RAPID: Perpetual Minority Government? Electoral Choice in the Midst of Political and Economic Crises in a Contemporary Mature Democracy

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Canada appears to be facing an era of debilitating political deadlock where deep-seated regional and ethno-linguistic cleavages prevent any single party from capturing a majority of seats in the Parliament. The last three elections have each resulted in a minority government, and a fourth consecutive minority government looks likely. Little is known about how citizens respond when democratic systems that, for a number of successive elections, produced stable governments with comfortable majorities switch to producing successive short-lived minority governments. Given this context, this study focuses on the following topics. First, how does the seemingly endless procession of short-lived minority governments impact support for the Canadian political system? Second, who do Canadians blame for the ongoing instability? Third, do Canadians desire significant institutional change and, if so, what changes do they want? Fourth, who do the citizens believe is responsible for the serious economic and political problems facing Canada? Fifth, how do citizens assign credit and blame to parties for handling (or failure to handle) these problems? Sixth and finally, how do these factors affect party choice and electoral turnout? To answer these questions, the researchers use a two wave internet survey involving 3,000 respondents in the initial wave. The initial wave will occur prior to the election. The second wave will involve recontacts after the election with the initial set of interviewees. The data from the survey will be made public within one year of the researchers receiving the data sets. In addition, this survey is modeled after the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. The support from the National Science Foundation provides resources for a core set of questions on the survey. This allows other scholars to purchase modules on the survey to address specific questions of interest to them. They are able to stretch their own scarce resources by not having to pay for the core set of questions.