Scott Pruyser
Biographic Data
| ID | 352650 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Scott Pruyser |
| GIVEN NAMES | Scott |
| FAMILY NAME | Pruyser |
| SIGNATURE | PRUYSER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Dalhousie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5557-0404 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 315 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The winner-loser gap and support for remote voting methods – evidence from Canadian municipal elections
Election outcomes are known to affect satisfaction with democracy, such that supporters of “losing” candidates experience a decline in democratic satisfaction relative to those who vote for “winners.” At the same time, the American experience of politicization of mail voting in the 2020 U.S presidential election suggests that electoral losers may seek to delegitimize voting methods that they view as contributing to their loss. Drawing on an origi…
Explaining Unique and Common Variance in Financially Focused Self‐Concept From Dark Triad and Honesty‐Humility Personality Traits Using Commonality Analyses
We investigated the personality correlates of financially focused self-concept, a construct describing individuals who overemphasise financial success as central to their self-definition and self-worth. We examined the unique and shared associations between financially focused self-concept and the Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism) as well as Honesty-Humility at the facet level to provide greater specificity than tra…
Do strategic voters have a strategic personality? Examining the role of machiavellianism in strategic voting
Banking on victory? Gender, campaign spending, and candidate nomination outcomes in Canada
While candidate spending is a well-established predictor of electoral success in general elections, much less is known about the role of spending in intraparty elections. Drawing on a unique dataset of over 600 nomination contestants in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections, this study explores whether dynamics from the interparty arena also apply to the intraparty arena. We find that nomination contestant spending is positively associated wit…
Personality and (Negative) Partisanship in Canadian Federal Politics
This piece provides an in-depth examination of the relationship between personality and affective orientations (both positive and negative) towards political parties in a multi-party system. Using data from an original survey of nearly 1500 Canadians, it considers the questions of how personality traits are related to positive and negative partisanship, as well as how these traits drive partisanship towards the four major parties in English Canad…
Public Dollars, Private Discontent? Exploring Support for Direct State Funding of Political Parties in Canada
Many governments worldwide, including contemporary provincial ones in Canada, provide political parties with direct public subsidies to fund their day‐to‐day operations and campaigns. While the literature considers the spread, scope, and motivations for party subventions, very little attention has been devoted to assessing its support among the public. We consider this question by examining evidence from the 2015 Canadian Election Study. Our find…
Stratarchy, Gender, and Candidate Nomination: Tension Within the Party Organisation
Try, Try Again? Are Unsuccessful Leadership Contestants Sore Losers
Elections, even intra-party ones, create winners and losers. A number of recent studies have revealed a 'sore losers' effect among a number of party actors. The evidence suggests that those who support a losing candidate in an internal party election are significantly less likely to remain active and involved in party politics compared to those who supported the winner. Much less, however, is known about the losing candidates themselves. This pap…
Putting their money where their mouth is: The gendered dynamics of central party financial transfers to local election candidates
Political parties around the world have made widely publicized efforts to improve women’s representation in elected office. While many have investigated these efforts by focusing on gender dynamics during candidate recruitment and selection, party support for women after they are nominated remains somewhat under-analysed. We begin addressing this gap by asking if central party bodies provide women candidates with additional financial support duri…
Supermarket politics: Personality and Political Consumerism
Research suggests that citizens are increasingly turning to the market to express their political beliefs and values. Termed ‘political consumerism’, such behaviour can take a variety of forms—including boycotts and buycotts. While recent research has uncovered many of the sociodemographic and attitudinal correlates of political consumer behaviour, other individual differences, such as those rooted in personality, have been less studied. Drawing …
Incentives to Join a Local Party Association: Evidence from Canada
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…
Dark Triad Traits and Cyberbullying Perpetration: Addressing Current Limitations in Dark Triad Studies
Online and Unkind: Examining the Personality Correlates of Online Political Incivility
Many forms of online political incivility threaten democratic norms, contribute to polarization, and are often directed at women and racial minorities. Recent research shows that online political incivility may come from a minority of users that are just as hostile offline as they are online, meaning that individual differences in personality traits may be an important predictor of online political incivility. Drawing upon a large sample of adult…
Fear of Crime and Anti-Refugee Sentiments: Evidence from Canada
Many states have witnessed growing xenophobia and hostility towards refugees alongside the framing of refugees as a serious security or criminal threat in public discourse. Making use of an original cross-national survey of adults in Canada, this article explores the link between fear of crime and negative views of refugees. Its results reveal that even after controlling for alternative explanations, people with more fear of crime are significant…
Sour Grapes? Party Donors and Canadian Leadership Primaries
Political parties around the world are adopting primaries to select leaders and legislative candidates. While a large, though inconclusive, literature has emerged in the American context to explore the consequences of primaries, little attention has been devoted to other national contexts. Exploring patterns of financial donation, this study examines whether individuals who supported a losing leadership candidate are less likely to exhibit subseq…
Fair-Weather Voters: Personality and Vote Switching Intentions
While numerous explanations for vote-switching have been proposed (e.g. declining rates of partisanship, ideological shifts, partisan ambivalence, change in policy preferences), far less work has examined the personality profile of people more likely to engage in this behaviour. In Study 1, we examined the relationship between both general (i.e. openness, conscientiousness) and antagonistic (i.e. psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism) persona…
Lifeblood of the Party: Motivations for Political Donations in Canada
Monetary donations from individuals have become the lifeblood of electoral and partisan politics in Canada, yet we know remarkably little about who these donors are, what motivates them to give, and whether their interactions are primarily with national or local party organizations. This article reports findings from a survey of donors to federal-level political parties in Canada. Our analysis identifies two distinct sets of motivations for donat…
Post-Secondary Education and Canadian Political Behavior: How are the Level and Field of Study related to Turnout and Partisanship
Education is a well-known correlate of many political attitudes and behaviors. Despite the concept’s ubiquitous use by researchers, however, few studies take seriously the question of how it should be operationalized. Measures of level of education are used inconsistently and coding decisions are rarely justified. More importantly, the relationship between the field of education and important outcome variables have been completely overlooked in C…
Does Democracy Die in Darkness? An Examination of the Relationship between Local Newspaper Health and Turnout in Municipal Politics
This study is, to our knowledge, the first quantitative analyses of the relationship between local print newspaper health and voter turnout in Canadian municipal elections. Municipal turnout is understudied in Canada, and the few studies on the topic overlook the role of local media. This cross-sectional study fills a gap in the literature by determining the relationship between local print newspaper health and municipal election turnout in a uni…
The Canadian Municipal Election Study
It is in this context of rapid growth of the field of local political behaviour that we introduce the Canadian Municipal Election Study (CMES) dataset. With a total sample size of 14,458, the dataset includes survey responses from voters and non-voters in eight of Canada’s largest cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, London, Mississauga, Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City. Cities were chosen on the basis of size, contextual variation, and instit…
Who Complies and Who Defies? Personality and Public Health Compliance
During the first wave of the pandemic, governments introduced public health measures in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus enough to “flatten the curve”. These measures required behavioral changes among ordinary individuals for the collective good of many. We explore how personality might explain who complies with social distancing measures and who defies these directives. We also examine whether providing people with information about th…
The Dark Side of Politics: Participation and the Dark Triad
Personality traits are one piece in the larger puzzle of political participation, but most studies focus on the Five-Factor Model of personality. We argue that the normative implications of the influence of personality on politics are increased when the personality traits being studied correlate with negative social behaviors. We investigate the role of the Dark Triad on political participation as mediated through political beliefs such as intere…
Glass Cliffs or Partisan Pressure? Examining Gender and Party Leader Tenures and Exits
This article adds to our understanding of the gendered impact of informal rules and norms for party leaders. Specifically, it examines the gendered nature of party leader tenures and exits. Using original data collected on party leader experiences in Canada, we test for the existence of gender differences in leader tenures and exits, and examine two potential explanations for any differences. We find that leader tenures and exits are indeed gende…
A psychological predisposition towards populism? Evidence from Canada
Despite a long tradition linking individual differences in personality to a variety of different political outlooks and philosophies, little attention has been devoted to the potential relationship between personality and populist attitudes. Drawing on survey data from more than 2,500 Canadians of voting age, this article provides a first look at the relationship between personality (general and dark traits) and populist attitudes. Even when cont…
Partisanship, motivated reasoning and the notwithstanding Clause: The case of provincially imposed redistricting in the city of Toronto
Little work has considered the effects of using (or threatening to use) the Notwithstanding Clause upon public opinion towards a contested policy, or how partisans respond to its use. Using data from the Canadian Municipal Election Study, we consider these questions in the case of provincially imposed city council redistricting in Toronto in 2018. Experimental results reveal that, when reminded of the provincial government’s threat of using the N…
Why Won't Lola Run? An Experiment Examining Stereotype Threat and Political Ambition
Among the most well-documented and long-standing gender gaps in political behavior are those relating to political ambition, as men have consistently been shown to express a significantly higher level of political ambition than women. Although this gap is well established, the reasons for the differences between men and women remain largely unknown. One possible explanation is that negative stereotypes about women's political ability are responsi…
Party Primaries: Towards a Definition and Typology
While primaries were once associated almost exclusively with the United States, similar methods for selecting party leaders and candidates have lately become common in many parliamentary democracies. This considerable expansion of intra-party democracy has resulted in the rising popularity and increased usage of the term 'primary' election. However, despite the popularisation of the term, little work has been done to create a clear definition and…
Candidate Selection in Canada: Local Autonomy, Centralization, and Competing Democratic Norms
This article examines how political parties choose their candidates in Canada's decentralized multilevel setting. We examine the selection practices of the leading federal parties, focusing on the formal and informal rules relating to the eligibility and mobilization of voters and candidates, the distribution of power within the party, and representational outcomes. In doing so, we highlight how Canadian parties have approached the trade-off betw…
Narcissistic Women and Cash-Strapped Men: Who Can Be Encouraged to Consider Running for Political Office, and Who Should Do the Encouraging
This paper not only considers whether encouragement can be an effective tool for increasing political ambition, but it also asks whether the source of that encouragement matters. That is, are some sources of encouragement more credible and effective than others? In addition, it explores the profiles of those individuals who are most likely to be receptive to recruitment, accounting for factors such as age, gender, income, education, political int…
Sore losers? The costs of intra-party democracy
Drawing upon the ‘satisfaction with democracy’ and ‘divisive primary’ literatures, this article examines how losers of intra-party elections respond to defeat and the consequences that these choices have on party organization and strength. In other words, do losers of intra-party elections continue to support the party or do they, like losers of general elections, feel less satisfied with democracy and withdraw their support (or even ‘exit’ the p…
The Local Determinants of Representation: Party Constituency Associations, Candidate Nomination and Gender
It is well established that political parties play a key role as gatekeepers to elected office. This article explores the local determinants of a diverse candidate pool. In particular, we seek to uncover the district- or riding-specific party factors that are related to women's participation in the parties’ candidate nomination stages. That is, why do some nomination races in a party have no women contestants, while others have many? Using data f…
Glass Cliffs or Partisan Pressure? Examining Gender and Party Leader Tenures and Exits
This article adds to our understanding of the gendered impact of informal rules and norms for party leaders. Specifically, it examines the gendered nature of party leader tenures and exits. Using original data collected on party leader experiences in Canada, we test for the existence of gender differences in leader tenures and exits, and examine two potential explanations for any differences. We find that leader tenures and exits are indeed gende…
Why Do They Run? The Psychological Underpinnings of Political Ambition
What drives individuals toward a career in politics? Prior research on political ambition has often focused on socio-demographic variables while generally ignoring the importance of individual personality differences. Yet personality consistently predicts political knowledge, interest and participation, suggesting that individual differences may matter in addition to resources and the social environment. To this end, we assess the impact of both …
A psychological predisposition towards populism? Evidence from Canada
Despite a long tradition linking individual differences in personality to a variety of different political outlooks and philosophies, little attention has been devoted to the potential relationship between personality and populist attitudes. Drawing on survey data from more than 2,500 Canadians of voting age, this article provides a first look at the relationship between personality (general and dark traits) and populist attitudes. Even when cont…
The Dark Side of Politics: Participation and the Dark Triad
Personality traits are one piece in the larger puzzle of political participation, but most studies focus on the Five-Factor Model of personality. We argue that the normative implications of the influence of personality on politics are increased when the personality traits being studied correlate with negative social behaviors. We investigate the role of the Dark Triad on political participation as mediated through political beliefs such as intere…
Research Note: Negative” Personalization: Party Leaders and Party Strategy
While the negative campaigning literature has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years, the precise targets of campaign negativity have not been fully explored, as candidates and their parties are largely treated as the same target. Likewise, although scholars are increasingly writing about the personalization of politics, this literature has not considered whether parties can “personalize” their opponents by focusing their messaging and attac…
Anything women can do men can do better: An experiment examining the effects of stereotype threat on political knowledge and efficacy
Negative stereotypes have been shown to create cognitive burdens that decrease intellectual performance in a number of tasks such as math and standardized tests. Applying a multidisciplinary approach and an experimental research design, this paper examines the effect of stereotype threat on political knowledge and political efficacy. A sample of 226 undergraduate students completed an online survey on political knowledge and efficacy. Participant…
Reconsidering Vertical Integration: An Examination of National Political Parties and Their Counterparts in Ontario
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…
A Little Encouragement Goes a (not so) Long Way: An Experiment to Increase Political Ambition
Although there is a significant gender gap in political ambition, the literature has shown that women are responsive to encouragement to run for office. As a result, both political parties and other organizations have adopted online campaigns to encourage women to seek political candidacy. The purpose of this study is to explore whether forms of online and impersonal encouragement can result in higher levels of political ambition among recipients…
Putting their money where their mouth is: The gendered dynamics of central party financial transfers to local election candidates
Political parties around the world have made widely publicized efforts to improve women’s representation in elected office. While many have investigated these efforts by focusing on gender dynamics during candidate recruitment and selection, party support for women after they are nominated remains somewhat under-analysed. We begin addressing this gap by asking if central party bodies provide women candidates with additional financial support duri…
Money talks: Decentralized personalism and the sources of campaign funding
Two Political Worlds? Multi-level Campaign Integration in Canadian Constituencies
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 connecte…
Sour Grapes? Party Donors and Canadian Leadership Primaries
Political parties around the world are adopting primaries to select leaders and legislative candidates. While a large, though inconclusive, literature has emerged in the American context to explore the consequences of primaries, little attention has been devoted to other national contexts. Exploring patterns of financial donation, this study examines whether individuals who supported a losing leadership candidate are less likely to exhibit subseq…
Nationalization and Regionalization in the Canadian Party System, 1867–2015
The regionalization of the Canadian party system is a topic that has occupied Canadian scholars for decades. While there have undoubtedly been periods of significant regionalization (for example, the 1990s) and while these periods have been well documented, there has been very little systematic study of regionalization/nationalization in the Canadian party system. We address this gap by exploring nationalization of the Canadian party system from …
Mediated ambition? Gender, news and the desire to seek elected office
A gender gap in nascent political ambition is among the best documented in political behaviour. Although the reasons for this gender gap are numerous, it has often been speculated that the media might be partly responsible for suppressing ambition among women. Considerable evidence shows that women in politics are generally subject to more attention being paid to their appearance, marital status and sex than their male counterparts. Does this kin…
Vertical party integration: Informal and human linkages between elections in a Canadian province
Examining multi-level vertical party linkages in Canada’s largest province, this paper makes two primary contributions to the literature. First, drawing on data from a unique survey of constituency associations, the paper focuses on an often unexplored aspect of parties: their local organisations. Second, the paper offers an exploratory analysis of constituency level factors in order to determine which types of constituency associations are the m…
The Canadian Municipal Election Study
It is in this context of rapid growth of the field of local political behaviour that we introduce the Canadian Municipal Election Study (CMES) dataset. With a total sample size of 14,458, the dataset includes survey responses from voters and non-voters in eight of Canada’s largest cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, London, Mississauga, Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City. Cities were chosen on the basis of size, contextual variation, and instit…
Stratarchy, Gender, and Candidate Nomination: Tension Within the Party Organisation
Online and Unkind: Examining the Personality Correlates of Online Political Incivility
Many forms of online political incivility threaten democratic norms, contribute to polarization, and are often directed at women and racial minorities. Recent research shows that online political incivility may come from a minority of users that are just as hostile offline as they are online, meaning that individual differences in personality traits may be an important predictor of online political incivility. Drawing upon a large sample of adult…
Incumbency and Competitiveness in City Council Elections: How Accurate Are Voter Perceptions
Incumbent city councillors have an almost insurmountable advantage in Canadian municipal elections. This article aims to improve our understanding of the municipal incumbency advantage by considering the ability of electors to correctly identify the two most competitive candidates in one's ward and the factors associated with being able to do so. Using survey data from the Canadian Municipal Election Study (CMES), we consider the case of the 2018…
Anything women can do men can do better: An experiment examining the effects of stereotype threat on political knowledge and efficacy
Negative stereotypes have been shown to create cognitive burdens that decrease intellectual performance in a number of tasks such as math and standardized tests. Applying a multidisciplinary approach and an experimental research design, this paper examines the effect of stereotype threat on political knowledge and political efficacy. A sample of 226 undergraduate students completed an online survey on political knowledge and efficacy. Participant…
Reconsidering Vertical Integration: An Examination of National Political Parties and Their Counterparts in Ontario
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…
Two Political Worlds? Multi-level Campaign Integration in Canadian Constituencies
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 connecte…
Party Primaries: Towards a Definition and Typology
While primaries were once associated almost exclusively with the United States, similar methods for selecting party leaders and candidates have lately become common in many parliamentary democracies. This considerable expansion of intra-party democracy has resulted in the rising popularity and increased usage of the term 'primary' election. However, despite the popularisation of the term, little work has been done to create a clear definition and…
Party integration at the grassroots: Evidence from Canada
Party integration at the grassroots: evidence from Canada. Territory, Politics, Governance. Party organization and electoral competition are increasingly taking place within structures of multilevel governance. While a growing body of literature has recently emerged, quantifying linkages between national and sub-national political parties, considerably less attention has been devoted to understanding theoretically how parties cooperate with one a…
Vertical party integration: Informal and human linkages between elections in a Canadian province
Examining multi-level vertical party linkages in Canada’s largest province, this paper makes two primary contributions to the literature. First, drawing on data from a unique survey of constituency associations, the paper focuses on an often unexplored aspect of parties: their local organisations. Second, the paper offers an exploratory analysis of constituency level factors in order to determine which types of constituency associations are the m…
Research Note: Negative” Personalization: Party Leaders and Party Strategy
While the negative campaigning literature has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years, the precise targets of campaign negativity have not been fully explored, as candidates and their parties are largely treated as the same target. Likewise, although scholars are increasingly writing about the personalization of politics, this literature has not considered whether parties can “personalize” their opponents by focusing their messaging and attac…
Candidate Selection in Canada: Local Autonomy, Centralization, and Competing Democratic Norms
This article examines how political parties choose their candidates in Canada's decentralized multilevel setting. We examine the selection practices of the leading federal parties, focusing on the formal and informal rules relating to the eligibility and mobilization of voters and candidates, the distribution of power within the party, and representational outcomes. In doing so, we highlight how Canadian parties have approached the trade-off betw…
Why Won't Lola Run? An Experiment Examining Stereotype Threat and Political Ambition
Among the most well-documented and long-standing gender gaps in political behavior are those relating to political ambition, as men have consistently been shown to express a significantly higher level of political ambition than women. Although this gap is well established, the reasons for the differences between men and women remain largely unknown. One possible explanation is that negative stereotypes about women's political ability are responsi…
Narcissistic Women and Cash-Strapped Men: Who Can Be Encouraged to Consider Running for Political Office, and Who Should Do the Encouraging
This paper not only considers whether encouragement can be an effective tool for increasing political ambition, but it also asks whether the source of that encouragement matters. That is, are some sources of encouragement more credible and effective than others? In addition, it explores the profiles of those individuals who are most likely to be receptive to recruitment, accounting for factors such as age, gender, income, education, political int…
A Little Encouragement Goes a (not so) Long Way: An Experiment to Increase Political Ambition
Although there is a significant gender gap in political ambition, the literature has shown that women are responsive to encouragement to run for office. As a result, both political parties and other organizations have adopted online campaigns to encourage women to seek political candidacy. The purpose of this study is to explore whether forms of online and impersonal encouragement can result in higher levels of political ambition among recipients…
Mediated ambition? Gender, news and the desire to seek elected office
A gender gap in nascent political ambition is among the best documented in political behaviour. Although the reasons for this gender gap are numerous, it has often been speculated that the media might be partly responsible for suppressing ambition among women. Considerable evidence shows that women in politics are generally subject to more attention being paid to their appearance, marital status and sex than their male counterparts. Does this kin…
Sore losers? The costs of intra-party democracy
Drawing upon the ‘satisfaction with democracy’ and ‘divisive primary’ literatures, this article examines how losers of intra-party elections respond to defeat and the consequences that these choices have on party organization and strength. In other words, do losers of intra-party elections continue to support the party or do they, like losers of general elections, feel less satisfied with democracy and withdraw their support (or even ‘exit’ the p…
Why Do They Run? The Psychological Underpinnings of Political Ambition
What drives individuals toward a career in politics? Prior research on political ambition has often focused on socio-demographic variables while generally ignoring the importance of individual personality differences. Yet personality consistently predicts political knowledge, interest and participation, suggesting that individual differences may matter in addition to resources and the social environment. To this end, we assess the impact of both …
The Local Determinants of Representation: Party Constituency Associations, Candidate Nomination and Gender
It is well established that political parties play a key role as gatekeepers to elected office. This article explores the local determinants of a diverse candidate pool. In particular, we seek to uncover the district- or riding-specific party factors that are related to women's participation in the parties’ candidate nomination stages. That is, why do some nomination races in a party have no women contestants, while others have many? Using data f…
Partisanship, motivated reasoning and the notwithstanding Clause: The case of provincially imposed redistricting in the city of Toronto
Little work has considered the effects of using (or threatening to use) the Notwithstanding Clause upon public opinion towards a contested policy, or how partisans respond to its use. Using data from the Canadian Municipal Election Study, we consider these questions in the case of provincially imposed city council redistricting in Toronto in 2018. Experimental results reveal that, when reminded of the provincial government’s threat of using the N…
Nationalization and Regionalization in the Canadian Party System, 1867–2015
The regionalization of the Canadian party system is a topic that has occupied Canadian scholars for decades. While there have undoubtedly been periods of significant regionalization (for example, the 1990s) and while these periods have been well documented, there has been very little systematic study of regionalization/nationalization in the Canadian party system. We address this gap by exploring nationalization of the Canadian party system from …
Incumbency and Competitiveness in City Council Elections: How Accurate Are Voter Perceptions
Incumbent city councillors have an almost insurmountable advantage in Canadian municipal elections. This article aims to improve our understanding of the municipal incumbency advantage by considering the ability of electors to correctly identify the two most competitive candidates in one's ward and the factors associated with being able to do so. Using survey data from the Canadian Municipal Election Study (CMES), we consider the case of the 2018…
Money talks: Decentralized personalism and the sources of campaign funding
The Canadian Municipal Election Study
It is in this context of rapid growth of the field of local political behaviour that we introduce the Canadian Municipal Election Study (CMES) dataset. With a total sample size of 14,458, the dataset includes survey responses from voters and non-voters in eight of Canada’s largest cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, London, Mississauga, Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City. Cities were chosen on the basis of size, contextual variation, and instit…
Who Complies and Who Defies? Personality and Public Health Compliance
During the first wave of the pandemic, governments introduced public health measures in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus enough to “flatten the curve”. These measures required behavioral changes among ordinary individuals for the collective good of many. We explore how personality might explain who complies with social distancing measures and who defies these directives. We also examine whether providing people with information about th…
The Dark Side of Politics: Participation and the Dark Triad
Personality traits are one piece in the larger puzzle of political participation, but most studies focus on the Five-Factor Model of personality. We argue that the normative implications of the influence of personality on politics are increased when the personality traits being studied correlate with negative social behaviors. We investigate the role of the Dark Triad on political participation as mediated through political beliefs such as intere…
Glass Cliffs or Partisan Pressure? Examining Gender and Party Leader Tenures and Exits
This article adds to our understanding of the gendered impact of informal rules and norms for party leaders. Specifically, it examines the gendered nature of party leader tenures and exits. Using original data collected on party leader experiences in Canada, we test for the existence of gender differences in leader tenures and exits, and examine two potential explanations for any differences. We find that leader tenures and exits are indeed gende…
A psychological predisposition towards populism? Evidence from Canada
Despite a long tradition linking individual differences in personality to a variety of different political outlooks and philosophies, little attention has been devoted to the potential relationship between personality and populist attitudes. Drawing on survey data from more than 2,500 Canadians of voting age, this article provides a first look at the relationship between personality (general and dark traits) and populist attitudes. Even when cont…
Lifeblood of the Party: Motivations for Political Donations in Canada
Monetary donations from individuals have become the lifeblood of electoral and partisan politics in Canada, yet we know remarkably little about who these donors are, what motivates them to give, and whether their interactions are primarily with national or local party organizations. This article reports findings from a survey of donors to federal-level political parties in Canada. Our analysis identifies two distinct sets of motivations for donat…
Political science (37 works) · Politics (29 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (28 works) · Law (25 works) · Law (21 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (20 works) · Psychology (20 works) · Social Psychology (17 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Political economy (15 works)