The Liberal Party of Canada is one of the most successful parties in the democratic world. It dominated Canadian politics for a century, practising an inclusive style of “big tent” politics that allowed it to fend off opponents on both the left and right. How did it do this? What kind of party organization did it build over the decades to manage its remarkable string of election victories?

This book traces the record of the party over the twentieth century, revealing the cyclical character of its success and charting its capacity to respond to change. It also unwraps Liberal practices and organization to reveal the party’s distinctive “brokerage” approach to politics as well as a franchise-style structure that tied local grassroots supporters to the national leadership.

R. Kenneth Carty provides a masterful analysis of how one party came to lead the nation’s public life. In a country riven by difference, the Liberals’ enduring political success was an extraordinary feat. But as Carty reflects, given the party’s not-so-distant travails, even with an election win, will it be able to reinvent itself for the twenty-first century?

R. Kenneth Carty's profile page

R. Kenneth Carty is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of British Columbia. One of the country’s foremost experts on Canadian party politics, he was honoured with the Mildred A. Schwartz Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Political Science Association in 2013. He is also a past president (2002) of the Canadian Political Science Association. Carty has served as a consultant to both national and provincial royal commissions on issues of electoral organization and was a member of the Federal Electoral Boundary Commission for British Columbia for the 2004 national redistribution. During 2003-04, he was the director of tesearch for the British Columbia Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform.

Carty … is a leading authority on Canada’s political parties. He traces the history of the party, paying attention to its cycles against important changes in Canada’s demography (e.g., when increased immigration changed regional and national dynamics) and when parties entered the system.

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