Primaries: a Dress Rehearsal for the Election?
Analyzing the Conservative Party of Canada's 2016-2017
leadership primary
Mémoire
Audrey Brennan
Maîtrise en science politique - avec mémoire
Maître ès arts (M.A.)
Primaries: a Dress Rehearsal for the Election?
Analyzing the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2016-2017 leadership
primary
Mémoire
Audrey Elizabeth Brennan
Sous la direction de: Marc André Bodet
Résumé
Primaire: une répétition générale pour l’élection? La sélection des chefs de partis de façon dé-centralisée étant un phénomène récent au Canada, en quoi cette nouvelle formule de sélection se distingue d’une campagne électorale? Ce projet est une étude d’un cas actuel soit, la course à la chefferie du Parti conservateur du Canada. À l’aide d’une analyse de contenu médiatique, de données issues des réseaux sociaux et d’entretiens semi-dirigés, nous tentons de répondre à la question suivante: Comment est-ce que les règles de la course à la direction 2016-2017 du Parti conservateur du Canada influencent-elles la perspective électorale du parti. La loi d’airain de Mi-chels (1915c) suggère qu’en raison du manque d’intérêt des électeurs, les partis centralisent leurs organisations de plus en plus complexes autour des chefs de partis politiques. Trois composantes conduisent à l’oligarchisation des partis politiques dans les démocraties: la psychologie des can-didats; le besoin d’organisation; et la psychologie des masses (Michels,1915c, 516). Ce projet met à jour et teste la loi de d’airain.
La campagne à la chefferie du Parti conservateur du Canada n’est pas une répétition générale pour les élections. Celle-ci est une audition. Il s’agit de choisir qui seront les principaux acteurs de l’élection, aucune répétition générale nécessaire. Il s’agit de préparer la mise en scène, d’écrire le scénario et de choisir qui sera le metteur en scène lors de la répétition générale. Celle-ci débutera réellement lor du congrès du parti qui aura lieu à l’été 2018. Une année après la sélection du nouveau chef.
Abstract
Primaries: A Dress Rehearsal for the General Election? Since the selection of party leaders in a decentralized manner is a recent phenomenon in Canada, how is this new selection procedure different from an election campaign? This project is a study of a current case, the leadership se-lection of the Conservative Party of Canada. The research question is: How do the rules of the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2016-2017 leadership race influence the electoral prospect of the party? It is answered using an analysis of media content, data from social networks, and semi-structured interviews. Michels’ (1915c) Iron Law of Oligarchy suggests that due to the lack of in-terests of voters, parties have centered their increasingly complex organizations around leaders. Three components lead to the oligarchization of political parties in democracies: the psychology of candidates; the need for organization; and the psychology of the masses (Michels,1915c, 516). This project updates and tests the Iron Law.
The Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership campaign is not a dress rehearsal for the general election. This leadership primary is more like an audition. It is about choosing who will be the key players at the election, no dress rehearsal needed. It is about setting the scene, writing the plot and choosing who will lead the party at the dress rehearsal. Which will really begin during the policy convention that follows the leadership selection in the summer of 2018.
Contents
Résumé iii
Abstract iv
Contents v
List of Tables vii
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction 1
1 Literature Review 4
1.1 Decentralization of leadership selection. . . 5
1.1.1 Changing patterns of political participation . . . 5
1.1.2 The importance of party leaders . . . 7
1.2 How are leaders chosen? . . . 7
1.3 The rules governing primaries . . . 10
1.4 Why choose a primary? . . . 11
1.5 Michels’ Iron Law . . . 13
1.6 Conclusion . . . 15
2 Theoretical Framework 17 2.1 Modernizing Michels’ Theory . . . 17
2.2 The case study . . . 20
2.3 Conclusion . . . 23
3 Research Question and hypotheses 24 3.1 Research Question . . . 24
3.2 Hypotheses. . . 24
3.3 Conclusion . . . 25
4 Methodology and Data 26 4.1 The influence of rules on individual campaigns . . . 26
4.2 Influence of rules on candidacies . . . 29
4.3 Media coverage of the campaign . . . 30
5 Setting the Scene: Primary rules and candidacies 33
5.1 Candidacy rules in the leadership primary . . . 33
5.2 Conclusion . . . 38
6 Open-House: Effect of rules on candidates’ campaigns 40 6.1 Introduction . . . 40
6.2 Conservative Party Rules and their Influence . . . 41
6.3 Target Audience . . . 43
6.4 Campaign messaging during the leadership primary . . . 46
6.4.1 Message transmission strategies . . . 46
6.5 Conclusion . . . 53
7 All the World’s a Stage: Newspaper coverage of the campaign 55 7.1 Behind the Scenes: Perspectives on the news . . . 55
7.2 Center Stage: Type of Coverage . . . 61
7.3 Conclusion . . . 65
Conclusion 66 A Media Analysis Code-book 72 B Interview Questions 75 C Latent Dirichlet Allocation Topic Modeling: Results and robustness tests 76 C.1 Chris Alexander . . . 76 C.2 Maxime Bernier . . . 79 C.3 Steven Blaney . . . 81 C.4 Michael Chong . . . 83 C.5 Kellie Leitch . . . 85 C.6 Pierre Lemieux . . . 87 C.7 Deepak Obhrai . . . 89 C.8 Kevin O’Leary . . . 91 C.9 Erin O’Toole . . . 93 C.10 Rick Peterson . . . 95 C.11 Lisa Raitt . . . 97 C.12 Andrew Saxton . . . 99 C.13 Andrew Scheer . . . 101 C.14 Brad Trost. . . 103 References 105
List of Tables
1.1 Typology of primary election methods . . . 8
2.1 The evolution of leadership selection change methods in Canada . . . 21
4.1 Summary of Methodology. . . 27
4.2 Topic Models . . . 28
4.3 Search protocol: Factiva and Eurekka c.c. . . 30
5.1 Candidacy Rules Time-line . . . 35
6.1 Salient topics. . . 50
6.2 Salient topics (cont’d) . . . 51
6.3 Salient topics (cont’d) . . . 52
C.1 Chris Alexander Topic Summary. . . 77
C.2 Maxime Bernier Topic Summary. . . 80
C.3 Steven Blaney Topic Summary . . . 82
C.4 Michael Chong Topic Summary . . . 84
C.5 Kellie Leitch Topic Summary . . . 86
C.6 Pierre Lemieux Topic Summary . . . 88
C.7 Deepak Obhrai Topic Summary . . . 90
C.8 Kevin O’leary Topic Summary . . . 92
C.9 Erin O’Toole Topic Summary** . . . . 94
C.10 Rick Peterson Topic Summary . . . 96
C.11 Lisa Raitt Topic Summary . . . 98
C.12 Andrew Saxton Topic Summary . . . 100
C.13 Andrew Scheer Topic Summary . . . 102
List of Figures
1.1 Party affiliation: the multi-speed model . . . 6
2.1 Schema of Oligarchy . . . 18
4.1 Tweeting Frequency by Candidate. . . 29
7.1 Coverage by language . . . 58
7.2 Candidate Mention Frequency . . . 60
7.3 Personality vs. Policy Coverage . . . 62
7.4 Personality vs. Policy: Candidates Types . . . 63
7.5 Personality vs. Policy: All Candidates . . . 64
7.6 Oligarchy in the Canadian Context . . . 68
C.1 Chris Alexander Perplexity . . . 76
C.2 Chris Alexander Topics. . . 77
C.3 Chris Alexander Topic Spread . . . 78
C.4 Maxime Bernier Perplexity . . . 79
C.5 Maxime Bernier Topics. . . 79
C.6 Maxime Bernier Topic Spread . . . 80
C.7 Steven Blaney Perplexity. . . 81
C.8 Steven Blaney Topics . . . 81
C.9 Steven Blaney Topic Spread . . . 82
C.10 Michael Chong Perplexity . . . 83
C.11 Michael Chong Topics . . . 83
C.12 Michael Chong Topic Spread . . . 84
C.13 Kellie Leitch Perplexity . . . 85
C.14 Kellie Leitch Topics . . . 85
C.15 Kellie Leitch Topic Spread . . . 86
C.16 Pierre Lemieux Perplexity . . . 87
C.17 Pierre Lemieux Topics . . . 87
C.18 Pierre Lemieux Topic Spread . . . 88
C.19 Deepak Obhrai Perplexity . . . 89
C.20 Deepak Obhrai Topics . . . 89
C.21 Deepak Obhrai Topic Spread . . . 90
C.22 Kevin O’Leary Perplexity. . . 91
C.23 Kevin O’Leary Topics . . . 91
C.24 Kevin O’Leary Spread. . . 92
C.26 Erin O’Toole Topics . . . 93
C.27 Erin O’Toole Topic Spread. . . 94
C.28 Rick Peterson Perplexity . . . 95
C.29 Rick Peterson Topics . . . 95
C.30 Rick Peterson Topic Spread . . . 96
C.31 Lisa Raitt Perplexity. . . 97
C.32 Lisa Raitt Topics . . . 97
C.33 Lisa Raitt Topic Spread . . . 98
C.34 Andrew Saxton Perplexity . . . 99
C.35 Andrew Saxton Topics . . . 99
C.36 Andrew Saxton Topic Spread . . . 100
C.37 Andrew Scheer Perplexity . . . 101
C.38 Andrew Scheer Topics . . . 101
C.39 Andrew Scheer Topic Spread . . . 102
C.40 Brad Trost Perplexity . . . 103
C.41 Brad Trost Topics . . . 103
Pour mes grand-mères. Ceci est le fruit de vos plus beaux legs: le rêve et la persévérence.
Une pièce de théâtre, c’est quelqu’un. C’est une voix qui parle, c’est un esprit qui éclaire, c’est une conscience qui avertit. Victor Hugo.
Remerciements
Je dois beaucoup au soutien de mon directeur, Marc André Bodet. Son enthousiasme, son éthique de travail et sa rigueur scientifique ont contribué à la réalisation de ce projet de recherche. Merci de répondre à chaque question, de lire chaque mot et pour chaque référence de François Pérusse. Je suis seulement désolé que je ne catch toujours pas ces dernières.
Je suis également redevable aux membres de mon jury pour leurs précieux commentaires, Eric Montigny et François Gélineau. Je suis choyé d’avoir bénéficié de vos conseils au cours des deux dernières années. Ils ont également fourni un environnement de travail dynamique et accueillant à la Chaire de recherche sur la démocratie et les institutions parlementaires.
Ce mémoire a été rendu possible en partie grâce au Social Network Harvester(ASPIRA). Un outil essentiel fourni par le Groupe de recherche en communication politique (GRCP). Je suis égale-ment redevable à la Chaire de recherche sur la démocratie et les institutions parleégale-mentaires et au soutien financier du Centre pour l’ Étude de la citoyenneté démocratique. Aux praticiens in-terviewés pour ce projet, j’exprime la plus grande gratitude pour votre enthousiasme et vos con-naissances du monde de la démocratie intrapartisane. La participation de militants politiques à des projets comme celui-ci est cruciale pour que les chercheurs reflètent la réalité du système partisan. De plus, la patience de Samuel Cloutier dans la mise en place d’ASPIRA était essentielle pour une grande partie de mes analyses. Un immense merci à vous tous!
Au cours des deux dernières années, j’ai eu la chance d’être entouré par de merveilleux collègues. Je voudrais surtout les remercier pour les distractions indispensables, sans quoi je ne m’en serais pas sortie vivante. Charles Tessier, Evelyne Brie, Sabrina Bourgeois, Justin Savoie, Mickael Tem-porão, Corentin Vande Kerckhove et Gabriel Coulombe ont créé un environnement de travail ac-cueillant et productif à la Chaire. Joanie Bouchard, Katryne Villeneuve-Siconnelly, Benoît Béchard, Catherine Ouelette et Dominic Duval m’ont aidé à survivre dans la jungle qui est la rédaction d’un mémoire. Finalement, dans une série d’événements malheureux au cours du dernier mois d’écriture, j’ai eu la chance d’avoir Francesco Pascu et Alessandra Bonci qui ont tout fait pour m’aider à terminer à temps. Grazie mille!
To Sterling Thorne Perkins, "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead" (F. Scott Fitzgerald). Your kindness, enthusiasm, and contagious good mood are
some of the many reasons I am fortunate to call you my friend.
Je suis également reconnaissante à ma famille pour leur soutien constant, tant lors de mes études que lors de mes autres folies. Paul-André Brennan et Christiane Fortin, merci pour tous vos en-couragements! Dobby et Boogy, sans vous deux j’aurais surement terminé plus tôt. Pour cela je vous en remercie.
Chères grand-mères, ce mémoire vous est dédié. Denise Brennan, Grand-maman, vous avez tou-jours su persévérer. Je vous remercie de cet exemple de femme forte. Georgette Fréchette, depuis mon tout jeune âge tu me disais toujours d’écrire toutes mes idées. Un jour j’accomplirai une ou plusieurs de celles-ci. Voici l’une d’elles. Grand-m’an, laisse-moi te raconter ça...
Introduction
To immediately address the elephant in the proverbial room, the least predictable entrance in politics is that of Donald Trump. Indeed, due to a primary Trump was able to go from reality-TV businessman to President. In Canada primaries are different. Primaries are closed. This means that only party members get to choose the leader. This is a fairly recent practice on the part of political parties (Cross and Pilet,2015). Primaries are a reaction to changing political participa-tion (Scarrow,2014), whereby parties attempt to maintain their status as membership organiza-tions. In 2013, the Liberal Party of Canada allowed party supporters and members to choose the leader (Montigny and Tessier,2017). To be a supporter, all one had to do was to create an account on the party’s website without paying any fees. Political parties have reached a critical juncture, where their very organization is changing. Increasingly they create incentives, such as the right to choose leaders, for individuals to join their organization (Gauja,2017).
For the Liberal Party of Canada, the 2013 leadership primary saw Justin Trudeau selected as party leader. Following the 2015 general election, both the New Democrats and Conservatives began the process of selecting their leader. This also concurs with what scholars have proposed. That, generally, an electoral setback will lead a political party, to undertake the process of leadership change (Leduc,2001;Goldstein,2002). Scholars have also argued that primaries look like a gen-eral election (Weller,1994;Kenig,2009b).
Regardless of the external effects of leadership primaries, scholars have yet to look at the conse-quences of the new rules on the party (Scarrow,2014). Indeed, studies have looked at who the leaders are and what are the influence of different selection rules on the results (Cross and Blais,
2012;Pilet and Cross,2014;Cross and Pilet,2015). It is necessary then to look at the mechanism of leadership selection in more detail. It is necessary to answer the following question: how do the rules influence the electoral prospects of the party?
The objective of this M.A. thesis is to look at how decentralized leadership selection rules affect the dynamics internal and external to the party. By doing so, it will be possible to infer some the potential electoral consequences of intra-party democracy on electoral viability. This is done by using the Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership change procedure that followed the 2015 election.
Results
Crotty et al.(1999) propose that the wining candidate’s message will be the one that the party will use at the next election. Consequently, a leadership primary would be a dress rehearsal for a general election in that regard. In addition, because it is technically easier to adhere to the party or become a candidate, we should see party outsiders participate in the process (candidates and members). Furthermore, the media should also be emphasizing candidates’ personalities as op-posed to their policies, as they would during an election (Trimble,2007). Although, we do see some of these tendencies these assumptions are much more nuanced.
Firstly, the message used by the wining candidate may have more weight than his or her competi-tors. However, because the Conservatives have a policy convention scheduled one year after the leader was selected, then whether or not this message will stay with the party remains to be seen. The message the party’s bureaucracy is sending with its rules though, is that it wanted candidates to campaign to Canada more broadly. Indeed, the 100 points per riding encouraged many can-didates to have national campaigns. In addition, to have a successful campaign, cancan-didates had to renew and recruit party members. There are two main reasons for this. The first is to recruit their own leadership voters and the second is the renew the party’s membership more generally. The first reason is evident. It should be added, moreover, that this encouraged candidates who wanted to add a policy to the party’s agenda to recruit niche members, such as social conserva-tives.
Secondly, because of the nature of candidacies, the policy versus personality dimension of news coverage does not apply to every candidate. Indeed, some candidates received more policy whilst others’ personalities were emphasized. However, the top two scoring candidates on the first bal-lot received more or less equal personality and policy coverage. Which leads us to conclude that the dress rehearsal aspect of the primary only applies to the media. That the primary of the Con-servative Party of Canada is in fact more of an audition than a dress rehearsal.
Outline
The first chapter of this thesis provides an overview of the literature surrounding leadership selec-tion. It includes scholarship on party politics, political communication, and party membership. The second chapter outlines the theoretical framework that guides this project. Robert Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy is updated to reflect the reality of modern political parties. It leads to Chap-ter3, where the research question and hypotheses are listed. The methodology and data used to answer the research question are discussed in Chapter4. We propose the integration of semi-structured interviews, newspaper coverage, and candidates’ tweets. Interviews were completed with candidates, national organizers, local organizers, and Members of parliament.
also many challenges which they have faced during the campaign. The influence of the rules on candidates are discussed in Chapter5. We see, that why a candidate ran, also influenced their campaign strategies. In Chapter6, it is shown using tweets and interviews how the rules encour-aged national campaigns. Interestingly, these dynamics are not quite reflected in the newspaper coverage of the primary. These results are in Chapter7. The final chapter discusses the implica-tions of these results for the party. It also highlights the scientific contribution of this project, its limitations, and concludes with proposals for future research projects.
Chapter 1
Literature Review
Since the early twentieth century leadership selection procedures have been gradually decen-tralized to give a vote to political party members. Because of that, scholars have concluded that political party membership has become permeable to broader segments of the electorate (Leduc,
2001;Pilet and Cross,2014;Goldstein,2002;Cross and Crysler,2011). In addition, there are few in-depth studies of the effects of these processes (Cross and Pilet,2015) and their broader conse-quences on the party and its membership (Scarrow,2014).Lemieux(2005) suggests that political parties should be studied as a system per se as opposed to simply being part of a system. It allows the researcher to get a better grasp of the dynamic components surrounding elections. Political parties can be studied on three levels: internal organization, electoral support, and governing approach (Lemieux,2005).
This chapter answers a series of questions on leadership selection using Lemieux as a guide to view the political party as a system. Because the subject of study is leadership selection, the focus is on aspects of internal organization and electoral support. What explains the decentralization of leadership selection? How are leaders chosen? What are the rules governing these processes? Parties have evolved into complex organizations over time due to changing patterns of political participation. This is impacted by the changing internal organization of political parties and the advancement of communication technologies. This suggests that evolution is cyclical. Parties have found that including leadership primaries in their internal organization repertoire is a good way of rallying non-traditional party supporters to participate in a seemingly traditional organi-zation. Thus, primaries should create a centripetal force for party membership. Furthermore, the chapter shows by discussing Robert Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy that, in theory, leader-ship primaries may be a democratic contradiction. This is because the party has to manage the aftermath of the primary.
1.1
Decentralization of leadership selection
This section shows that because of the dynamic nature of participation, political parties have concentrated their campaigns around their leaders. This has led to the increasing pressure from below to decentralize decision-making processes in political parties.
1.1.1 Changing patterns of political participation
According to scholars, party members are either older and resourceful men or university stu-dents who were socialized to participate in politics by a family member (Cross and Young,2008). Younger members may have also joined specifically to participate in a leadership race underway and will not necessarily support the party or the candidate later on. These are the conclusions of Cross and Young, who use data from surveys submitted directly to political party members or to members of their university campus clubs (2002a,2002b, and2008). Even the limits of their results are telling. Their respondent pool not only reflect the reality of certain party members, but in fact shows who traditionally participates in party politics (i.e. educated or older citizens). In sum, their studies conclude that party membership is declining and those who are members are not representative of the electorate. Researchers have emphasized the decline of traditional membership since the sixties (Scarrow,2014, 69-97). However, party politics is not yet obsolete and there is still a demand for direct access to the political process (van Biezen and Poguntke,
2014, 215), at least to some extent. Which is why parties have introduced primaries and citizen consultations (Gauja,2017, 186).
New forms of membership and electronic involvement of citizens also has its effects on the in-ternal workings of political parties (Scarrow,2014). Hence instead of focusing on decline, let us focus on change. The discussion should not revolve around how non-traditional involvement is broken hence it requires fixing. Rather it should be about how these new forms of participa-tion affect the internal structures of political parties. "Although they are as yet unlikely to offer a viable substitute to traditional party politics, they may come to complement the conventional vertical and hierarchical modes of politics within an increasingly horizontalized society." (van Biezen and Poguntke,2014, 215; see alsoLawson,2007). If mass membership parties are an ideal model, then the evolution of participation is detrimental for political parties. It is damaging to maintain such an idyllic vision because of changes in types of membership (van Biezen and Pic-cio,2013;Gauja,2017). In that regard, party changes are understood as what they are: adaptation to a political and societal landscape in constant evolution.
Because they attempt to appeal to the larger electorate, parties are focused on winning elections as opposed to keeping their partisans satisfied (van Biezen and Poguntke,2014, 205;Lemieux,
2005, 97). This can create internal tensions. Consider Figure1.1which illustrates a modern dy-namic between political parties and citizens. It shows that there is no clear conceptualization of political party support. Thus, political parties actually have a large partisan base in spite of the
Figure 1.1 –Party affiliation: the multi-speed model
Source:Scarrow(2014)
decrease in traditional membership adherence. Followers, cyber-members, and activists are all technicallynon-members, yet they can still contribute to a political party’s activities (Mair and
van Biezen,2001). The multi-speed model shows that the relationship between voters and po-litical parties is dynamic and multifaceted, and that you do not need to be a member in order to actively contribute to a given party. However, if parties embrace this reality, then they will need to establish a bureaucracy.1 Which is why it is important to understand the mechanism behind
political party affiliation as opposed to just the intensity of that relationship (Miller,2009). To prepare for an election campaign parties canvas voter for their information either by phone or door to door. Volunteers compile voting intentions and other details which give parties a better idea of how they will fare on election day. Sometimes, these volunteers are simply party support-ers as opposed to membsupport-ers (Mair and van Biezen,2001). Canvassing can also outline what needs to be done to rectify a troublesome situation (i.e. if a party needs more to win an election)(Nielsen,
2012). How do they know which door to knock on when citizens are no longer available through traditional means? Fewer are purchasing memberships or donating to a political party. Opportu-nities must be created to collect data on supporters. The multi-speed model shows that parties have access to more information than some scholars give them credit for. For example, a party can solicit cyber-members for support. However, the true task is reeling the supporters back-in
into traditional roles when needed.
1.1.2 The importance of party leaders
The leader is responsible for representing and personalizing an ideology and, in turn, personal-izing the core message of the political party (Miller,2009;Kam,2009). It facilitates the establish-ment of party affiliation among less attentive voters (Miller,2009).
Leaders of political parties are the central figures in contemporary parliamentary democ-racies. We come to this conclusion by virtue of the observations that parties operate at the center of politics and that their leaders exercise considerable authority over both party and governmental activity. (Cross and Blais,2012, 1)
However, the increasing attention given to leaders leads to the dedemocratization of political par-ties (Lawson,2007). Which leads to the increasing presence of highly charismatic candidates that can spin controversial issues and generate support for said issues (McAllister,1996). It is thus a self-reinforcing trend. Leaders are charismatic due to their exemplary character or heroic virtues, which legitimizes their exercise of power (Weber,1921). Consequently, the media coverage of campaigns becomes more focused on the leader, as opposed to the party. Additionally, even if the leader does not have that much power, parties (and media) will feel like they need to person-alize the campaign around said political leaders. This process is part of the presidentialization of politics (Webb and Poguntke,2005). Centralizing communications around a leader has been a solution to changing trends in political participation. To the point where communication strate-gies that are used to prepare a party to campaign at an election stays with its key players into power; and it sometimes become difficult to distinguish between the government’s communica-tions and the party’s message (Marland,2016).
Scholars have proposed that the reason for choosing a decentralized method is to solicit support from outside the party’s traditional base (McAllister,1996, 290). Which now makes decentralized leadership selection one of the key activities of political parties (Cross and Crysler,2011). It gives members the opportunity to vote on policy design and to vote in a leadership primary (Cross and Pilet,2015). Thereby, leadership selection may be the only real impact which the rank-and-file has on their party (Cross and Crysler,2011). In addition, members get more say in the party through a primary because of the centralization of power around the leader.
1.2
How are leaders chosen?
Kenig et al.(2015) are critical of the literature on leadership selection because although there is no shortage of scholarship on the question, no one had yet offered a standardized typology for the different types of procedures. They thus propose a typology of seven leadership selec-tion processes which are defined based on who can participate. This typology is similar toLeduc
(2001)’s. Leadership selection is a decentralized process if the selectorate is either the electorate, party supporters, or all party members (see alsoCross et al., 2016, 25). There are two types of primaries: pure primaries and mixed primaries. Table1.1shows the typology of primary selec-tion types. Candidate selecselec-tion also falls under the umbrella term of primary. Herein, however, it strictly refers to leadership selection. Finally, when party delegates, the parliamentary party group, party elite, or the incumbent leader select the replacement, it is not a primary, but rather, a replacement through elite channels.
Table 1.1 –Typology of primary election methods
Type Subtype Selectorate
Pure Primaries Open primary All voters are eligible to vote Semi-open primary Supporters and party members Closed primary Party members only
Complex primary Selection through some combination of the above
Mixed Primaries Weighted primary Combination of primary and
non-primary zone selectorates in a single state. Primary zone selectorates have at least 50% of the vote
Multi-stage primary Combination of a primary selectorate and a non-primary selectorate in a multi-staged process
Source: (Kenig et al.,2015, 153)
A primary by its rules alone is not necessarily more democratic than any other method (Cross and Blais,2012;Bashevkin,2010;Kenig,2007;Pilet and Cross,2014), although it might appear like it. In fact, selection through elite channels is more competitive (Kenig,2007). Selection in exclusive selectorate is probably more oligarchic, less transparent and less accessible to fresh and young forces; but it is often more competitive and more economic. Furthermore, the selectors tend to know the candidates’ skills and personalities quite well and therefore exercise better judgment in the selection process (Kenig,2007, 87).
Building a base that reflects the reality of the whole electorate was a principal motivation the ini-tial expansion of the selectorate (Courtney,1995, 274-75). Yet few parties have actually adopted open primaries (Montigny and Tessier,2017). Most have adopted a variant of the primary for leadership selection with the exception of Australia, New-Zealand, and Ireland’s Fianna Fáil party (Pilet and Cross, 2014; Meyer and Odom,2016;Cross et al.,2016). Australian parties prefer to have the flexibility to change their leaders at will and have thus maintained the traditional ap-pointment of the leader by elected Members of Parliament. (Pilet and Cross,2014, 194). With regards to the case of New-Zealand it is quite possible that their electoral system also influences the choice of leadership selection method.
The selectorate changes not only who decides to become a candidate, but also who has an in-centive to engage in the process (Meyer and Odom,2016). This is especially true because of the new ways in which citizens engage with political parties. Primaries have been considered as a principle-agent relationship. This puts into question the values of the new leader, because prin-cipals have a goal (leadership ascension) and will recruit agents to attain said goal (Quinn,2004). Notwithstanding the new democratic selection methods voters will choose the unifying candi-date (Quinn,2004). Candidates who plan their leadership bid earlier in their career will have begun to assemble their campaign teams long before a primary has been announced and tend to fare better during the campaign (Cross and Pilet,2015, 169). Consequently, who chooses the leader is not the only thing creating inequalities during the campaign. Who a candidate is can limit their chance of being a leader.
The use of primaries suggests that parties adapt their internal organization in order to change their electoral support. Broader electoral support implies that candidates have to organize stronger campaigns. Primaries will also be subjected to more media attention which can give a positive image boost to the party (Cross and Pilet,2015, 171). On the other hand, there is a possibility that the coverage is of candidate’s personality as opposed to being focused on the proposed pub-lic popub-licies (Pilet and Cross,2014, 187). Consequently, primaries may reinforce the personaliza-tion of politics outlined in a prior secpersonaliza-tion of this chapter. Therefore, reinforcing leadership cen-tered instead of policy cencen-tered communications. The more inclusive the voter base the more resources candidates will need to organize their campaign. These resources include financial support, volunteers, campaign staff, and communication tools. Meaning that if a leadership can-didate aspires to become leader, then she or he will have to organize a large campaign team. This unavoidably leads to an important role played by the media and money (Stewart and Archer,
2000, 6), because nowadays campaigns are increasingly professionalized.
The number of candidates is also important (Kenig,2009b). An open primary increases the num-ber of candidates, which affects competitiveness and the way journalists cover the process. A wider selectorate creates an early favorite in the polls (Bashevkin,2010;Kenig,2009b) leading to horserace news reports. Indeed,Trimble(2007), who studied the Globe and Mail’s coverage of candidates in three Conservative Party of Canada primaries, suggests that the competitiveness affects the way in which the news will be reported. Stronger candidates attract more attention. Conversely, the other candidates obtain less. Thus, the leadership primary also strengthens the leader effects which are already apparent in political communications. Decentralized decision-making inevitably can lead to the erosion of ideology in exchange for electoral support (Cross et al.,2016;Cross and Katz,2013).
Leadership candidates and their entourage want to win elections whilst members have will more specific policy goals (Cross and Katz,2013).2Because parties streamline their message, they
con-tribute to the decline of traditional membership. Elite selection is inexpensive and more
petitive. It facilitates the choice of a qualified candidate because the elite selectorate is better aware of candidates’ capabilities (Kenig,2007, 87).3Which might explain why New Zealand, Aus-tralia, and Ireland’s Fianna Fáil party, have yet to decentralize their leadership selection processes (Meyer and Odom,2016).
1.3
The rules governing primaries
The rules governing primaries are twofold. Firstly, they are the party rules that outline the actual voting procedure. These determine who can be a candidate and who can participate in the selec-tion process as well as the campaigning rules for candidates. Secondly, there are electoral rules that are external to political parties. They vary from finance laws to standardized primary laws which all political parties must abide by.
Parties are cautious when choosing their rules because their organization’s unity is at stake (Quinn,
2010;Weller,1994;Cross,2016;Pilet and Cross,2014;Putnam,1976). For example, when estab-lishing the primary rules parties choose between;
[e]quality of members versus equality of ridings—it was a classic clash of principals in which each side advocated a principle advancing its own interests. The equal-member model treats all equal-members equally, which is the norm in a democracy. How-ever, it also encourages the party to remain bottled up in areas of current geographic strength rather than expanding into areas of weakness. (Flanagan,2009, 99-100)
The selection rules, such as points per riding, give candidates an incentive to campaign on na-tional questions. The points per riding reinforces the current trend of the centralization of polit-ical power and the decentralization of the choice of said politpolit-ical power. National questions are rarely national in scope, and this makes them impossible to implement once a party is elected (Schattschneider,1960). Which may also lead to voter disenchantment.
Parties reinforce increasingly stricter primary rules because some individuals might just pur-chase a membership to vote for the leader (Cross and Katz,2013).4 Also, as mentioned earlier
leadership primaries may be the only time when members (new and experienced) actively par-ticipate in a political party’s activities. Due to the higher number of participants, parties require that candidates pay a fee to fund the administrative process and to deter non-competitive candi-dates from participating (Carty and Blake,1999;Cross and Blais,2012;Cross et al.,2016). Indeed, should candidates with no chance of appealing to the party’s support base run, it could poten-tially harm their chances at the next election. Spending limits, participation fees, minimum bank account balances have also been imposed on candidates in the past (Cross and Crysler,2011). Additionally, the process is monitored by the party to assure that all participants abide by the
3More on this in a subsequent section
rules (Courtney,1995;Flanagan,2009;Jeffrey,2010;Stewart,1997). Nonetheless it is difficult to reprimand rule breakers (Cross et al.,2016). Admitting that the rules were broken might have a negative effect on the party.
Whether parties should be subjected to external rules is a bone of contention (seeCross,2016;
Gauja, 2016, 2017; van Biezen and Piccio,2013), which falls outside the scope of this research project. But, in Federalist 10 Madison explains how factions—parties—emerge. He also suggests how they can be managed. He notes that parties should be overseen by a neutral organization. The principal reason behind his argument is that a party could acquire enough support to dom-inate all aspects of the Government of the United States (Hamilton et al.,1911). The conclusion is that the faction cannot be stopped, it can only be slowed down (Hamilton et al.,1911).
Currently, Britain, Canada, and Australia only regulate the external aspects of parties, and Ger-many and the United States have internal and external regulations (Johns,1999). Primaries could benefit from state funding to alleviate the burdens imposed both on the candidates and the party more generally (Cross and Crysler,2011). If primaries are state funded, then, political science scholars and citizens need to have a discussion on the need or the value of state regulation. For example, these rules could create incentives for all parties to diversify their candidates or force all parties to use the same primary method. It would level the playing field (Pruysers and Cross,
2016). Thereby increasing the representativeness of parties more generally and allowing new can-didates to bring more citizen voices at the forefront of political debates (Gauja,2013).
1.4
Why choose a primary?
The rise of internal party factions during leadership selection (Carty and Cross,2006;Pilet and Cross,2014), creates regional, values-based, and other types of tension within a party. Here again primaries force parties to balance their organizational needs with their need for electoral support (Lemieux,2005). Decentralizing leadership selection has led to the erosion of the ideological na-ture of political parties; and, the decreasing expectations that the rank-and-file and citizens have of parties (Ware,2002). The fact of the matter is that decentralization leads to personalization (Cross et al.,2016). Hence if parties only focus their message around leaders as opposed to poli-cies, then it may seem like they have weakening ideals.
Furthermore, primaries provide participants with an opportunity to become members; and gen-erate publicity for the candidates outside their respective constituencies, which can add to the good image of the political party (Alexandre-Collier,2016;Cross et al.,2016). This process can show who is apt for cabinet positions. In the past many leadership candidates which were not elected as leader, were later appointed to cabinet (Carty,1989). Canadian examples of this are: Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin (Jeffrey,2010;Carty,2015), and Peter MacKay (Flanagan,2009). Also, because primaries inevitably have many candidates, then there will be many runner-ups avail-able for other top positions within the party. Hence, losing a leadership bid can also mean
pro-fessional advancement or exposure for a subsequent campaign (Carty,1989).
Advocates of universal suffrage, argue that primaries add value and purpose to party members (Courtney,1995, 241). It creates incentives to join a political party. Nonetheless, these voters are not more interested in the political process (Ostrogorski,1903, 463). Therefore, some party members will remain passive despite having purchased a membership, as was demonstrated in the first section of this chapter. So why give them decision-making power? Because a leadership race is a good way to get donations (Pilet and Cross,2014, 174). Indeed,Montigny and Tessier
(2017) show that the sources of party revenue are volatile, hence parties have gotten creative in order to support increasingly complex structures. Primary candidates bring in money both with individual donations to their respective campaigns as well as revenue directly for the party with membership renewals and adherence (Noel,2011;Cross and Katz,2013). Recruitment also builds candidates’ supporter base for the primary (Flanagan,2009;Jeffrey,2010). Therefore, if a member technically votes for the candidate whom they purchased a membership from, then candidates have an incentive to recruit and renew as many members as they possibly can. The potential downside of this practice, is that the membership is constructed by the leadership candidates’ supporters (Cross et al.,2016). If a polarizing candidate can garner support, then the party will have to take into consideration how to keep these new supporters involved in the party. At the very least to keep their vote.Crotty et al.(1999) suggest that the winning leadership candidate’s platform will more or less dictate the party’s platform at the next election.
Therefore, the result of a leadership selection can have negative effects on a party. An example is the electoral success of Britain’s Labour Party and the erosion of its internal organization under Tony Blair (Henig and Baston,2005;Leduc,2001; Quinn,2004). Some leaders can even create disturbances in other parties, Tony Blair remains a good example here as well (Costa Lobo,2008;
Henig and Baston,2005).
As this section shows, parties are adapting their traditional internal structures in exchange for electoral success (Crotty et al.,1999;Cross et al.,2016). At their detriment if we still consider that a mass membership party is an ideal model. Some have suggested that the best way to deter many, if not all issues, of primaries is by increasing their competitiveness (Bashevkin,2010). The irony is that selection through elite channels has been proven to be more competitive (Kenig,2007). Ped-ersen and Schumacher(2015) show that the positive effects that parties get from primaries fade as time passes. In addition, leaders chosen with an inclusive selectorate have a shorter tenure than those chosen by an exclusive group (Ennser-Jedenastik et al.,2015). In short, inclusiveness gives no tangible electoral advantages to parties that use them (Pedersen and Schumacher,2015). What mobilization advantages, then, do these methods give to a party who uses them? For par-ties who favour exclusive methods, then how do they maintain their supporter base? New leaders are also punished for their electoral setbacks. Indeed,Ennser-Jedenastik et al.(2015) show this by testing the differences in tenure between leaders chosen with an inclusive method as opposed to an exclusive one. They conclude that electoral performance is not what affects tenure. Instead,
it is the expectations that intra-party contest participants have of the leader’s electoral perfor-mance. Simply put, if a leader is expected to fail and he does, then he is likely to keep his post despite not having provided any electoral gains.
1.5
Michels’ Iron Law
Is the paradoxical relationship between electoral support and internal organization a new phe-nomenon for political parties? In 1915 Robert Michels was already demonstrating the complex relationship between internal organization and electoral appeal. To be electorally viable a party needs to appeal to the masses outside of its traditional political circles. Thus, the party requires a viable candidate that is articulate, aesthetically pleasing, and intelligent (Michels,1915b). If a leader does not emerge from the ruling class then she should have other characteristics to com-pete with the current ruler in an election campaign. Consequently, broadening the appeal le-gitimizes the ascension to power. Firstly, the support of less politically sophisticated masses is necessary. Secondly, there is the establishment of a larger organizational structure, which also solves two issues. The first is the need of a structure to recruit the masses. The second is to man-age both the new structure and the new members. Central to this process is the choice of a leader that has a broader appeal, partly due to their charisma and partly because the party loosens its platform.
Therefore,
[i]n view of the perennial incompetence of the masses, we must recognize the exis-tence of two regulative principles: 1. The ideological tendency of democracy towards criticism and control; 2. The effective counter-tendency of democracy towards the creation of parties ever more complex and ever more differentiated — parties which are increasingly based upon the competence of the few. (Michels,1915b, 244-45)
The translation of the above quotation from the original German text varies. In the English trans-lation, the word principal is favored, as in "two regulative principals". However, in the French translation, of this same sentence the word loi is used(Michels,1915a, 267). "In science, a law is a descriptive principle of nature that holds in all circumstances covered by the wording of the law" (Daintith,2005). InsteadLipset(1952) suggests to see Michels’ thesis as a lawlike generaliza-tion. This is the weight that will be given to Michels’ theory in this literature review. Also, Michels discusses the complexity of a party’s internal organization, which he refers to as a bureaucracy (Hands,1971). Bureaucracy is the internal hierarchy of a political party. That same internal struc-ture which will later serve to guide a governing party’s operations. Indeed,Marland(2016) has shown that the way parties manage their political communications outside of an electoral context will be replicated once a party is elected to government. According to his research, that was the case with the Conservative Party of Canada prior to the 2015 election (Marland,2016). Oligarchy is maintained when a party’s internal organization (i.e. intra-party democracy) transcends and
persists even when a party is elected to government (Michels,1915c). Consequently, if we strictly consider political communication tactics, then in this particular example the Conservative Party would be oligarchic. If a party seeks to govern, it will establish an organizational structure to get elected. Lemieux(2005)’s theory, discussed at the start of this chapter, is all the more relevant here. It explains the second principal of Michels’ law. Parties are instituting increasingly complex organizations as a result of other factors such as electoral support. A party’s internal organization will be adapted to align with the other two components of the party as a system (electoral support and governing approach). Modifying one component inevitably means altering another.
There are four crucial steps that must be completed for a party to attain an oligarchic status. The first is the psychology of the masses. In this case the masses are eligible voters. And their psychol-ogy are their voting behaviour and political sophistication. The second step has three compo-nents: the psychology of candidates; the need for organization; and the need for a strong leader. The psychology of candidates refers to the desired attributes of any given party leader, such as those listed as emanating from the presidentialization of politics. Secondly, the need for organi-zation is the need for bureaucracy. One that organizes membership, fundraising, and other cam-paign activities. Thirdly, Michels proposes that the masses want to look up to a leader. A person who possesses the psychology of a candidate. The third step is the institution of the bureaucracy that was deemed necessary in step two. Finally, once steps one through three have been fulfilled, then a political party reaches step four, which is getting elected, and is deemed an oligarchic or-ganization. At which point, the party in question is organized in the same fashion as the political opponents it once criticized.
Marland(2016)’s study of communications in parties, government agencies, and the legislative branch echoes Michels’ argument on oligarchy and validates the predicament of democracy in the digital age. In addition, political communication, a critical part of a modern party’s internal organization, results from the changes in political participation. Communications have become centralized and so well managed that it becomes difficult to distinguish between the message of government and that of the governing parties. Newly elected parties will have an incentive to maintain the centralization of communications (Marland,2016). It gives them greater message control. At that point we can say that a political party has completed the process of oligarchiza-tion. To uphold democracy, political parties must avoid oligarchic practices within their orga-nizations (Michels,1915c). Doing so will prevent newly elected leaders from transferring these practices into government. To avoid this predicament, a leader must be democratically elected within their party and then at a general election. However, to ascend to power, parties will de-centralize power to acquire mass appeal for their leader. In practice, this encourages oligarchic behaviour because power remains in the hands of a few individuals. Just like the government which said party seeks to govern.
Scholars who have studied Michels have narrowed down his thesis to a three-step process. The first is the occurrence of bureaucracy, the second is that it leads to the rise of power, and that the
acquisition of power inevitably leads to corruption (Leach,2005, 313). Simply put oligarchiza-tion is the decentralizaoligarchiza-tion of the internal structures of a political party so that it can centralize the decision-making power (Lemieux,2005, 96-107). This benefits the party because it is then better able to operate its other two components (electoral and governmental). Thus, the only real danger to democracy which emanates from a leadership primary rests on whether or not political parties will maintain their strict communication styles once in government.
1.6
Conclusion
At the time of writing this chapter studies of leadership selection processes have been done using information from the biography of a past leader (Fitzgerald et al.,2004;Cross and Blais,2012); it is the account of a party insider, (seeFlanagan,2009;Jeffrey,2010); or surveys are distributed to party members (Fitzgerald et al.,2004;Stewart and Archer,2000;Cross and Young,2008). Com-parative studies are scarce and other thanCross and Pilet(2015), quantitative methods are not favoured in this field of research (Cross and Pilet,2015). Because of the tools used by researchers, studies are usually completed after the event (Bynander and ’t Hart,2006;Cross and Blais,2012;
Cross and Pilet,2015;Kenig,2009a;Pilet and Cross,2014). Therefore, despite the substantial con-tribution of these studies, the data sources used are limited by either partisan bias, retrospective bias, or both. Furthermore, whilst primaries are increasingly used internationally, there are only two countries which have been studied in depth: Canada and the United Kingdom (Cross and Pilet,2015, 5). This explains why the bulk of the examples given in this literature review stem from these cases.
Parties have increased the complexity of their internal organizations in order to meet the expec-tations of the masses. The changes in party organization and the growing importance of leaders is due to the response to changes in voter participation. Leaders are chosen outside of elite circles which creates a twofold effect. The first is that parties seek to legitimize their internal processes in order to become a viable choice at a subsequent election. The second is that primary selectors are not necessarily more interested in the substance of politics. Rather, they are the same electors but in a different zone of the multi-speed model of political participation (see Figure1.1). The only difference between supporting a party and being a member, is that the latter is only accessible to those who register to participate in the internal decision-making process. The lead-ership selection rules put in place by the party attempt to assure: party unity; competitiveness; and electoral appeal more generally. The state rules relative to leadership primaries target the aspects external to political parties. Party finance laws are a good example of this. To better un-derstand why and how primaries have become the preferred method for leadership selection, it is important to consider primaries within the theory of political parties as a system. Therefore, pri-maries are a means to an end, as well as an end in itself. A leader is chosen whilst a party attempts to broaden its electoral appeal throughout the process.
The following chapter outlines the theoretical framework of this thesis by defining key concepts outlined in this literature review.
Chapter 2
Theoretical Framework
Media and parties associate messaging with the leader (Pilet and Cross,2014) therefore the sec-ond principal of Michels’ Iron Law holds. Indeed "[t]he effective counter-tendency of democracy towards the creation of parties ever more complex and ever more differentiated — parties which are increasingly based upon the competence of the few." (Michels,1915b, 244-45). Furthermore, due to parties’ communication tactics it has become difficult to distinguish between the govern-ing party’s communications and that of the government’s (Marland,2016).
This chapter outlines the key components in the mechanism of a leadership primary. It does so by building onto the principal of oligarchization of political parties and the multi-speed model of political party membership. It will look at how part of the Iron Law affects the campaign dy-namics. At the same time, it will be possible to look for ways in which the first principal manifests itself during a leadership primary. By analyzing the process, it will be possible to show heather or not "[t]he ideological tendency of democracy [is actually directed] towards criticism and con-trol" (Michels,1915b, 245). The final section of this chapter justifies why the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2016-2017 leadership race was chosen as the case study for this research project.
2.1
Modernizing Michels’ Theory
Three fundamental components lead to the oligarchization of political parties in democracies: the psychology of candidates; the need for organization; and the psychology of the masses (Michels,
1915c, 516). In the current political landscape these factors translate to: leader qualities, intra-party democracy, and leader effects, respectively. All three factors lead to the professionalization of leaders and eventually ends with message control.
Figure2.1illustrates the mechanism which this research project seeks to test. Figure2.1builds on Michels’ thesis using the dynamics outlined in the previous chapter. Scarrow’s (2014) multi-speed model best reflects the participation dynamics of today’s electorate which is why it replaces the masses in this model. Assuming that the objective of parties is to rally members back into
Figure 2.1 –Schema of Oligarchy Multi-Speed Membership IPD Leadership Primary Ideal Candidates Leader Effects Election* Election loss
*The election result would be oligarchic if a parties’ practices remain the same as when it was attempting to gain power.
traditional arenas of participation. The objective is to create a centripetal force to convert party supporters intro traditional members. Secondly, intra-party democracy and leadership primary, is the actual process through which an opposition party rallies supporters against the current government. In sum the process of oligarchization, is what a non-governing party does to change its leader in an effort to prepare for the next election. Finally, ideal candidates are the individuals whose attributes would make them a viable leader. Thirdly, leader effects are what the masses respond to. This section explains the role and relationship of each component of the studied process.
The first component necessary for the process of oligarchization is the electorate. The previous chapter has shown two things. The first is that according to Michels’ the masses are incompe-tent. To that effect, we can associate incompetence with inattention or the decline in political participation. The second is that the decline in traditional participation does not equate decline actual party support. The complex dynamic between citizens and political parties suggests that campaign dynamic will change. Which is why we have such strong leader effects. Furthermore, who parties campaign to will determine who is an ideal leadership candidate.
The mass party is still considered as an ideal model which parties should strive to resemble (van Biezen and Piccio,2013), from an organizational perspective. Is it romanticism to still see parties strictly as this type of membership organizations (Gauja,2017, 183)? The literature review shows evidence of the contrary. Let us, first, outline what is meant by intra-party democracy. There are two types: assembly and plebiscitary.
participants debate propositions and then take a decision. Plebiscitary [intra-party democracy] separates the stages of debate and decision-making, and places the latter stage in the hands of the mass membership via a ballot. (Poguntke et al.,2016, 671)
In the path leading towards oligarchy a party’s internal organizations will grow to increasingly include administrative affairs that allow more individuals to have a voice in administrative affairs. “Leading parties seem to have moved away from traditional brokerage catch all organizations to become more market oriented, franchise, or ‘boutique’ formations” (Marland and Giasson,2016, 357). Meaning that parties attempt to give citizens what they want. However, it is difficult to give everyone what they want. And this is the case whether we are referring to party members or citizens more generally. As it was the case with ideal candidates and leader effects, intra-party democracy and primaries are considered together in this research project.
Primaries are the selection methods in which the cumulative weight of influence and party members, supporters and/or voters is equal or greater than all other more ex-clusive selectorate(s) combined. (Cross et al.,2016, 25)
A primary is a plebiscitary form of intra-party democracy. The results of a primary can have larger effects on intra-party democracy, such as when individuals strictly adhere to a political party in order to participate in a primary.1Which is why
[t]he universal ballot is favoured over conventions because it is more accessible to the general population, and as a consequence it is said to be more likely to be represen-tative of a population’s socio-demographic characteristics. (Courtney,1995, 241)
The result of the interaction between intra-party democracy and primary will determine the party’s inner dynamic. It will be what the will be working with at the next election. In theory the winning candidate’s message will be the one that will be applied during the election campaign (Crotty et al.,1999). Which as we will see in the next chapter, is susceptible to have strong effects on the party.
Leaders may be important because of who their predecessors are. On the other hand, it could also be due to who was allowed to choose the previous leader (Webb and Poguntke,2005). More-over, because of the way in which media reports campaign events it has been difficult to discern whether the candidates created the effects which this thesis is studying. Consequently, we do not know whether the media creates the image or responds to it. We know based on the previ-ous chapter that parties and electors prefer charismatic leaders. These two factors, however, also affect one another individually. In addition, the extent to which they affect one another is diffi-cult to determine. Thus, these two interdependent components of the process towards oligarchy should be studied together.
The party as a three component system in itself reflects what Robert Michels cautioned against a century ago (Lemieux,2005). A party that changes its internal organization in order to increase its electoral support is an indication of oligarchization. The question of whether or not it criti-cizes and controls (Michels,1915b, 245) remains to be tested. Whether democracy truly has this tendency would depend on how non-governing political parties rally in between elections in an attempt to form a government. The leader effects and the ideal—desired—candidate are neces-sary to win an election. It makes parties rethink their internal organizations. Which leads to the third step of the process of oligarchization. What emanates from the result of the relationship between intra-party democracy and a leadership primary should be a message of criticism. Fur-thermore, the chosen leader should be one that stands an actual chance of defeating the current government at a subsequent election.
There are a few factors that can determine whether or not a party aims to ascend to power. The first are the rules that the party bureaucracy put into place. These rules should encourage indi-viduals from the multi-speed model of membership2to participate in the selection process. The
second is both who becomes a candidate in this primary and the fact their message should be critical of the governing party. Finally, the last step of the process of oligarchization which is the election campaign and its result. It should be noted that this cannot be tested within the scope of this project. Thus, this research project seeks to determine whether or not the necessary con-ditions for oligarchization are met, for all the steps leading to the election. Therefore, should
1. intra-party democracy and primaries be more inclusive of new members and;
2. Leadership candidates’ campaigns and the party’s messages during the campaign be criti-cal of the governing party. Or it is not targeting the party’s traditional support base;
then, there will be enough evidence to infer that leadership campaign messages are both prepa-ration for an election campaign and potentially for the party’s main message once elected. In sum, primaries should facilitate the oligarchization of modern political parties. Oligarchy, within the context of this research is actually a means through which parties legitimize the power that can be exercised by the leader (Schattschneider,1960) and eventually the prime minister. Consider leadership selection using primaries as a very large and expensive focus group. Par-ties are perfecting the product that they intend to sell at the following election (Lees-Marshment,
2011;Marland and Giasson,2016).
2.2
The case study
The Parti Québécois was the first party in Canada to allow its members to participate in leadership selection (Leduc,2001). Eventually other Canadian provincial and federal parties followed suit. Table2.1shows how national parties in Canada have changed their leadership selection methods
over time in order to respond to the changing dynamics of the political system.
Table 2.1 –The evolution of leadership selection change methods in Canada
Time Period1 Cycle2 Party Type3 Selection type4
Pre-Confederation 1st Elite dominated Appointment by small group of elites
1880-1960 2nd Mass Party Advent of selection
at convention
1945 - 3rd Catch-All Party Delegates at convention
1970 - 4th Cartel Party Leftist parties begin
with Mixed-Primaries 1993 - Transition period Brokerage Parties Contagion of primary-type 2006 -5 5th "Catch-enoughism"6 Further expansion
Boutique parties of selectorate
1Column extracted fromKatz and Mair(1995)
2Column extracted fromKatz and Mair(1995)
3Based onPatten(2011)’s demonstration of the evolution of the Canadian party system
4Courtney(1995)’s typology of the evolution of leadership selection in Canada 5SeePatten(2016) for a discussion on the fifth party system
6SeePatten(2016)
More and more Canadian political parties decentralize their leadership selection methods to give each party member one vote (Montigny and Tessier,2017). In 2013 the Liberal Party of Canada even gave supporters part of the vote in the leadership process that elected Justin Trudeau ( Mon-tigny and Tessier,2017). Decentralization was not always the norm. The first leadership conven-tion occurred in 1919 after the death of Wilfrid Laurier prior to the upcoming convenconven-tion of that same year; the parliamentary party felt that since they were mainly all French Canadians, they could not speak for Canada as a whole, by arbitrarily choosing the new leader of the Liberal Party (Courtney,1995;Stewart,1997;Carty,1989;Meyer and Odom,2016). They decided to leave the decision to the delegates present at that year’s convention.Courtney(1995) considers this to be the starting point of the first generation of leadership selection through convention. From 1919 until 1993 leadership selection was incrementally decentralized. Finally, after the election that re-defined the landscape of party politics in Canada in 1993, parties were forced to rethink the way in which they chose their political leaders because of the notable acquisition of power by region-alized political parties (Noel,2011). With modern selection parties focus on mass recruitment to legitimize their choice of leader as well as fund the actual process (Noel,2011;Crotty et al.,1999). The previous chapter showed that parties choose leadership selection rules carefully because their organization’s unity is at stake (Quinn,2010;Weller,1994;Cross,2016;Pilet and Cross,2014;
Putnam,1976). That is the choice the Canadian Alliance3and the Progressive Conservative Party
of Canada4had when they merged in the early 2000s. To avoid regionalism the now Conservative
3A Western Canadian federal party
Party of Canada uses a one member one vote method.5 The selection rules, such as points per
riding, give candidates an incentive to campaign on national questions. In light of the process discussed in this chapter, the evidence shows that Canadian parties are changing their internal organizations as a response to changing patterns of political participation (see Table2.1). Which is also the case of the Conservative Party of Canada in late 2015 after the resignation of Stephen Harper.
To select their leader the Conservative Party of Canada chose to give every member one vote. And Item 6.1.1 states that:
• a) Each Electoral District is worth 100 points.
• b) Candidates are assigned a point total based on his or her percentage of the vote in each Electoral District.
• c) To win, a Candidate must obtain a majority of points from across the country. • d) Balloting shall be conducted by Preferential Ballot (single transferable vote).6
Furthermore, according the rules relative to who is eligible to vote in the 2016-2017 leadership selection, established by the Conservative Party of Canada on March 8th2016:
• Item 2.1.1: To vote in the Election Process a person must be a member in good standing of the Party as of 5:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (ET) on March 28, 2017 (Cut-off Time). • Item 2.3.2: An incentive of $5 per membership will be paid to Candidates for memberships
submitted before October 28, 2016. To cover the additional costs of processing, a fee of $5 per membership will be charged to Candidates for memberships submitted after Feb 28, 2017.7
There were 345 days between the date the rules were published and the membership recruitment cut-off date. Candidates had almost one year to bring their own members to the party. In that time period, the Conservative Party of Canada more than doubled its membership to 259,010 members and saw a 51% turnout rate for the leadership vote (CBC News, 2017). The question, according to Respondent 158is whether all of these new members will stay with the party until
the 2019 general election. We can conclude then that leadership candidates invested important campaign efforts in membership recruitment. In addition, as per Item 2.3.2 candidates also had a financial incentive to recruit members earlier in the campaign. If candidates recruit members up until one month prior to the membership cut-off date, there was a 5$ per new member which would remain in the hands of the campaign that signed-up said members. Now, we cannot know exactly how many members each candidate signed up and when. That is because parties tend to keep that information private. However, we can deduct how these members were signed-up as
5For a full account of the events surrounding the merger seeFlanagan(2009).
6Conservative Party of Canada(2016) 7Conservative Party of Canada(2016)
well as who they may be.
AlthoughGeddes(1990) cautions scholars about choosing cases based on the dependent vari-able, she does state that it can "contribute to building and revising theories" (Geddes,1990, 149). Therefore, the Canadian case is well suited for this exercise. In addition, a single case study al-lows us to offer an in-depth assessment of a causal mechanism (Fearon,1991). The theory tested by this research project is Michels’ updated Iron Law (see Figure2.1). For the purposes of this research project the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2016-2017 leadership primary is studied. At the 2015 Canadian election the then governing Conservative Party went from governing party to the official opposition. After which the leader of the party, Stephen Harper, resigned. Shortly af-ter the party announced that it would launch the official leadership race. Each riding is worth 100 points and every member is given a preferential ballot (Conservative Party of Canada). Based on the previous chapter, there are a few effects which we should expect to see because the party chose these rules.
2.3
Conclusion
This research project is grounded in Robert Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy. Scholarship on elec-toral politics, political participation, and political parties is mobilized. It leads us to the research question and hypotheses outlined shortly.
Four components of the process of oligarchization will be tested using the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2016-2017 leadership primary. Ideal leaders and leader effects will be studied together, because at the outset it is difficult to discern which one affects the other first. Then the rules which the political party will establish for the primary (intra-party democracy) will affect how the candidates will campaign during the primary.