Candidate Behaviour and Autonomy in the 2015 Canadian Federal Election

• In Event: Candidates, Legislators, and Parties

Abstract

Given Canada’s regional divides, Single-Member-Plurality electoral system, and stratarchical party organization, federal candidates have considerable flexibility in tailoring their local political strategy and messaging (Carty and Eagles 2005; Cross and Young 2015; Cross and Pruysers 2018). At times, candidates may test the limits of party discipline and election campaign centralization with their individualized campaign approaches. However, the contours of candidate autonomy relative to party headquarters remain understudied. The literature on political personalization has introduced the concept of decentralized personalism (Balmas et al. 2014; Cross et al. 2018) where local candidates emphasize personal characteristics in place of political parties and policy. While this approach may be encouraged by parties in order to benefit from a popular candidate, other local campaign tactics and messaging may differ from official party guidelines, draw the ire of party headquarters, or occur without their awareness. This paper seeks to develop a framework to identify and explain rebellious or noncompliant candidate behaviour. The paper draws from interviews conducted with 82 candidates in the 2015 federal election and 10 party officials. It begins with the concept of unsanctioned decentralized personalism and proposes a broader conception of candidate behaviour that draws from political communications scholarship. This framework includes local branding decisions, regional and linguistic idiosyncrasies, and political message dissonance. The paper also considers party responses to intransigent candidates, which include warnings, sanctions, and the removal of candidates.

Author

• Jacob Robbins-Kanter, Queen's University