POL224Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Political Action Committee, Tillman Act Of 1907, Protection Mechanism
Document Summary
Tested before voting and after voting to see results --> non-result, people did not change minds. Long-term factors matter most (e. g. family, class, ethnicity, religion) Social cleavages explain party system; belonging to a social group explains voter choice. Explains stability, but does not explain short-term change well. Electoral swing is the aggregate change in vote support between elections. Sharp decline in liberal support; increase in labour support. Realignment of liberal / conservative voters (or abstainers) toward labour. Fast decline in bloc, liberal support; increase in ndp support. Swing of previous bloc voters toward ndp in quebec; Short-term factors (feelings about eisenhower v. stevenson) explain vote swing. How you feel about parties and leaders matters. Amount people feel aligned to a party appears to be decreasing. Perceptions of the economy explain vote swing in favour of clinton in 1992. Concluded that party identification changes very slowly over time, and is quite stable despite appearances.
