What Role Does Affective Proximity Play in Canadian Elections?

• In Event: Sincere and Strategic Voters

Abstract

Voters' feelings toward social and political groups can impact their political behaviour. How does group-based affect---voters' relatively warmer or colder feelings toward different groups---impact their vote choice? The goal of our present work is twofold. Our first task is descriptive: What does the "affective space" look like in Canada? To answer this question, we use data from the Canadian Election Study on feelings toward ethnic groups, sexual minorities, political parties, and national groups (e.g., Canadians, Quebeckers, and Americans). We use unsupervised machine learning techniques to reduce the dimensionality of affective space in Canada. We then use hierarchical clustering to identify meaningful clusters of group-based affect. Our second task is inferential: How does group-based affect impact vote choice? Does its effect change across time? Does group-based affect influence voting behaviour differently in Quebec and the rest of Canada? To answer these questions, we regress vote choice on two dimensions of group-based affect -- ideological and ethnocultural -- in seven different elections from 1993 to 2019.

Authors

• Sarah Lachance, University of British Columbia

• Edana Beauvais, Simon Fraser University