political impartiality than those working in conventional departments? The data reveals that those working in agencies are less likely to report their organizations acting impartially politically in carrying out their duties than those in conventional departments, though this is driven largely by particular types of agencies, namely those focused on enforcement.

Les élections municipales de 2021 à la Ville de Québec ont été marquées par une forte compétition entre cinq candidats et une saillance des enjeux concernant la construction d'un tramway et d'un troisième lien autoroutier entre Québec et sa Rive-Sud. Ainsi, cette élection représente un contexte idéal pour étudier le comportement électoral au niveau local et plus spécifiquement le vote sur enjeu qui a été très peu étudié dans le contexte municipal. Nous soutenons que ces deux enjeux ont acquis une valeur symbolique et ont été exploités comme enjeu de brèche par le candidat à la mairie Jean-François Gosselin. À l'aide d'une analyse multivariée, nous testons la relation entre l'appui aux deux projets de transport et l'intention de vote. Nos résultats montrent que les attitudes des électeurs envers ces deux enjeux sont fortement corrélées avec leur choix de vote et suggèrent une continuité entre le comportement électoral municipal, provincial et fédéral, du moins lorsqu'il est question de vote sur les enjeux.

According to the “miracle of aggregation” principle, in the absence of systematic biases, errors in individual judgments within a population should cancel each other out and lead to a correct decision at the aggregate level. This article explores potential individual- and group-level correlates of the accuracy of citizens’ electoral expectations and investigates how potential markers of political sophistication—namely, educational attainment and political interest—could be used to improve upon the raw aggregation of citizens’ forecasts using massive survey datasets collected during six Canadian national and provincial election campaigns between 2011 and 2022 (n = 279,003). We find that while educational attainment and interest increase the probability of a correct forecast at the individual level, delegating the forecasting task based on these variables does not necessarily lead to improvements in the accuracy of aggregate-level predictions. At the group level, we fail to uncover any evidence that sociological or informational diversity increases forecasting accuracy.