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The Spatial Analysis of Political Cleavages and the Case of the Ontario Legislature
Conrad Winn; James Twiss
Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique , Vol. 10, No. 2.(Jun., 1977), pp. 287-310.
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The Spatial Analysis of Political Cleavages and the
Case of the Ontario Legislature*
CONRAD WINN Carleton University
JAMES TWISS Carleton University
Introduction
Although the vocabulary of cleavage analysis is a recent introduction to
political science, political analysis has a long-standing concern with the
subject of cleavage. To observe that the Conservative party is more
Protestant and Anglophone than the Liberal party or to argue that the
Conservatives are collectivist and the Liberals individualist is to employ
the idea of cleavage without necessarily displaying a use of the language.
When the concept of cleavage is employed self-consciously, the effect is
to formalize scholarly tasks that were begun as long ago as
1933,
when
Escott Reid's famous essay on the Economic and Racial Bases of
Conservatism and Liberalism first appeared.'
Spatial or geometric models are an additional means of formalizing
the long-standing tasks of identifying similarities and differences among
political par tie^ ^ By using lines or dimensions in multidimensional
space, one can identify the minimum attributes or cleavages needed to
distinguish among the parties in a system, the relative importance of
these attributes, the relationship among the attributes, and the
similarities and differences among the parties. In the geometrical model
of aparty system, each line or dimension represents a cleavage while the
point location of each party in the multidimensional space describes its
position among the cleavages. The distances among the parties define
Data collection and analysis were supported in part by funds made available by the
Political Science Department, Wilfrid Laurier University. For other kinds of assis-
tance, thanks are owed to James Breithaupt, M.P.P., Stephen Lewis, M.P.P., and
John Smith, M.P.P. Professor John Wilson, University of Waterloo, kindly reviewed
an earlier draft. Thanks are due also to an anonymous assessor.
1
Canadian Political Parties: A Study of the Economic and Racial Bases of Conser-
vatism and Liberalism in 1930, in John C. Courtney (ed .) ,
Vot ing in Canada
(To-
ronto: Prentice-Hall, 1967).
2
On spatial analysis as a multivariate statistical set of techniques, see Paul E Green
and Frank Carmone, Multidimensional Scaling and Related Tech niques in Marketing
nalysis (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1970).
Canadian Journal of Political Science
/
Revue canadienne de science politique, X: (June juin 1977 .
Printed in Canada Imprime au Canada
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CONRAD WINN and JAMES TWISS
their similarities or differences. The simplest of spatial models is the
one-dimensional left-right model, according to which some parties are
more left-wing or right-wing than others.
When the scholarly literature involves informal observation and
intuition, the construction of spatial models can help overcome am-
biguities of interpretation. Where the literature is vast-the case of
federal party politics, spatial modeling permits the construction of
typologies. Alternative models can then be exposed to empirical valida-
tion. Spatial models are particularly suited to statistical verification
because the concept of multidimensional space lies at the root of factor
analysis, tree analysis, scaling and other multivariate statistical tech-
niques. Spatial analysis is hence a means of linking the earlier scientific
stages of informal observation, concept development, and hypothesis
construction with the later stage of hypothesis testing.
Spatial analysis is also a means of clarifying concepts and hypoth-
eses. While the traditional, informal commentary that has predominated
in Canadian political science has been frequently constructive and valid,
there has been a tendency to mix freely different kinds of evidence and
different levels of analysis. For example, in his widely approved com-
mentary on the party system, Gad Horowitz used without inhibition
evidence from provincial and federal systems. Horowitz also con-
structed his thesis about Tory collectivism and Liberal individualism
with a potpourri of examples that included government policy outputs,
pronouncements by party ideologues, and elite attitude^.^
If the Con-
servative party is collectivist, it is not entirely clear if this is supposed to
be true of Conservative government programmes, party manifestos, the
attitudes of elites, the attitudes of activists and/or the attitudes of voters.
These kinds of distinction need to be, and are normally, made in spatial
analysis as in other formal processes of empirical verification.
Most empirical inquiry to date has been concerned with the be-
haviour or attitudes of voters in the federal system (see Table
1 .
Yet, in
the long term, spatial models will need to be constructed for activists,
elites, and party policies at both the provincial and federal levels. The
construction of spatial models will add to our knowledge in a general
way as well as provoke further questions for investigation. For example,
the policy-making process can be portrayed as an input-throughput-
3
Gad Horowitz, anadia n Labour in Polit ics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1968 . 3-57. Horowitz mustered evidence from public policy when he argued that a
willingness to use the state for economic purposes was especially notable in the
history of Canada's Conservative party (10). In the domain of party ideology, he
observed that W. L. Morton, a conscious ideological Conservative, exhorted
fellow Conservatives to embrace the welfare s ta te . . . (21). In the domain of elite
attitudes, he expressed the view that R . B. Bennett, Arthur Meighen, and George
Drew are characterized by an emphasis on loyalty to the crown and to the British
connection (and also by) a touch of the authentic tory aura-traditionalism, elitism,
the strong state, and so on (20).
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Une analyse spatiale des clivages politiques: le Canada et I'Ontario
Apr ks avoir expliqu e l 'util i te de l 'analys e spatiale dan s I'Ptude de s systPmes d e
part i s po l i t iques , e t avoir in tegrP, dans des modPles spat iaux , d iverses
combinaisons d es m ultiples dimensions retenues dan s les ecri ts portant sur les
part is pol it iques fe 'deraux au Ca na da , les auteurs evaluent etnpiriquement ces
m od i l e s aux P tapes inpu t , througlzput e t ou tp ut du processus
politique.
Por tan t ensu i t e l eur a t t en t ion a u processu s po l i t ique on tar i en , i ls
constatent que les clivages Plectoraux y sont remarquablement stables et
isomorphiquem ent liPs au x cl ivages fkdkraux, ce qui les am kne croire que le
sys t mepolitique de I'Ontario mPrite de faire I'objet d' u n exa me n minutieux.
S ' en tenan t la seule etape throughput n de ce sy stem e, i ls pratiquent une
rotation des variables attitudinales tirPes d'un sondage efjeectue aupr2.s des
dkputPs ontarie ns, laquelle rotation produit un e solution m ultifactorielle d uns
laquel le les cl ivages dus au bicul turalisme e t a l 'appartenance de classe sociale
rendent comp te d 'une tr s orte proport ion de la variance comm une.
TABLE 1
ASSESSED PROGRESS OF RESEARCH ON POLITICAL
CLEAVAGES IN S ELEC TED DATA DOMAINS
Federal Provincial
Voters
High Medium
Activists Medium Medium
Elites
Medium Low
Party Declarations
Low Low
Policy Outputs
Low Low
N.B.
Cell entries are based on informal observation. Those entries in
the provincial column are general in nature and ignore con-
siderable variations among provinces.
output process and models of the party system can be delineated at each
stage. Input data would consist of the demographic attributes or ideolog-
ical beliefs of voters (e.g., religion or class) while throughput data would
include the same kind of information for party elites. Output data would
be information on party programmes and actual government impacts
among the political cleavages identified at the earlier
stage^.^
Conceiva-
bly, the distances among the parties may be found to persist from the
4
For an elucidation of the input-throughput-output paradigm and for a Canadian
application, see David J. Falcone and Michael
S.
Whittington, Output Change in
Canada: A Preliminary Attempt to Open the 'Black-Box,' paper presented at the
meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association, June, 1972.
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CONRAD WINN
and
JAMES TWISS
input model of voter differences to the throughput model of elite differ-
ences, but be attenuated in the output model of policy outputs. This
hypothetical finding would raise doubt about whether parties exert
systematic and distinguishable impacts in the policy-making process.
To distinguish formally between levels of analysis may do more
than add greater precision to empirical statements and prompt further
questions about the nature of the phenomena being described. To dis-
tinguish between levels or domains of analysis may also encourage
greater discourse between subfields within political science. For exam-
ple, students of parties have generally assumed that political parties
have distinguishable policy impacts that reflect to some extent their
different ideologies or electorates. The popular works of Gad Horowitz
and George Grant reflect such t h i n k i ~ ~ g . ~y contrast, a prevalent as-
sumption in the fields of public administration and public policy is that
the impact of parties is negligible. For example, according to Pross,
parties have very little say in the determination of p ~ l i c y . ~
Our paper begins by examining the federal party system. The
prolific and predominantly informal writing on federal parties is trans-
lated into spatial models with different combinations of dimensions or
cleavages. We review the party process at the input, throughput, and
output stages and suggest which model, if any, receives the burden of
empirical confirmation. The fact that the literature on federal party
politics is vast provides an opportunity to show the usefulness of and
possibilities provided by spatial analysis.
The paper then turns to the literature on the Ontario provincial
system and to a multidimensional analysis of political attitudes elicited
from a survey of Ontario provincial legislators. It has been traditionally
more fashionable to study political behaviour and political cleavages in
the federal system than in any of the provincial systems. The greater
federal emphasis stems partly from an assumption that federal party
identification is stronger than provincial party identification and from an
assumption that federal patterns of behaviour have a greater influence
on provincial behaviour than vice-versa. For example, in their well
known paper on the Liberal party in Ontario politics, Wilson and Hoff-
man assumed that federal Liberal voters switch to the Conservative
party in provincial elections rather than that provincial Conservative
voters switch to the Liberal party in federal elections.'
5
Horowitz, Canadian Labour and George Grant, Lament for a Nation (Toronto:
McClelland and Stewart, 1965).
6 Paul Pross, Canadian Pressure Groups in the 1970's: Their role and their relations
with the public service, Canadian Public. Administration
8
(1975). 131. See also
Robert Jackson and Michael Atkinson, The Canadian Legislative System (Toronto:
Macmillan of Canada, 1974).
Their assessment of federal to provincial switching is based on some aggregate as well
as survey data relating to the 1967 provincial election. However, that particular
election might have been atypical. For example, Wilson and Hoffman found that the
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Th eSpat ia l Analys is o f Pol it ical Cleavages
29
In fact, there is a growing body of evidence that cleavages in
provincial party systems need not be derivative of federal cleavages, but
may exist independently. Provincial cleavages may even exercise a
causal influence
on
federal behaviour. From their analysis of the
974
national survey, Professor Jenson and her colleagues concluded that
provincial party identification in Canada is not a secondary form of
identification but an attachment in every sense equal to federal
id en ti fi~ation. ~enson found that provincial party identification ap-
peared to be stronger than federal party identification in seven of the ten
province^ ^
Furthermore, provincial party identification was found to
be more stable than federal party identification.1
The case of Ontario provincial politics is especially significant.
Twenty years ago, Dennis Wrong argued that the politics of Ontario
are a microcosm of the federal politics of Canada, except that the
Conservatives rather than the Liberals are the dominant party. ll Data
from the 974 survey corroborate the view that electoral cleavages in the
federal and Ontario provincial systems are strikingly similar. Among the
provinces with at least three viable federal parties (i.e., west of New
Brunswick), 0ntario was found to possess the fewest split party iden-
tifiers and the highest consistency of federal and provincial party
identifications.12 Furthermore, Ontario exhibited a much higher degree
of partisan stability than either the federal system or than any of the
provinces with at least three viable federal parties. This last datum
suggests that Wrong may have understated his case, that it may be as
true to say that Canada is a macrocosm of Ontario as that Ontario is a
microcosm of Canada.
relationshipbetweenfederalLiberalvotesandprovincialabstentionswas"particu-
larlystriking" inHamilton.JohnWilsonandDavidHoffman,"The LiberalPartyin
ContemporaryOntarioPolitics," thisJOU RY AL (1970), 184.Yet,RobertCunning-
ham e t a l . found"the relationship tobe allbut nonexistent" in 1971.SeeRobert
Cunningham,Janet Rubas,andGrahamWhite, "Differential Loyalties:SplitIden-
tificationandVotingattheFederalandProvincialLevels," paperpresentedatthe
meetingofthe Canadian PoliticalScienceAssociation, June, 1972,2.
8 JaneJenson,HaroldClarke,LawrenceLeduc,JonPammett,
"Patterns ofPartisan-
shipinCanada:SplitIdentification andCross-TimeVariation," paperpresentedat
themeetingsoftheAmericanPolitical ScienceAssociation,September, 1975,18.
9
Notestsof statistical significancewereused.Seetable3,ibid.
10 Ameanfederal stabilityscoreof64.5percentiscontrasted withameanprovincial
scoreof74.1percent.Seetable5,ibid.
"Ontario ProvincialElections, 1934-55:APreliminarySurveyofVoting," Canadian
Journal o f Economics and Poli tica l Sc ience
23(1957).402.
12
Seetables3and4in Jenson
e t a l . ,
"Patterns ofPartisanship."
13 Ontario's stabilityscorewas79.8percent.Seetable5,ibid.GeorgePerlinandPatti
Peppin alsodrewattentionto the specialcharacterofOntariopolitical behaviour,
especiallytheprovince's "affect forfederalpolitics." Seetheir"Variation inParty
Supportin Federal and Provincial Elections: SomeHypotheses," thisJ O U R N ~ L
(1971),286.
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CONRAD WINN
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JAMES TWISS
The stability and strength of provincial party identification in On-
tario suggests the importance of additional research on that province.
The similarity of identification in the federal and Ontario provincial
systems suggests furthermore that the study of Ontario may benefit from
comparison with the federal system. At the input stage, an established
body of literature describes electoral behaviour and political cleavages
in the two systems. At the throughput stage, agrowing body of evidence
examines the attitudes and beliefs of legislators in the federal system.
Hoffman, Porter, and especially Kornberg have presented empirical
evidence about the distribution of political cleavages in the House of
Commons.14 However, there are no comparable, systematic studies of
the Ontario legislature. Our paper is intended to help fill this gap. In
particular, the paper presents a multidimensional model of cleavages in
the Ontario legislature, showing the nature and significance of the cleav-
ages and the locations of the party caucuses.
The ederal ystem
The federal literature is devoted more to the behaviour of voters than to
the nature of party elites or policy outputs, but it is not always perfectly
clear if a particular thesis about party differences is intended to apply to
only one or to more than one stage of the input-throughput-output
process. Among the studies that appear to focus on the input stage of
voter attributes eleven different models can be identified.
The first
explanation of the party system is a random one according to which
there are no fixed lines of cleavage. The remaining ten explanations
consist of combinations of six axes (see Table 2).
The most common dimension is the left-right or class cleavage,
which appears in nine interpretations. In model 2, a one-dimensional
variant, the left-right cleavage is attributed a very special significance.
However, in the eight remaining models the left-right cleavage tends to
occupy a position of equal or subordinate significance. The second most
frequent axis is the cultural cleavage (French Catholic vs. English
Protestant), which appears six times. The remaining axes are foreign
policy (pro-United States vs. pro-Canadian), urban vs. rural, collectivist
14 See David Hoffman and Norman Ward, Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the Can a-
d ian House o f Com mons (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1970); Allan Kornberg, Canadian
Legislative Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1967); and John
Porter, The Vertical Mosaic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), chap.
13. On non-parliamentary elites and activists, see Henry Jacek
e t a l .
"The Congru-
ence of Federal-Provincial Campaign Activity in Party Organizations," this J O U R N ~ L
5 (1972), 190-205; Henry Jacek, "Party Loyalty and Electoral Volatility," ibid., 8
(1975). 144-45; John Courtney, The Selection of National Party Leaders in Canada
(Toronto: Macmillan, 1973), 105-26; and John McMenemy and Conrad Winn, "Party
Personnel-Elites and Activists," in Conrad Winn and John McMenemy,
Political
Parties in Canada (Scarborough, Ont.: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1976).
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The Spatial nalysis of Political Cleavages
T A B L E 2
S P A T I A L M O D E L S , D I M E N S I O N S A N D P R O P O N E N T S
.
-
I
a0
2
e
3
2 .2 4.8
Name Proponents
l z
ez Z
a 3 2
0 2 ~
1.
Random
F o x
2.
L-R
Laponce
3 .
Cultural
Alford
Laponce
Meisel
Regenstreif
4. Cultural
Engelmann
Schwar tz
5. Cultural
Taylor
6.
Cultural/
ForeignPolicy
Smith
7.
Cultural
Liberal
ForeignPolicy party
8.
Cultural
ForeignPolicy
Meisel
9.
ForeignPolicy
McNaught
10.
ForeignPolicy
Mor ton
Meisel
11.
Collectivist
Horowitz
Gran t
vs. individualist, andgeographic(e.g. , corevs. periphery). Foreaseof
exposition, thosemodelscharacterizedbyaculturalaxisareclassedas
culturaland thosecha racterizedby aforeignpolicy axis areclasseda s
foreignpolicy. Som emodels belong toamixed cultural/foreignpolicy
classification.
Historically, on eofthem ost comm onviewsofCanad ianpoli tical
par t ies i s tha t the i r formal explanat ion is unat ta inable (model
1 .
Ac-
cording to this outlook, the l inesofcleavagehavebeen too transitory
andrandomtoprovidepartieswithstableidentities. Inthelongrun,all
pa rt ie s r ec e ive s uppo rt f rom a lm os t a ll s e c to r s w i th t he r es ul t t ha t
cont inuous divis ions are absent . Paul Foxmakes anargument for the
r an do m m o de l in th e c o u rs e of p o rtr ay in g p ar ti es a s s el le rs in a n
e c onom ic m a rke t. L ike l arge de pa r tm e n t s t ore s in c om pet it ion , t he
pa r ti e s s t rive to deve lop ever more d iverse and tantal iz ing a r rays o f
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CONRAD WINN
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JAMES TWISS
inducements in order to increase their s l ice of the electoral consumer
market . s
Th e left-right or class axis is the m ost widely used dimension am ong
models of the party syste m. In som e of his earlier work, Jean L apo nce
appeared to believe that class cleavage was a sufficient , or at least a
major, ex planation of the syste m . T he left-right axis becam e a left-right
model (model 2).16 H ow eve r, if L apo nce on ce subscribed to the left-
right model, his more recent work supports cultural interpretat ion."
Walter Young and N. H. Chi consider the left-right cleavage to be a
dom inan t, if insufficient explanation of the party syste m.ls
T he co mm on a t t r ibute of the cul tural models i s of course a cul tura l
axis , which is orthogo nal o r at r ight angles to a left-right axis an d/o r to
on e of the o ther ax es . Th e scholar ly or igin of the cul tura l d imens ion can
be traced to Reid's noted essay on part ies , subti t led
A
Study of the
Economic and Racia l Bases of Conservat ivism and Libera l ism in
1930." Reid argu ed that the m ajor part ies were be st dist inguished by
ethnicity ("race"). T he more Fre nch the inhabitants of a locali ty, the
m ore L ibe ra l t he loca li ty ; the m ore E ngl is h , t he m ore C o n s e r ~ a t i v e ? ~
Joh n M eisel w as o ne of the firs t to d em ons trate s tat is t ically the impor-
tan ce of religion in Can adian politics. In his 1953 surv ey of Kin gston , he
show ed that Rom an Catholics had a 41: 1 probabili ty of voting Liberal
ra ther than Conservat ive . Furthermore , he found that when asked to
explain their party preference in term s of leader, candidate, program me,
and /or par ty loyal ty , one-fourth of h is Conservat ive respon dents a t t r i -
buted their preference instead to anti-Catholic or anti-French feelings.20
15
Paul Fox, "Les partisfederaux," in Louis Sabourin,
Le Syst i .mepol i t ique du Canada
(Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1968).
16 Jean Laponce, "Note on the Use of the Left-Right Dimension," Com parative Polit i
cal Studies 2 (1969-70), 481-501, and People
vc
Politics (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1969), 111-92,
passim.
17 J. A. Laponce, "Post-dicting Electoral Cleavages in Canadian Federal Elections,
1945-68:Material for a Footnote," this JO UR NA L(1972), 284. See also J. A. Laponce
and R. S. Uhler, "Measuring Electoral Cleavages in a Multiparty System: The
Canadian Case,"
Com parative Poli tical Studie s
7 (1974/75), 3-25.
18
Walter Young, Demo cracy and Discontent (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1969), 106-109,
and N. H. Chi, "Class Cleavage," in Conrad Winn and John McMenemy,
Political
Parties in Canada (Scarborough: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1976). See also Nelson
Wiseman and
K .
W. Taylor, "Ethnic vs. Class Voting: The Case of Winnipeg, 1945,"
this JOURNAL(1974), 314-28.
19 See note 1, above.
20
"Religious Affiliation and Electoral Behavior: A Case Study,"
Canadian Journal o f
Economics and Poli t ical Science
22 (1956), 481-96, reprinted in John C. Courtney,
Vot ing in C anada
(Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1967). Although the cultural dimension
includes religious and linguistic components, there is no agreement about their
relative import. There is considerable evidence that religion is a better statistical
predictor of partisan choice. See, for example, Peter Regenstreif, The Diefenbaker
Interlude: Parties and Voting in Can ada
(Toronto: Longmans Canada, 1965), 93-94.
However, Irvine's recent analysis of survey data suggests that religion is being
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Th e Spat ia l Analys is
o
Pol it ical Clea vage s
The cultural model probably emerges most frequently as a two-
dimensional variant with orthogonal cultural and class axes. However,
there are exceptions. For example, Frederick Engelmann and Mildred
Schwartz have added a core-periphery cleavage. The theory of core-
periphery cleavage holds that the perceived industrial and decision-
making centres of political systems are in intermittent conflict with their
less powerful hinterlands. In Canada, Western alienation has been man-
ifested as exceptional support for the minor parties, the Progressives,
Social Credit and CCF-NDP. According to Engelmann and Schwartz,
therefore, there is a third regional economic Prairie agricultural-
industrial East division in the party system.21To this Charles Taylor
has added a cleavage separating urban from rural areas.2z
While one cluster of spatial models is characterized by a cultural
axis, another group of models is distinguished by a foreign policy dimen-
sion. Desmond Morton, Kenneth McNaught and several others have
suggested that differences over foreign policy have occupied a signifi-
cant place in party politics. The cleavage involves pro-U.S. sentiments at
one pole and pro-Canadian, or less often, pro-British sentiments at the
other. The Liberal party is usually portrayed as the most pro-American
but there is no agreement about the attitudes of the other parties.23
A final model to note is the collectivist model of Gad Horowitz and
George Grant. The collectivist explanation of Canadian parties post-
ulates a collectivist vs. individualist axis perpendicular to a left-right
axis. Horowitz was concerned primarily to highlight the greater collec-
tivism of Canadian as opposed to American political culture. He argues
that Canadian Conservatives are distinguished from the Liberals by
their lesser preference for the private good as a frame of reference. As
evidence Horowitz points to well known public ventures of Conserva-
supplanted by language as the basis of cleavage. See William Irvine, Canadian
Partisan Identity
,
this JOURNAL 1974), 560-63.
2
Political Parties and the Canadian Social Structure
(Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1967),
252.
22
The Pattern of Poli t ics (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970), 159.
23
See Denis Smith, Prairie Revolt, Federalism, and the Party System, in Courtney,
Voting
149 (model no. 6); Liberal National Committee, Reference Handbook
(Ottawa, 1945), quoted in J. L. Granatstein, The Polit ics o f Survival: Th e Cons er-
vative Party of Canada 1939-1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), 3
(model no. 7); John Meisel, The Stalled Omnibus: Canadian Parties in the 1960's,
Social Research 30 (1963), 375-78 (model no. 8); Kenneth McNaught, Th e Pelican
History of Canada (Hammondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970), 301 (model
no. 9); Desmond Morton, Perspectives for the NDP in the Seventies, in Laurier
Lapierre
e t a l . Essays on the
Lej?
Essays in Honour o f T . C . Douglas
(Toronto:
McClelland and Stewart, 1974), 251-63; and John Meisel, Canadian Parties and
Politics, in R. H. Leach (ed.), Contemporary Canada (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1968). 124-47
passim
(model no. 10). fuller discussion of the
literature on Canadian parties appears in Conrad Winn, Spatial Models of Party
Systems (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1972), chap.
2.
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CONRAD WINN
and
JAMES TWISS
tive governments, namely the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the
Canadian National Railways, Ontario Hydro, and the Bank of Canada.24
The collectivist model is related to the notion of the Red Tory .
The Red Tory is right-wing on the left-right axis. But, he is sufficiently
collectivist on the individualist vs. collectivist dimension to feel closer
to socialism than to liberalism and to prefer the CCF-NDP to the Liberal
party.
Of the various models described briefly in the preceding passages,
the cultural models are probably the most popular. Indeed, there is a
growing statistical evidence to demonstrate the greater validity of cul-
tural models compared to the various alternatives. In particular, the
recent empirical research of Laponce tends to confirm the relevance of
the cultural model at the input stage of the political process. In one
study, he employed tree analysis to identify the best demographic pre-
dictors of partisan choice in federal elections between 1949 and 1969.
Laponce summarized his findings simply:
The Conservatives are rich and Protestant, the Liberals Catholic and French,
the NDP is working class and Protestant. Canada is thus no exception among
western industrial nations. Its party system is organized around the usual
regional, religious, and social class oppositions to which is added a specific
linguistic cleavage.25
At the throughput stage, it also seems reasonably clear that the
cultural model is superior to its rivals. Jacek's data on party activists in
Hamilton and Chi's data on delegates to national party conventions
provide evidence for the relevance of the cultural and left-right
cleavages.26 There is additional evidence in support of the cultural
model from Kornberg's well known study of the House of Commons and
from the analysis of activist respondents in the various national election
surveys.z7
While some version of the cultural model seems valid at the input
and throughput stages of the political process, this does not seem to be
true at the output stage. The economists, whose efforts have predomi-
nated, have found little evidence of apartisan impact on policy output in
this Furthermore, two political scientists who focussed on
24 See note 5 above.
25 Laponce, "Post-dicting Electoral Cleavages," 284.
26 Henry Jacek e t a l . "The Congruence of Federal-Provincial Campaign Activity in
Party Organizations: the Influence of Recruitment Patterns in Three Hamilton Rid-
ing ~," his JOURNAL(1972), 190-205, and N.
H .
Chi, "Class Voting in Canada," in
Orest M. Kruhlak et al . he Can adian Polit ical Process (Toronto: Holt, Rinehart,
and Winston, 1973), 226-447.
27
Kornberg, Can adian Legislative Behav ior. See also McMenemy and Winn, Political
Parties in Canada.
28 A valuable discussion of the Canadian economics literature appears in Richard M.
Bird, The Growth o f Government Spending in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Tax
Foundation, 1970).
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The Spa t ia l Ana lys is o Pol i t i cal Cleavages
the influence of part isanship could find l i t tle evidence of suc h influence.
Although they employed a large volume of systematic quanti tat ive
analysis , Poel and Falcone could find l i t t le evidence of a systematic
party influence on the character of policy outputs .29
In sum m ary, the cultural model of poli t ical cleavages ap pea rs to be
validated for tw o of the thr ee s tages of the poli tical pro cess in the fede ral
syste m . Cultural and class dime nsions appe ar to d escribe a s ignificant
port ion of the variance at the input s tage of voter behaviou r and at the
throughput s tage of activis ts and el i tes . Less evidence is available to
descr ibe the outpu t s tage , but th is limited evidence app ears to su pport a
null m odel of no sy stematic party differences.
The ntario System
T he striking featu re of the l i terature on th e O ntario provincial system is
tha t i t is s o much smaller an d less intel lectually diverse than the l i tera-
ture o n the federa l sys tem. O ne fac tor i s undoubtedly tha t academics are
less communal and therefore less interested in provincial and local
poli t ics than other population subgroups. The absence of intel lectual
diversi ty may simply result from the relat ive absence of at tention. In
practice, the re is a basic conse nsu s in favo ur of the cultural mo del. M ost
observers apparently agree that the left-right and cultural cleavages
carry special importan ce . How ever , very few s tudies conscious ly dis -
t inguish among the three s tages of the poli t ical process and most are
concerned primarily with electoral behaviour.
In his seminal study of Ontario provincial elections published in
1957
Dennis W rong concluded that only the Conservative party pos-
sesses a solid bastion in the rural a rea s, large tow ns, an d small ci ties of
east-central Ontario. Else wh ere, Wrong show ed Con servative sup-
port to be heterogen eous. Becau se rural and semi-urban are as typically
support part ies of the right , i t is reasonable therefore to portray the
On tario Co nservatives a s a party of the right o r centre-right in a spatial
model of the Ontario party syste m. By con trast , CC F strength is more
homogeneous and is heavi ly concentra ted in Toronto, Hamil ton, the
industrial areas of northern Ontario and in several smaller industrial
29 See David J. Falcone and Michael S. Whittington, "Output Change in Canada: A
Preliminary Attempt to Open the 'Black-Box, ' paper presented at the meetings of
the Canadian Political Science Association, June , 1972; David J. Falcone, "Legisla-
tive Change and Output Change: A Time-Series Analysis of the Canadian System"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1974); Dale H . Poel, "Canadian
Provincial and American State Policy: A Qualitative Explication of an Empirical
Difference," paper presented at the meetings of the Canadian Political Science
Association, June, 1972. Falcone and Poel arrived at their conclusions about the
unsystematic policy-influence of parties as a result of the analysis of government
expenditures. An analysis of government revenue which comes to a similar conclu-
sion appears in Douglas McCready and Conrad Winn, "Redistributive Policy," in
Winn and McMenemy, Pol it ical Parties in Ca na da
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298
CONRAD WINN
and
JAMES TWISS
centres . Because of the support for the CC F among indust rial labour ,
the party would o ccup y a left-wing position in a mod el of cleavages. Fo r
thei r par t , the Libera ls re ta in cons iderable suppo rt in the Ot tawa and
St . Law rence val leys w here there are high proport ions of French Cana-
dian s, and in som e rural and urban ridings in western On tario that ha ve a
history of su pp ort for agrarian reform
Wrong's analysis
implied a bicultural cleavage becau se the L iberal party benefi t ted from
considerable Francop hone suppo rt , a support which diminished in sub-
s e q u e n t e l e c t i o n s .
L i b e r a l s t r e n g t h a m o n g p o c k e t s o f a g r a r i a n
radicalism placed the party to the left of the Conservatives on the
left-right dimension.
This acce pted view of On tario poli t ics has ch anged l i t tle . In his case
stud y of Middlesex so uth , Jo Surich found that class cleavage explained
NDP support while Protestant-Catholic differences dis t inguished the
other two par t ies . H e concluded that there exis ts a c lear connect ion
between social class and voting. H e also asserted th at a fa r larger
proport ion of Conservat ive voters than was expe cted were Protes tant ,
while a larger proportion of Liberal voters w ere R om an C atholic than
would be expected.
3 1
In a recen t overview of m ass poli tical cleavag es in Ontario, R obert
Drumm ond c am e to much the sam e conclus ion. Using union m ember-
ship and o ther indicators of social class in the analysis of surve y data ,
Drum mond located the N D P on th e lef t, the Conservat ives on the r ight,
and the Libera ls in between. Express ing the convent ional wisdom,
Drumm ond sugges ted tha t the s t rongest l ink between Ontar io vot ing
behaviour and membership in a social category remains that between
religious affiliation and vote . T he Lib erals maintained root s am ong
Rom an C athol ics whi le the C onserva t ives did so among mainline
protest ant^ ^^
E
J . H eubel 's surv ey analysis of Michigan and Ontario legis lators
is especial ly germane to the present task because i t examined the
through put s tage of the policy pro cess. Although Heub el did not set out
to exp lore the nature of poli tical cleavages amo ng his respon den ts , som e
of his f indings are relevant. Heu bel asked his respo nde nts to identify the
items of greatest concern to them . In On tario, 51 per cent of his
responses were associated with matters of bicultural concern. These
involved threat to national unity, the problem of Qu ebec and
similar issues. C onc ern s relat ing to the left-right or class cleava ge placed
30
Wrong, "Ontario Provincial Elections, 1934-55," 402-403.
3
Joachim Surich, "The Political Socialization of Ontario Voters: The Case of Mid-
dlesex South," paper presented at the meetings of the Canadian Political Science
Association, June, 1970, 29, 33.
32
R. J. Drummond, "Voting Behaviour: The Blueing of Ontario," in Donald C. Mac-
Donald,
Go vern me nt and Po1itic s of On tario
(Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1975),
310-12. The cultural model of Ontario voting is also implicit in Wilson and Hoffman,
"The Liberal Party in Contemporary Ontario Politics."
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Th e Spatial Analysis of Poli tical Cleava ges
299
second w ith a frequency of 12 per cent . These involved such m at te rs as
the welfare state and the
"U.S.
ownership of [ the] econom y. Oth er
i tems of concern were not clearly related to any apparent long term
cleavage in C anad a, especially not in Ontario. T hese remaining i tems
included con cerns about the need for national leadership and inter-
national problems; peace. 3 3
Method
Our survey of the Ontario legis lature was organized to examine the
relevance not merely of the cultural models prevalent in the l i terature on
Ontar io but a lso the m ore var ied l i te rature on the federa l sys tem. Th e
questionnaire was s tructu red to include a wide range of possible cleav-
age stimuli. For example, a battery of semantic differential-type ques-
t ions el ici ted affect ive at t i tudes tow ards Bri tain, underdeveloped na-
t ions, factory work ers , univers ity professors , Pollut ion Probe, farm ers
and a host of other groups. Respondents were required to indicate
positive feeling as opp osed to negative feeling on a seven- point
scale .34
In add it ion to employing sem antic differential-type q uest io ns, the
instrument asked respondents to express relat ive agreement or dis-
agreement with a series of biased statem ents on contentious F o r
example , subjec ts were asked to respond to the s ta tements tha t Abor-
t ion is a decision to be made by the individual alone, that Our country
shou ld control the im migration of certain racial and religious g roup s,
and that Th e strength of this coun try today is largely a prod uct of the
free enterprise system . Th ese agree-disagree quest ions were em -
ployed in addition to the semantic differential-type items in order to
inhibit respondent fatigue and because not all questions were equally
sui ted to both form ats .36
33
E
J .
Heubel, "Michigan and Ontario Legislators: Perspectives on the Federal Sys-
tem," Can adian Journal o f Econ omics and Pol it ical Sc ience 32 (1966), 449.
34 The items were intended to correspond closely to the evaluation dimension (e.g.,
good vs. bad) rather than to the potency (e.g., weak vs. powerful) and activity
dimensions (e.g., active vs. passive) of semantic differential research. For a basic
statement, see C. E Osgood. P. H. Tannenbaum, and G. J Suci, T h e M e a s u r e m e n t
o f M e a n i n g (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1957). For ease of response and subse-
quent processing, the semantic differential-type items were grouped on one page.
However, anchor effects were not anticipated. For evidence about the absence of
such effects, see ibid., 84-85; R. Sommer, "Anchor Effects and the Semantic Diffe-
rential," Amer i t an Journa l o f Psycho logy 78 (1965), 3 17- 18; and David R. Heise,
"The Semantic Differential and Attitude Research," in Gene Sommers, ed .,
Att i tude
M e a s u r e m e n t (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1970). 240.
35
The statements were non-empirical and biased in order to measure affect. They were
also constructed with the view to increasing response variance.
36 The questionnaire is available from the authors while the dataset and questionnaire
are available from the Data Archives, Carleton University. Ottawa. KIJ 5B6.
A
full
description of the survey appears in James E. Twiss, "The Structure of Party Solidar-
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300
CONRAD WINN a nd JAMES TWISS
An R-factor analysis by varimax rotat ion was performed on the
product-m ome nt intercorrelations between i tems see Table 3).37Fac-
tor analysis was employed because i t is the most s tandardized of the
stat is tical techniques capable of dimensionalizing o r clustering i tems in
multidimensional spac e. I t is t rue tha t facto r analysis invo lves a certain
amo unt of tautology in the sen se tha t a d imens ion cannot be cons t ructed
from i tems that are not inc luded a t the ou tse t . How ever , th is problem
can be forestal led by including as broad a selection of variables as
possible. Fur therm ore, all s tatis tical techniques are guil ty of this par-
t icular form of tautology becau se no technique can evaluate th e effect of
a variable if the variable is excluded from analysis.
On the other hand, factor analysis is eminently scientific in the
sense that i t permits a hypothesis to be fals ified. For example, if the
collectivist mod el is tru e, a facto r analysis sh ould yield a collectivist vs.
individualis t factor. The variables that might contribute to the factor
could include at t itudes t o the nationalization of industry , to free ente r-
pr ise , and to other ph enom ena tha t involve collec t ive
and /or individual
ac t ion. I f the fac tor fa ils to em erge , emerges w eakly, o r emerges in
com bination with factors that are not predicted by the mo del, the model
could therefore be accepted subject to revis ion or rejected outright .
Th e actual survey w as conduc ted in the Spring of 1973. Qu estion-
naires w ere dis tributed to al l memb ers of the O ntario legis lature. B e-
cause of the smal l s izes of the Libera l and N DP caucu ses , there was a
specia l conce rn to se cure high ra tes of response from the se qu ar ters . We
sought, and were delighted to achieve, the amiable cooperation of
Stephen Lewis , James Brei thaupt , and John Smith , who encouraged
their colleagues to give at tention to the project . Becau se of the anon y-
mo us nature of the surv ey, respondents were asked to return their com-
pleted questionnaires in unsigned form. They were l ikewise asked to
re turn separa te s igned cards indica t ing to w hat ex tent they wished to be
kep t abre ast of data analysis and findings. By this meth od, the project
was ab le to offer som e inducemen t for part icipating in the su rvey , and
was also able to c on duc t an efficient follow-up. T he final rates of retur n
were 50 per cent , 59 per cent and 84 per cent for the Progress ive
Co nservat ives , Libera ls , and N ew Dem ocrats wi th a n overa l l ra te of 57
per cent .
Political leavages
Th e orthogonally ro tated fac tor matrix is presented in Table
3
F a c to r
1
represents the classical bicultural cleavage in Canadian his tory. The
ity in the Ontario Legislative Assembly (unpublished M.A. thesis, Wilfrid Laurier
University, 1974).
37
The eigen-valve one criterion was used for rotation along with squared multiple
correlations as communality estimates.
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301
he Spatial Analysis of Poli t ical Clea vag es
positive pole identifies the values of rural anglophile Protestantism
while th e negative pole signifies in part Ca tholicism . Str ong positive
loadings are associated with favourable sentiments tow ards Anglicans,
the m onarchy, th e Em pire Clu b, Britain, and farm ers. Moderately posi-
tive loadings em erge in the c ase of affinity for traditions an d the O range
Order .
T A B L E
3
ROTATE D FACTORS FOR ATTITUDES OF MPP'S
1.
Cultural factor
Anglicans
Monarchy
Empire Club
Britain
Lions Club
Canadian Manufacturers
Association
Farmers
Traditions
Orange Lodge
Separate School suppor t
Public au to insurance*
2. Left r ight factor
W omen s l iberation
North Vietnam
Union leadership
Welfare recipients
Community action groups
Underdeveloped nations
Factory workers
Welfare programm es
University professors
Pollution Probe
Nationalization of industries
Public a uto insurance*
Government to reduce gap r ich
vs. poor
Prevent takeovers by foreign
corporations
Free en terpr ise
.22
.24
-.3 1
-.07
. 18
.
5
.14
. l l
.15
-.27
.05
. l l
-3
-.46
. 10
-.07
.50
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302
C O N R A D W I N N and J A M E S T W I S S
T A B L E
3-Continued
1 2 3 4 5
3. Babbit try factor
Land developers
.26 -.07 .08 .05
Corporation executives 53 -.27 . l l - .I3
United Sta tes
39 .06 .07 A
Ontario Medical Association
40 .03 -.08 .05
Censorship cann ot b e justif ied
except in time of war
.09 OO .10 -.22
4. Ethnocentr i sm factor
. 0 6 r l . 2 2
Jewsrenc h Canadians 33 .36 .12
.13
Federa l government has too
much power
.27 OO -.02 -.40 -.lo
Police power
.18 -.20 .18 -.45 1 1
Prevent inm igra t ion of cer ta in
groups
.26 .03 -.57 -.08
5. Col lec t iv ism factor
Comm ittee for an independent
Canada
.26 .38 - .l o .18
Abortion a s an individual ma tter
-.03 -.09 -.30 . 17
Percent common var iance
47 32 8 7 6
Eigenvalue
9.1 6.0 1.7 1.4 1.0
Public auto insurance is listed under both factors 1 and
2
because the loadings are
essentially identical.
While nine of the elev en loadings are clearly cultural tw o of the
loadings are amb iguou s in ch ara cte r. It is a little puzzling that attitudes
towards the Canadian Manufacturing Associat ion should load more
highly o n fac tor
1
than on fac tor
2
a left-right fac tor and that attitudes
tow ards public auto insurance should experience s imilar loadings on th e
two fac tors . Although these loadings are puzzling they are not entirely
incongruous. W hile the C.M .A . is an interest group i t is a lso a very
public platform for proclaiming the Pro testant work eth ic . Further mo re
in Ontario insura nce is not merely another industry. Located in the
hea r t of mid-Wes tern WA SP Onta r io Lon don L i fe and the o the r
Lond on-based firms hav e com e to acquire a special link with the C on-
servative party . Colin Bro wn a well-known spokesm an for the Londo n
insurance industry has been a defender of Ontario Toryism in news
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The Spa t ia l na ly s i s
o
Pol it ica l C leavag es
stor ies and through paid advertisements in the media. I t is not too
difficult to und erstand tha t those M PP s wh o are sensitive to the Conser-
vative part y s historic ideological roots in Protestantism might also be
sensit ive to that p arty s roots in the insurance industry.38
Factor
2
represents a left-right cleavage. All the variables with
strong positive loadings repre sen t groups o r policy positions n ormally
associa ted w ith the left in politics. Affinity for the W om en s Libe ration
movement, for North Viet-Nam, for union leaders, for welfare reci-
pients , for comm unity action groups, and for underdeveloped nations
usually ar ises from a lef t-wing perspective. On the basis of their
socioeconom ic status, university professors may seem ou t of place at
the left-wing pole. However, social science professors, particularly
those with public profiles , include a s izeable group of reformers among
their num bers.39 Th e only variable with a s trong negative loading is
support for free enterprise, a traditionally right-wing position.
Factor
3
unpredic ted by th e scholarly literature, is nam ed a B abbit-
try axis in hono ur of George F. Babbitt, a principal character in one of
Sinclair Lew is novels . Babbitt has com e to symbolize those mem bers
of the American middle class w ho adhere sm ugly to mo neyed values and
the lore of freedom of the individual and who are intolerant of cultural
innovation. An M PP at the posit ive, Babbittry pole would be sym pathe-
tic to land deve lopers , corporation executives, the U nited Sta tes, and
the O ntario Medical Association. H e would a lso believe tha t censorship
in peacetim e is justifiable, p resum ably to prohibit licentious films or
even to st if le unfavourable stor ies about b usiness and medical practices.
The Babbittry factor might have been called a Whiggery factor .
Horowitz and o thers t reat Whiggery as the undemocrat ic form of
L i b e r a l i ~ m . ~ ~owev er , som e contempo rary Whigs might balk a t that
notion and would include John Lo cke amon g their num bers. W hether or
not W higgery is a s good a des crip tor a s Bab bittry, it is worth noting that
support for censorship may be, but is not necessarily , an intrinsic and
perm anen t part of supp ort for land developers, corporation exec utives,
the U nited S tates, and t he OM A. I t is str iking that all of these groups
have e ncou ntered assaults on their dignity in the mass media in rece nt
years. As a re su lt , their sympathizers may be experiencing an intensif ied
sen se of threat , which they might be willing to allay by controlling the
mode of transmission.
38
The high loading on factor of attitude to public auto insurance may also result from
the fact that it was a highly visible, partisan issue in the preceding provincial election,
held in
1971
Conservative and NDP respondents, polarized already on factor
1
may
have been more inclined to adopt polar positions on auto insurance because it had
become a partisan as well as a left-right issue.
39 Besides, recent NDP caucuses at Queen s Park included Professors Pitman, Cassidy,
and Bounsall while the leaders of the Ontario Waffle were Professors Laxer and
Watkins.
40 Horowitz,
Canadian
Labour
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304
CONRAD WINN and JAMES TWISS
Fac tor
4
is a measure of ethnocentrism, cultural tolerance, and
authori tarianism. An M PP with a s trong posit ive factor score would be
symp athetic to Jew s, Fren ch Canadians, and the immigration of cer-
tain racial and religious groups. H e would disagree with the assert ion
that the federa l government has too much power compared to other
levels of govern men t, no r would he sanction police surveil lance of
dangerous groups . . . . Th e favourable dispos it ion tow ards federa l au-
thori ty shown by culturally tolerant MPP's is probably an accurate
reflection of the federal government 's greater his toric concern for
minority rights.
I t i s in t r iguing tha t aff in i ty for French Canadians loads more
s trongly on the e thnocentr ism fa c tor than on the cul tura l fac tor . I t i s a lso
intriguing that th e loading for the Fren ch-Can adian variable is not nega-
t ive on fac tor 1 . Th e apparen t percept ion of French Canadians as
merely an oth er minori ty ethnic group and th e ab senc e of an integral link
between perceptions of Fre nch Can adians and perceptions of the bicul-
tural cleavage is probably an accurate reflection of the contemporary
Ontar io mold. In the Ontar io of the present , F rench Canadians are an
ethn ic group l ike the othe rs , and their dem and s for l inguistic expression
are viewed as legit imate or acceptable by the Conservative regime.41
Fo r example , in the 1971 e lec tion, the Conservat ives p romised French -
speak ing schools in S turgeon Fa l l s and o t he r a reas wi th F rench -
speaking popu lations. By c ontr ast , Catho lics consti tute a larger and
mo re forceful subsys tem, w hose dem ands for extended a id to denomi-
national schools have been re jec ted by the go vernm ent . Fo r the Protes-
tantism a t the co re of the Con servative pa rty, C atholicism is more al ien
than F rench Canada .
Th e separate at ti tudes of the Ontario Conservative cauc us towards
Fren ch C anadians and Rom an Catholics reflects with som e accu racy the
demo graphic com position of the party . In t he 1967 provincial election, for
instance, the T ories possessed as many French-Canadian candidates a s
each of the other parties. All the French Canadians elected in that year
and five out of the seve n elected in 1971 we re
conservative^.^^
Yet , the
proportion of Catholics representing the Co nserv ative party in 1967 was
less than half the Catholic share of the elec torate and mu ch smaller than
the num ber carrying the Liberal and N DP b anners . Between 1957 and
1975, Franco Ontarians had almost twice as many ministerial posts as
their share of the electorate would warrant. D uring the s am e period, the
Ro ma n C atholic contingent in the Cabinet was tw o-thirds smaller than in a
situation of perfect religious balance. Through the 1960's and 1970's,
4
In this respect, Conservative elites are undoubtedly different from the mass of their
supporters, especially in rural Ontario.
42
Wilson and Hoffman noted the unusual support granted to provincial Conservatives
by Franco-Ontarian voters. The Liberal Party in Contemporary Ontario Politics,
187 88.
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The S pat ia l Analys i s o Pol i t i cal Cleavages 305
there has not been a R om an Catholic minister who was not of French-
Canadian origin.
It is noteworthy that at t i tudes toward s French Canadians, Jews , and
certain racial and religious groups ar e unidim ension al. Histo rically,
French Canada has expressed cons iderable concern about , i f not an-
tagonism towards, the many non-Charter immigrant groups. Theologi-
cally, a wide gulf ha s tended t o se parate Judaism from the C atholicism of
French Cana da.43 Th e fact that at t i tudes towards the three gro ups is
unidimensional is significant because it conforms with the well estab-
lished fact that ethnic discrimination tend s to be indiscriminant and th at
the presence of sym pathy o r antipathy to outgroups ten ds to apply to all
outgroups at once.
Factor 5 expresses an a pparent cleavage between collectivism and
individualism. Th e two variables w hose variance is explained m ost by this
factor involve at t i tudes towards the Committee for an Independent
Ca nad a and towa rds abo rtion. A collectivist MPP would feel close to the
Com mittee and would take issue with the statem ent that abortion is a
decision to be made by the individual alone. Th e factor appears to
embody collectivism and individualism because the goals of the C.I.C.
involve collective action while the question of abortion is portrayed in
term s of the individualist com pon ent of decision-mak ing. In addition, a
collectivist would feel distant from th e U nited States.
Of the facto r structu re taken as a who le, it is perhap s m ost important
to ob serve the comparative s trength of the first tw o axe s. Dimensions
and 2 account for
79
per cent of the variance common to the factor
structu re (see Table 2). Fa cto r 1, alon e, accoun ts for almost half of the
variance. The strongest of the remaining axes is less than one-third as
powerful as facto r 2, and less than one-fifth as powerful a s facto r
1.
T h e
relative and comb ined strength of the first tw o dimensions provides so me
dramatic evidence in support of the cultural model.
Factors
1,
2, and 5 were suggested in various forms by th e literature
on part ies , but factors 3 and 4 were not. Although the collectivist dimen-
sion was anticipated by G rant and H orow itz, the locations of the parties
were not fully anticipated. Both authors portrayed Conservatives and
New Dem ocrats as more collec t iv ist than
liberal^ ^
In order to assess
this descr iption, fac tor sco res were con s t ructed and par ty means com -
pare d. O n the collectivism fa ctor, no s ignificant party d ifferences were
found at the .O1 level (see Tables
4
and 5).
43
An examination of the relationship between Catholicism and anti-semitism in Quebec
appears in Lita-Rose Betcherman,
The Sbt.astika and rhe Maple Leaf
Don Mills,
Ontario: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1975).
44
Grant,
L a m e n t
and Horowitz.
Canadian Labour .
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C O N R A D W I N N and J A M E S T W I S S
TABLE
4
M E A N F A C T O R S C O R E S B Y P A R T Y
PC Liberal NDP
Factor 1
Cultural)
Factor
2
Left-right)
Factor
3
Babbittry)
Factor
4
Ethnocentrism)
Factor
Collectivism)
Standardized, composi te scores .
Standard deviations in parentheses.
TABLE 5
D I F F E R E N C E S B E T W E E N P A R TY F A C T O R S C O R E
M E A N S W H I C H A R E S I G N I FI C A N T A T T H E O1 L E V E L
I N A T - T E S T
PC Liberal NDP
PC
Liberal 1
4
NDP 1 ,
2 3 4
1 ,
2 , 3
Party Locations
The paper presented evidence above that there exists little consensus in
the literature on Canadian parties about the presence and relative impor-
tance of different social cleavages, but that there is some consensus in the
case of the Ontario provincial system. There is similarly little consensus
about the location of federal parties on any given cleavage, but there is
some consensus about the location of the provincial parties. This asser-
tion about uncertain locations applies especially to the left-right division.
In both the federal and Ontario systems, there is no firm agreement
about whether or not the two larger parties are equally to the right of the
NDP. In the federal system, there exist arguments that the Liberals fall
between the NDP and the Conservatives, that the Conservatives fall in
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307
he Spat ia l na lys is
o
Poli t ical Cleavages
between, and that the Libera ls and Conservat ives occupy the same
position. In the case of the On tario provincial sy stem , few academ ics
appea r to bel ieve tha t the Conservat ives are a centre par ty (see F igure
1).
F I G U R E
CONFIGURATIONS OF PARTIES IN ONE DIMENSION
( a) NDP * L IB
(Left) (Right)
C O N
(b) N D P L I B C O N
(c) N D P C O N L I B
Abbreviations are: N D P New Democratic Party), LIB Liberal), CON Progressive
Conservative).
In o rder to evaluate the three configura tions, scores on fac tor 2
were computed and par ty mean s were compared (see Tables
4
and 5).
One-way tests yielded significant differences at the .O1 level. Conse-
quently, configuration b (Figure 1) appears to be validated. Among
On tario parl iamen tarians, the N D P is a left-wing party w hile the C on-
servatives and L iberals consti tute right-wing and cen tre part ies , respec-
t ively.
Par ty scores were a lso compared on the other axes . As ment ioned
earl ier, no s ignificant party differences were discovered on th e collec-
t ivism dimension. In the case of the other dimensions, Conservatives
were located a t the pro-Brit ish pole (factor I) , at the B abbit try pole
(factor 3), and a t the ethnocentric pole (factor
4).
New Dem ocra t s were
found at the non-Brit ish, non-Babbit try and non-ethnocentric poles .
Liberal parl iamentarians were located in between Conservatives and
New Dem ocrats except in the case of e thnoc entr ism, where the mean
Liberal sco re was s l ightly, but not s ignificantly, less ethnocen tric than
t h e N D P s c o r e .
Th e preceding party locations are consis tent w ith ei ther an intuitive
understand ing of Canadian p art ies or w ith exis t ing data analysis . As a
party of Canadian nationalism and of the industrial working class, the
NDP would hardly be expected to be r ight-wing or to embrace the
Babb it try values of the A merican middle class . As sp okesm an for mid-
dle class Anglo-Saxon Pro testan ts , the C onservative party is congruous
in its more right-wing attitudes and in its affinity for Babbittry and
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3 8
CONRAD WINN and JAMES TWISS
pro-Brit ish cultural values. The lesser ethnocentr ism of Liberals and
New Democrats is consistent with previous cross-national f indings.
Eysen ck h as shown th at Conservat ives a re relat ively less sympathet ic
to minority ethnic o r racial
I t is perhap s a l it tle puzzling that th e N ew De mo crats should be less
pro-Anglican and pro-Brit ish on the cultural facto r than the Liberals .
Liberals are usual ly considered to be leas t pro-WAS P. How ever , the
polar position of the
New Dem ocrats is consis tent w ith a n ear l ier s tudy
of the H ou se of Co mm ons, which found that New Demo cratic MP s
were frequently m ore sym pathetic to bicultural perspectives th an their
Liberal co unterpar ts .46 Th e secularization of socie ty has apparent ly
reduced the theological com pon ent of religious a nd /or ethn ic mem ber-
ship while leaving intact the aspect of social s tatus. The process of
secular ization is par ticular ly true of the New Democrats who, being
mo re agnostic, may com e to view religion and ethnicity as system s of
social s tratif ication. I t is therefore not entirely surprising th at the Ne w
Dem ocrats should id~ent ifywith the lower s ta tu s Cathol ics ra ther than
with the higher s tatus Anglicans. An e ven simpler explanation for the
Catholic aff init ies of the NDP caucus ar ises f rom the demography of
electo ral constituenciles. N D P ridings possesse d the highest prop ortion
of Cathol ic voters .47
Ad here nts of the collectivist model of par ties may be puzzled by th e
abse nce of par ty differences on the collectivist axis . I t is possible that
the d ata employed in this s tudy const itute a m ere abber ra t ion or excep-
t ion to the long term p at tern hypothes ized by Horowitz and Grant . I t is
of cou rse conceivable that Am erican cultural assimilation caused an en d
to collectivist- individualis t differences, an argument apparently ad-
vanced by Grant.48
Among the var ious dim ensions discussed in the preceding, clearly
the two most important manifest the bicultural and class cleavages.
Embodying
79
per c ent of the com mo n var iance, these two dimensions
consti tute a more valid representation of reality than the unidimensional
c lass model . Yet , these two dimensions came as no surpr ise , being
anticipated by the scholar ly l i terature on Ontar io poli t ics . Figure 2
po rtrays th e On tar io legislative par ties in these tw o dimen sions, iden-
tifying their location and dis tanc e from eac h o ther .49
45 H.
J .
Eysenck,
The Psychology
o
Po1itic.s
(London: 1954), chap.
4.
See also
Seymour M. Lipset, Class, Politics and Religion in Modern Society: The Dilemma
of the Conservative, in Seymour M. Lipset (ed .),
R evo lu t i on and Counter -
Revolut ion
(New York: Basic Books, 1968).
46 Hoffman and Ward,
Bil ingualism and Bic~ultural ism.
47 According to data provided by the respondents. On religion as a system of social
stratification, see Porter,
The Vert ical Mo saic
98ff.
48 Grant,
L a m e n t
64n.
49 Winn and Twiss, Some Levels of Analysis Problems in the Spatial Analysis of
Political Cleavage, IPSA Congress, Edinburgh, August, 1976.
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The Spa t ia l Ana ly s i s
o
Pol it ica l C leavage s
FIGURE 2
C O N F I G U R A T I O N O F PA R T I E S I N T W O D I M E N SI O N S
C O N
onclusion
The paper set out to evaluate empirically the alternative spatial models
taken from the literature on the party system of Canada and Ontario as
they apply to the throughput stage of the policy process. factor
analysis of the attitudes of Ontario legislators yielded cultural, left-right,
Babbittry, ethnocentrism, and collectivism factors, in descending order
of importance. The fact that the first two axes explained at least three-
quarters of the common variance (Figure
2
confirmed the relevance of
the cultural model for Ontario, albeit with two qualifications. First, the
low loading of the Orange Lodge and the high loadings of Anglicans and
the Monarchy on factor suggest that the cultural cleavage in Queen s
Park is based on simple cultural preference rather than on active
hostility or bigotry as implied by Meisel s findings among Kingston s
voters. Meisel s findings and our own can nevertheless be reconciled if
the Conservative party is seen as an outlet for, but not necessarily an
instrument of, latent anxieties among a WASP segment of the
e l e c t ~ r a t e . ~ ~ attitudes towardsecondly, among Ontario MPP s,
French Canadians are not a part of the cultural cleavage.
There are no inter-party differences on the collectivism vs. indi-
vidualism dimension. Among the other factors, Conservative MPP s
5
Meisel, Religious Affiliation and Electoral Beh aviour.
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31
CONRAD WINN and JAMES TWISS
tend to adopt pro-British, rightwing, pro-Babbittry, and ethnocentric
attitudes. New Democratic legislators assumed opposite positions. The
Liberals occupied middle ground on the cultural axis. They were closer
to the Conservatives on the left-wing and Babbittry factors while being
closer to the New Democrats in terms of ethnocentrism.
The present work could probably benefit from some replication.
Factor analysis and survey analysis, especially, involve some indeter-
minacy. Survey analysis is intrinsically artificial in the sense that the
respondent assumes a peculiar role in his position as respondent. Elite
respondents might be particularly cautious about revealing their senti-
ments with complete frankness. Caution may explain the only modest
loading of the Orange Lodge variable on factor
1
Few parliamentarians
would encounter great difficulty in surmising the researcher s intent in
his use of this variable.
Any replication ought to overcome two weaknesses in the present
study. First, the loadings on factors 1
and 2 are somewhat assymetrical.
A future investigation might attempt to reveal attitudes towards
Catholics, the Knights of Columbus, and other religious stimuli at the
non-British, non-Anglican pole of the cultural dimension. In the case of
factor 2 additional right-wing values or stimuli could be included. Sec-
ondly, affective geographic attitudes ought to be added. Our survey
contained several scores of real and perceived distance from Queen s
Park. However, no linear associations were found between distance and
political attitudes. These associations were therefore not reported. Fu-
ture research ought to elicit regional affinities and disaffinities. Had our
survey possessed some subjective measures of regional likes and dis-
likes among MPP s, the core-periphery hypothesis from the literature
could have been evaluated with greater certainty.
In addition to replication, future research ought to compare spatial
models of party attitudes with spatial models of party output. Such a
comparison would add to knowledge about the policy-making process.
For example, the consociational theory, that elites in consociational
democracies mitigate underlying social cleavages, could be tested by
comparing the outputs of parties in a given policy domain with the
location of party attitudes on the corresponding c l e a ~ a g e . ~
51
See Arend Lijpart, Consociational Democracy, World
olitics
3 1969), 207-25
and S. F. R. Noel, Consociational Democracy and Canadian Federalism, this
JOURNAL
1971), 15-17.