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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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288

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

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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

and

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.