Session: A6 - Roundtable: Reconsidering the 4th Party System

Date: Jun 1, 2016 | Time: 08:45am to 10:15am | Location: Science Theatres 128

Chair/Présidente: Laura Stephenson (University of Western Ontario)

Participants & Authors/Auteurs:

R. Kenneth Carty (University of British Columbia)

William Cross (Carleton University)

Lisa Young (University of Calgary)

Much of the literature on Canadian parties suggests that a new party system emerged with the 1993 election.

Much of the literature on Canadian parties suggests that a new party system emerged with the 1993 election. The principal argument, advanced by Carty, Cross & Young (2000) was that the new system was characterized by five principal features: the emergence and impact of new parties (Reform and the Bloc), the regionalization of party politics, the diversification (particularly ideologically) of parties, the democratization of party organizations, and the fragmentation of the electorate. Together, the argument goes, these features had a profound significance for the character and quality of democracy in Canada. While some have argued that this system ended with the election of the Conservatives in 2004 (for example, Walchuk 2012) we have resisted this view. Rather, we suspect that the period from 1993 to 2015 reflected the implications of the dynamics that we earlier identified as a fourth party system. This roundtable will reconsider whether this period can properly be considered a distinct system and whether the 2015 election marks a new equilibrium in terms of party politics and a breaking point from the system in place post- 1993.