Little is known about the motivations and activity patterns of party workers in Western democracies other than the United States. Equally important, linkages between different motives for initiating and sustaining party work and levels of activity within party organizations are virtually unexplored, and hence, the analytic utility of motivational variables remains problematic. To help fill these lacunae in the scholarly literature, this paper focuses on the motivational patterns and activity levels of members of one Canadian party-the Ontario Liberals. In accordance with expectations, the data reveal considerable motivational diversity as well as substantial motivational "reorientation and change" over time. Regression analyses indicate that "partisanship" and "friendship for candidate" motives have statistically significant independent effects on intraparty participation rates. Additionally, the regression analyses suggest that variables repeatedly found to correlate with political participation in studies of mass publics may have little power to explain differential participation within party organizations.

Motivational Patterns and Differential Participation in a Canadian Party: The Ontario Liberals

This paper reconsiders whether federal and provincial parties are as independent and separate as the literature would suggest. Examining five different types of party personnel (party members, activists, riding presidents, candidates and legislators) this paper explores how federal parties and their counterparts in Ontario have responded to multi-level governance. Rather than embracing “two political worlds,” party personnel have responded to the federal nature of Canadian politics by engaging with parties at multiple levels. Additionally, the paper examines two competing explanations of party integration and seeks to uncover whether differences organizational design or ideological consistency best explain divergent levels of party integration. The experience of the Conservatives demonstrates that vertical integration is not a result of a party's organizational design alone and that a coherent ideology can help to offset a truncated organizational structure.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0008423914000407

Reconsidering Vertical Integration: An Examination of National Political Parties and Their Counterparts in Ontario

This article examines the process by which potential candidates are identified and nominated to stand for election to the Canadian House of Commons. Interviews with 189 individuals who survived the process to become members of the 28th Parliament are used to identify several of the more important personal and political background characteristics that bring prospective candidates to the attention of local party organizations and make them attractive nominees for parliament. Prior service to the party, previous electoral experience, and exceptionally high social status rank among the principal attributes of attractiveness. Candidates who possess several of these traits are more likely not only to be nominated for parliament and to receive the nomination with minimal opposition but also to be nominated in electorally safe, or at least winnable, constituencies.

Nominating Attractive Candidates for Parliament: Recruitment to the Canadian House of Commons

The accepted view of contemporary federal-provincial party relations in Canada is one of independence, distance, and separation. Rather than creating vertical linkages that bridge the federal and provincial jurisdictions, parties are said to have created “two political worlds”, each separate and distinct from the other. The primary purpose of this study is to challenge, or at the very least question, this conventional wisdom about Canadian politics: do parties truly inhabit two political worlds? This is particularly relevant given that there has been very little research on the subject of party integration in the last two decades. Emphasizing the informal, the human, and the local aspects of vertical party integration, this study demonstrates the considerable linkages that exist between federal and provincial parties in Ontario. The analysis presented here reveals a number of important multi-level connections including overlapping personnel, the provision of campaign endorsements, shared campaign teams, the sharing of party resources, and joint social activities and policy discussions in the inter-election period.
There is, however, considerable inter-party variation. Therefore, the second purpose of this study is to explain differences among parties. Not all parties respond to multi-level governance in the same way, and it is important to uncover the factors that lead to greater levels of cooperation and collaboration. In doing so, the study evaluates two possible explanations (one based on shared and consistent ideology and another based on formal organizational interconnectedness). While the organizational view tends to dominate the literature, this study demonstrates that organizationally truncated parties (those that operate only at a single level) can establish strong and meaningful multi-level linkages in the absence of any formal organizational connections if they have a coherent ideology that spans the federal and provincial realms. This coherent ideology helps to build informal norms of cooperation and collaboration and encourages individuals to participate for the same party at both levels.

/pdf/two-political-worlds-reconsidering-vertical-party-3acfuom00j.pdf

Two Political Worlds? Reconsidering Vertical Party Integration In Canada: Evidence From Ontario

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, using survey data from Canadian constituency associations, the article explores the extent to which federal and provincial parties engage in cross-jurisdictional coordination. In doing so, this study builds on and empirically tests findings that have been derived from earlier case studies (i.e. Koop, 2011). Far from inhabiting ‘two political worlds’ the data reveal that parties are much more connected than previously thought. Second, the article seeks to uncover why some parties and associations are more integrated than others. Examining organizational design, the article concludes that vertical party integration is not simply an organizational phenomenon, as organizationally truncated parties still engage in modest levels of informal integration. In addition, constituency level factors are also considered. The results of a multinomial logistic regression demonstrate that parties are significantly more integrated in districts where they are electoral...

Two Political Worlds? Multi-level Campaign Integration in Canadian Constituencies

The Congruence of Federal-Provincial Campaign Activity in Party Organizations: The Influence of Recruitment Patterns in Three Hamilton Ridings

L'articulation des composantes sociales de la clientele electorate et de la structure organisationnelle des partis politiques a une grande ville canadienne La presente etude traite de la facon dont les partis politiques s'organisent dans les circonscriptions electorales socialement heterogenes. A l'aide des resultats d'un sondage effectue aupres des electeurs de trois comtes lors des elections federales de 1968 et d'une enquete sur les caracteristiques sociales des membres des comites executifs des partis dans ces comtes, les auteurs entendent verifier l'hypothese selon laquelle les partis politiques ont des assises electorales et organisationnelles qui sont etroitement reliees a certains agregats socio-economiques fondes sur l'occupation, l'education, le revenu, l'origine ethnique et la religion. En general, il appert que de tels rapports existent et qu'ils soient plus prononces en ce qui a trait a la composition sociale des organisations executives qu'a celle des electorats. De plus, il n'apparait pas possible, sauf dans le cas de la religion, d'ordonner simultanement les trois partis politiques sur une seule dimension sociale. Ainsi, la classe sociale (i.e., l'occupation et le revenu) ne permet d'etablir une distinction qu'entre les Neo-democrates (les pauvres) et les Conservateurs (les plus riches), l'origine ethnique qu'entre les Liberaux d'une part et les deux autres partis d'autre part, et l'anciennete de migration qu'entre les Conservateurs d'une part (plus de deux generations) et les Liberaux et Neo-democrates d'autre part (moins de trois generations).

Patrick Smith

Papers

The Congruence of Federal-Provincial Campaign Activity in Party Organizations: The Influence of Recruitment Patterns in Three Hamilton Ridings

Social Articulation and Aggregation in Political Party Organizations in a Large Canadian City