This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| Canadian Election Study | |
|---|---|
| Name | Canadian Election Study |
| Country | Canada |
| Established | 1965 |
| Discipline | Political science |
| Scope | National electoral behavior and public opinion |
Canadian Election Study
The Canadian Election Study is a recurring national survey program that measures voting behavior, political attitudes, and public opinion in Canada across federal elections. It provides time-series data used by scholars at institutions such as the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, the University of Calgary, the McGill University, and the University of Montreal as well as analysts at organizations like the Angus Reid Institute, the Environics Institute, and the Canadian Research Council on Electoral Studies to study trends around parties such as the Liberal Party of Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party of Canada.
The study combines survey instruments, panel components, and contextual variables to examine electoral dynamics involving figures like Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Stephen Harper, and Justin Trudeau and events such as the 1980 Quebec referendum, the 1995 Quebec referendum, the Meech Lake Accord, and the Charlottetown Accord. It documents attitudes toward policy issues referenced in debates like the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Clarity Act, and responses to crises including the October Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Data support comparative work connecting Canadian patterns to research on democracies exemplified by the United Kingdom general election, 2010 and the United States presidential election, 2008.
The program originated in the mid-1960s amid scholarship at centers such as the Institute of Public Opinion and with contributions from scholars affiliated with the Canadian Political Science Association. Early waves coincided with campaigns featuring leaders like John Diefenbaker and electoral contests such as the 1968 Canadian federal election. Over subsequent decades, the study adapted to methodological innovations from projects like the American National Election Studies and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, incorporating technologies pioneered by organizations including the National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Researchers employ probability sampling frames drawn from sources such as the Statistics Canada databases and electoral registers for provinces like Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta, and the Maritime Provinces. Instruments include cross-sectional surveys, rotating panels, and experiment modules inspired by methodologies in the European Social Survey and field experiments used in analyses of the Iowa caucuses and the Florida recount, 2000. Questionnaire topics range over party identification, leader evaluations, issue salience, and media exposure to outlets like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CTV Television Network, and the Globe and Mail. Analytic techniques draw on multilevel modelling developed in studies such as those by scholars at the Princeton University and the London School of Economics as well as causal inference methods used in research on the 1997 United Kingdom general election.
Major findings document partisan realignment episodes tied to events such as the 1984 Canadian federal election and the 1993 Canadian federal election, variation in regional cleavages across provinces including Quebec sovereignty movement strongholds, and the role of economic cycles associated with the Great Recession in shaping vote choice. Work using the study has illuminated the influence of leaders like Preston Manning and issues such as social policy debates exemplified by the Canada Health Act on electoral outcomes. Research has also explored media effects comparing coverage by the Toronto Star and National Post and examined turnout determinants in the context of reforms like the Canada Elections Act and experiments on voting methods used in provinces such as British Columbia and Ontario.
Data distribution follows protocols similar to repositories like the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research and the Canadian Research Data Centre Network, with documentation and codebooks supporting replication standards exemplified by the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Politics. Users apply statistical software such as R (programming language), Stata, and SPSS to analyze microdata while adhering to confidentiality frameworks used by Statistics Canada and institutional review boards at universities including McMaster University and the University of Ottawa.
The program has influenced campaign strategy at party headquarters from the Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of Canada to provincial organizations, informed media analysis at outlets like CBC News and Global News, and underpinned books and articles published by presses such as the University of Toronto Press and journals including Canadian Journal of Political Science. Its longitudinal perspective has shaped debates about representation, federalism, and public opinion in cases like the Clarity Act and provincial realignments in Alberta politics, contributing to comparative research engaged with studies of democracies including the United Kingdom and the United States.
Category:Political science data sets Category:Elections in Canada