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Political Science General

Letting the People Decide

Dynamics of a Canadian Election

by (author) Richard Johnston & André Blais

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Sep 1992
Category
General, Elections
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780773509443
    Publish Date
    Sep 1992
    List Price
    $40.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773509436
    Publish Date
    Sep 1992
    List Price
    $125.00

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Description

The authors have based the book primarily on data derived from the 1988 Canadian Election Study, for which they were co-investigators. The survey was a "rolling cross-section": a daily tracking of the campaign designed explicitly to monitor electoral dynamics. The multivariate techniques commonly involved in the analysis of campaign data are presented here in an accessible way, as graphs rather than tables. Videotapes of prime time news analyses on CBC, CTV, and SRC outlets, as well as some newspaper commentaries, have been integrated into the survey. This information is contrasted with an analysis of electoral dynamics based on one hundred years of census and electoral data. The authors make a variety of significant arguments about the historical and political basis of the parties' eventual positions on the issue of free trade, the overriding importance of that issue to the 1988 election, the roles of the party leaders, and, perhaps most important, the political impact of campaigns, especially of debates and media coverage. Letting the People Decide brings the study of Canadian parties into the analytical mainstream even as it supplies a new interpretation of a century of elections.

About the authors

Richard Johnston is Canada Research Chair in Public Opinion, Elections, and Representation at the University of British Columbia.

Richard Johnston's profile page

Andr� Blais is Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the Universit� de Montr�al.

André Blais' profile page