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Opinion Structure Among New Democratic Party Activists: A Comparison with Liberals and Conservatives*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Keith Archer  and
Alan Whitehorn
Keith Archer
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
Alan Whitehorn
Affiliation:
Royal Military College
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Abstract

There is substantial disagreement over the extent to which political parties in Canada can be distinguished on ideological grounds. Research on mass publics has usually concluded that ideology plays only a modest role in structuring orientations towards parties. However, a growing body of survey data on party activists suggests a greater degree of ideological clarity and policy cohesiveness. This note extends earlier research by Blake, Johnston and Perlin on Liberal and Conservative convention delegates and compares them with delegates to the 1987 federal New Democratic party convention. Survey data on convention delegates suggest that political activists array themselves in a relatively consistent manner across a range of issues in ways that are compatible with a left/right ideological typology. Our findings also suggest that New Democrats display the greatest consensus and ideological distinctiveness of the three parties studied.

Résumé

Il existe un profond désaccord quant à savoir jusqu'à quel point on peut caractériser les partis politiques du Canada selon des lignes idéologiques. Les travaux de recherche sur les masses ont le plus souvent conclu que l'idéologie ne joue qu'un rôle modeste dans la structuration des orientations vis-à-vis des partis politiques. Cependant, un nombre croissant de sondages sur les militants des partis laisse supposer un plus grand degré de clarté idéologique et de cohésion en matière de politique. Dans la présente étude, les auteurs poursuivent les travaux de recherche réalisés par Blake, Johnston et Perlin sur les délégues aux congrès du Parti libéral et du Parti conservateur en les comparant avec les délégués néo-démocrates qui ont participé au congrès fédéral du Nouveau parti démocratique en 1987. D'après les sondages sur les délégués aux congrès, les militants politiques couvrent de manière relativement constante un éventail d'indices compatibles avec une typologie idéologique gauche-droite. Des trois partis étudies, les Néo-Démocrates sont ceux qui manifestent le plus grand consensus et la plus grande démarcation idéologique.

Type
Notes
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 101 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1990

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References

1 Blake, Donald, “Division and Cohesion: The Major Parties,” in Perlin, George (ed.), Party Democracy in Canada (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1988), 47–48.Google Scholar

2 Richard Johnston, “The Ideological Structure of Opinion on Policy,” in Perlin (ed.), Party Democracy in Canada, 65.

3 The NDP survey consisted of a mailed post-convention questionnaire to all 1,391 registered delegates, of whom 738 responded. The 54 per cent response rate was one of the highest ever obtained from a study of federal party convention delegates. Demographic information on the survey is available from the authors.

4 For an explanation of the index of difference, see Blake, “Division and Cohesion,” 34. It should be noted that we use the index in a somewhat less complex manner than does Blake. Our index of difference is a straightforward difference between the percentage of delegates in one party who agree on one item minus the percentage who agree on the same item in another party. We recalculated Blake's index of difference between the Liberals and Conservatives and found that in the overwhelming majority of cases, there was little or no difference in the results obtained by our less complex method of calculation. We applied the same method to all three parties.

5 Differences in question wording may account for some of this result.

6 We adjusted our indexes to have the same range as those of Blake. In most instances, this was accomplished by including in our index the same number of items as are included in Blake's indexes. In those instances when sufficient comparable items were not available (namely, anti-corporate power, bilingualism and privatization) the values on the indexes were adjusted to produce a range equivalent to those of Blake. To take one example, Blake included six items in his privatization index. Since individuals score one point for each “pro-privatization” response, the index has a range of 0–6. Because our measure had only four comparable items, the resulting index was multiplied by 1.5 so that its range also was 0–6. This procedure enables us to compare directly the means within, but not across, indexes. The standard deviation is increased under this procedure, maximizing the perceived divisions within the NDP. For further information on the Liberal and Conservative indexes, see Blake, “Division and Cohesion,” 49–50.

7 We have used standard deviation rather than the coefficient of variation (CV) because the former is a more accurate measure of dispersion in this instance. C V is obtained by dividing the standard deviation of each distribution by its mean. With these measures, however, the size of the mean is heavily dependent upon the direction of the index. Furthermore, the decision on the direction of the index is arbitrary. It does not matter whether continentalism is measured in a pro-continentalist or an anti-continentalist direction, as long as it measures feelings toward continentalism. However, since CV divides the standard deviation by the mean, the direction in which the index is measured (itself an arbitrary decision) has a large bearing on the perceived dispersion because of its effect on the mean.

8 We have computed the difference in means somewhat differently than Blake. Whereas Blake took into account the percentage of respondents in each category of the dependent variable, we used the less complex method of subtracting the mean for one party from the mean for another.

9 We tested whether this finding results from arbitrary operational decisions. The direction of each scale was reversed to determine whether the mean and standard deviation of New Democrats would be more like those of Conservatives if the former had to satisfy rather than fail to satisfy criteria of inclusion. Of the eight indexes New Democrats remained the most polar on five (measured by the mean) and the most consensual on six (using standard deviation). The exceptions were hawkishness and privatization, where the NDP position approximated that of Conservatives. We wish to thank one of the JOURNAL reviewers for bringing this issue to our attention.

10 It should be noted that part of this discrepancy is likely attributable to the inclusion in the civil liberties index of a question concerning the 1970 imposition of the War Measures Act, a question which has likely provoked a response directed toward the Liberal government's imposition of the Act.

11 See also Goldfarb, Martin and Axworthy, Thomas, Marching to a Different Drummer (Toronto: Stoddart, 1988Google Scholar).

12 See, for example, Underhill, Frank, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960Google Scholar); and Brodie, Janine and Jenson, Jane, Crisis, Challenge and Change: Party and Class in Canada (Toronto: Methuen, 1980Google Scholar).

13 Compare Alford, Robert, Party and Society: The Anglo-American Democracies (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963Google Scholar).