Political Behavior Blog

First, on the economy. Canada has enjoyed a strong economy in recent years, and the Liberal Party naturally tried to take full credit for it. The Conservative victory may provide further evidence for the thesis that incumbents suffer more from bad economic times than they are rewarded in good times. This is probably especially true when there is a long period of prosperity (such as in the US in the 1990s), and voters may become somewhat complacent about the current state of affairs. On the other hand, apparently crime has been rising in Canada and of course the Liberal Party was mired in a corruption scandal. So if we broaden our conception of "retrospective voting" to cover issues besides the economy, the result may be somewhat less puzzling.

With respect to Duverger's Law, Canada has long had a multiparty system, despite having plurality rule. As Cox (1997) summarizing this literature points out, the common explanation is that the third party nationally (recently, the Bloc Quebecois) is concentrated in only one area. Hence, Duverger's Law by itself only implies local bi-partism, not necessarily national bi-partism, and in Quebec the race of late has usually been between the Bloc and the Liberals. Indeed, the Conservatives only mustered 8.8% of the vote in Quebec in 2004 (and didn't win a single seat), and only around 10% in 2000. But this time around, the Conservatives actually moved into second with 24%, and the Liberals with 20%, so it appears to have been a genuine 3-way race. No doubt the corruption scandals hurt the Liberals badly in Quebec, but it will be interesting to see if this is a one-time event or something more permanent. In addition, there seems to have been a number of 3-way contests out west in British Columbia between the NDP, the Liberals, and the Conservatives.