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    Canadian Political Science Association
    2020 Annual Conference Programme

    Confronting Political Divides
    Hosted at Western University
    Tuesday, June 2 to Thursday, June 4, 2020
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    Presidential Address:
    Barbara Arneil, CPSA President

    Origins:
    Colonies and Statistics

    Location:
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 05:00pm to 06:00pm
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    KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
    Ayelet Shachar
    The Shifting Border:
    Legal Cartographies of Migration
    and Mobility

    Location:
    June 04, 2020 | 01:30 to 03:00 pm
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    Keynote Speaker: Marc Hetherington
    Why Modern Elections
    Feel Like a Matter of
    Life and Death

    Location:
    Wednesday, June 3, 2020 | 03:45pm to 05:15pm
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    Plenary Panel
    Indigenous Politics and
    the Problem of Canadian
    Political Science

    Location: Arts & Humanities Building - AHB 1R40
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 10:30am to 12:00pm

Canadian Politics



A10(a) - Party Discipline 1

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Michelle Caplan (Western University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : JF Godbout (Univeristé de Montréal)

Stages of Deliberation Before a Canadian Parliamentarian Crosses the Floor: Alex Marland (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Mireille Lalancette (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières), Jared Wesley (University of Alberta)
Abstract: Switching parties is a monumental event in an elected representative’s political career. We know little about the hidden negotiation processes that climax in the public announcement that a member of a legislature is leaving one party to join another. This research theorizes the stages of deliberation that politicians pass through as they contemplate whether to cross the floor. It reports on findings from in-depth interviews with Canadian federal and provincial party switchers as well as some party leaders and political staff. The findings are supplemented with a review of publicly reported explanations offered by floor crosses at the time of the switch and some accounts in autobiographies. The results shed new light on elite politics, political power and representative democracy.


The Grass Versus the Brass: What Can Independent-minded Legislators Get Away with in a System of Strict Party Discipline?: Cristine De Clercy (Western University), Alex Marland (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Abstract: Party discipline is a central organizing principle in democratic political systems. Particularly in the context of modern mediated communications, it entails strict control of partisan messaging at a broad policy level as well as in the everyday interactions of elected legislators. This is true across political systems and party lines. However, not all caucus members accept the leadership’s message diktats equally: some legislators seek to evade such strictures on their communications. In this study we explore the message autonomy of individual legislators within the context of strict party discipline. Our research question asks: "What can independent-minded legislators get away with in a system of strict party discipline?" We investigate this research question in the context of Canada’s House of Commons, a democratic legislature that perennially features very strict party discipline. While some extant studies have traced the broad contours of dissent in legislative voting, our study is much more granular, focusing intensively on the experiences and views of individual legislators. We analyse the content of two different sets of interview data containing the views of elected Members of Parliament to probe the message autonomy of MPs. We conclude that independently-minded MPs have much more message autonomy than is expected, and such acts of messaging dissent often are justified in terms of fulfilling a legislator’s sense of democratic duty, or in terms of preserving their reputations as credible political actors.


Partied out? Elite Views on Representation and Party Discipline in Canada: Paul Thomas (Samara Centre for Democracy), Michael Morden (Samara Centre for Democracy), Adelina Petit-Vouriot (Samara Centre for Democracy)
Abstract: Canada has long seen concerns from scholars and citizens that excessive party discipline is undermining the democratic role of parliamentarians. Rather than constituency champions, MPs and election candidates are at best seen as “brand ambassadors” for their parties (Marland, 2019), or at worst as “trained seals” that applaud their leaders on demand. Yet evidence concerning MPs’ own views on discipline is mixed. In exit interviews, former MPs regularly voice frustration that discipline hinders their ability to represent their communities or collaborate with MPs from other parties (Loat and MacMillan, 2014). However, Docherty (1997) also documents how Reform Party MPs who originally questioned the value of discipline came to see its benefits after inconsistent messaging hurt the party’s public standing. So what do MPs – and those aspiring to join them – really believe about the balance between discipline and representation? Drawing on the Samara Centre for Democracy’s series of annual surveys with sitting MPs and its survey of candidates for the 2019 federal election, this paper explores elite views on representation and discipline in Canadian politics. It finds that while elites express dissatisfaction with the state of debate and discussion in the House of Commons and prioritize constituency representation over party loyalty, they remain largely satisfied with the operation of their own parties and oppose some reforms that might reduce parties’ roles in structuring parliamentary activities. These findings suggest that Canada’s political elites see more benefit in strong parties than is often assumed, helping to explain the continuation of discipline.




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