One Smart Politician: Gendered Media Discourses of Political Leadership in Canada

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelia Wagner ◽  
Linda Trimble ◽  
Shannon Sampert
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
National Party ◽  
Leadership Qualities ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Media Discourses

AbstractWhich leadership qualities are most likely to be emphasized in news reports about leadership competitions, and are they attributed differently to women and men candidates? To answer this question, we conducted content and discourse analyses of 2,463 articles published by theGlobe and Mailnewspaper on 10 women and 17 men seeking the leadership of Canadian political parties since 1975. Our results show that women candidates were subjected to more negative and gendered assessments of their communication skills, intellectual substance and political experience than were men candidates. We also found little evidence that gendered media discourses about political leadership have changed over time, especially in the case of women in the strongest position to become the country's first national party leader or prime minister.

The Presidential Preference Primary

1915 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis W. Dickey
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Administrative Authority ◽  
Seventeenth Amendment ◽  
Natural Result ◽  
Decisive Action ◽  
The Mind

The presidency, intended by the framers of the Constitution to be almost exclusively an executive and administrative office, has, in the course of a century and a quarter, not only augmented its executive and administrative authority, but also has acquired a marked political significance. To his constitutional powers the President has added the prerogatives of party leadership, which constitute him the organ for giving effect to the policies of his party at the same time that he exercises a potent influence in the formulation of those policies. The amazing growth of political parties in the United States and the perfection and strength of their organization have been the causes of astonished comment on the part of foreign observers. Moreover, ours has been, in the main, a country of two parties. In view of these facts, the President as party leader becomes a personage of incalculable political consequence. He possesses the political leadership of an English prime minister with the titular dignity which the prime minister lacks.Since Jackson's time the presidency has achieved a representative character which is the natural result of the President's assumption of political leadership. He perhaps more accurately reflects the mind of the country at large than either of the houses of Congress. The Senate has been wanting in representative character, until the passage of the seventeenth amendment, because of the indirect mode of its election; while the Representatives, because the center of their interests is local rather than national and because their number has been a hindrance to decisive action, have distinctly lost in prestige. The President is able, and finds it to his advantage, to cultivate a nationalistic conception of his office.

Australian PM challenge will hinder policy agenda

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
Housing Bubbles ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

Significance Although a victory in the short term for Abbott, the narrow margin will only intensify doubts about his long-term prospects as party leader and as prime minister. The challenge continues a trend of instability across Australia's main political parties. The country is poised to enter a record 25th year of uninterrupted economic growth, yet has changed prime minister four times since 2007. Impacts Australia will remain one of the most robust developed economies throughout 2015, with growth rates far above those of the EU. The Reserve Bank's decision to cut interest rates indicates that there are worries of the impact of the China-induced mining slowdown. Concerns in state capitals about housing bubbles will grow and may be an issue in the next federal election.

India and the pandemic: democratic governance at crossroads

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Sujay Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Lower House ◽  
Bharatiya Janata Party ◽  
Policy Communication ◽  
The World

Abstract Covid-19 seems to have unlocked the reality of democracy's ongoing tension in many parts of the world, including India. The present government, led by Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, enjoys absolute majority in the lower House of Samshad (Indian Parliament); thus satisfies WHO requirement of strong political leadership for meeting the challenge of Covid-19 pandemic. Through analysis of various acts, rules, notifications, social media behaviour, media-representations and reports, two aspects of governance become relevant: the process of policy-communication on the pandemic, particularly while declaring and extending lockdowns, through widely publicised speeches of the Prime Minister, packed with emotive appeals and policy-propaganda. However, government's several omissions and commissions have defied the norms of democratic accountability. In response, opposition political parties and civil society activism have continuously contested these trends, for stretching the democratic space wider and achieving better governance outcomes.

scholarly journals Enacting Candor

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-69
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Political Decisions

Most citizens of representative democracies do not take political decisions in their everyday lives. Although participation in periodic elections, political parties, or social movements varies, above all, according to socio-economic status, taking a political decision is, in general, a relatively extraordinary event for the vast majority of citizens. The everyday political experience of these citizens is rather structured by watching and listening to political elites. Unlike the tenor of democratic theory, this quotidian mode of passively following politics is ocular democracy’s starting point. So far, the debate on ocular democracy has emphasized its shortcomings as a normative theory. Notwithstanding these shortcomings, this article illustrates the potential of ocular democracy as an analytical tool in the context of intra-party democracy. Podemos’ intra-party procedures are analyzed by complementing an institutional perspective with ocular democracy, thus showing how a party leader inclined to appear particularly venturesome undermines ambitious forms of intra-party democracy.

The Never-ending Story of Law and Electoral System in Lesotho

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hoolo Nyane
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Mixed Electoral System ◽  
2012 Election

While electoral discontent has been the enduring feature of constitutional democracy in Lesotho since independence, disagreement over electoral system is a fairly recent phenomenon. When the country attained independence in 1966 from Britain, electoral system was not necessarily one of the topical issues of pre-independence constitutional negotiations. The major issues were the powers of the monarch, the office of prime minister, the command of the army and many more.  It was taken for granted that the country would use the British-based plurality electoral system.  This is the system which the country used until early 2000s when the electoral laws were reformed to anchor a new mixed electoral system.  When the new electoral laws were ultimately passed in 2001, the country transitioned from a plurality electoral system to a two-ballot mixed member proportional system. By this time, electoral system had acquired prominence in politico-legal discourse in Lesotho.  In the run-up to 2007 elections, bigger political parties orchestrated the manipulation of electoral laws which culminated in clearly distorted electoral outcomes. The manipulations motivated further reforms in the run-up to 2012 election which resulted in the single-ballot mixed member proportional system. The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate how electoral laws have anchored electoral system reforms throughout the various historical epochs in Lesotho since independence. The paper contends that while the country has been courageous, unlike most of its peers, to introduce far-reaching electoral system changes, the reform of electoral laws has not been so helpful in attaining the higher objectives of political inclusivity, constitutionalism and stability in Lesotho.

The Inclusion Calculation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melody E. Valdini
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
Political Careers ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Large N ◽  
Gender Quota ◽  
Open The Doors

Power-holders and gate-keepers in political parties and governments continue to be primarily men. How are they responding to the increasing numbers of women who are seeking leadership roles in politics? Are they angels who embrace equality and fling open the doors to power? Are they devils who block women at every turn? Are they powerless against the increasing tide of feminism and inadvertently succumbing to the push for power from women? Most likely, these male elites are primarily concerned with maintaining their own power, which drives their reaction to women’s political inclusion. The Inclusion Calculation examines women’s inclusion from the perspective of men in power and offers a novel approach to understanding differences in women’s descriptive representation. The book argues that with declining legitimacy it is valuable for male elites to “strategically feminize,” associating themselves or their party with women, because citizens will interpret the increased presence of women as meaning that the party or government is becoming more honest, cooperative, and democratic. Using a combination of case studies from Latin America, Europe, and Africa, as well as large-N analyses, the book provides evidence that male elites are more likely to increase the number of women candidates on party lists or adopt a gender quota when “feminizing” is advantageous to the political careers of men. Women’s exclusion from government, then, is not a product of their own lack of effort or ability but rather a rational action of men in power to keep their power.

Holding Australia to Ransom: The Colston Affair, 1996–2003

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Malcolm Saunders ◽  
Neil Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
National Party ◽  
Party Government ◽  
The Status ◽  
John Howard

Probably no one who has entered either federal or state Parliament in Australia departed from it as loathed and despised as Malcolm Arthur Colston. A Labor senator from Queensland between 1975 and 1996, he is remembered by that party as a ‘rat’ who betrayed it for the sake of personal advancement. Whereas many Labor parliamentarians – most notably Prime Minister ‘Billy’ Hughes in 1917 have left the party because they strongly disagreed with it over a major policy issue or a matter of principle, in the winter of 1996 Colston unashamedly left it to secure the deputy presidency of the Senate and the status, income and several other perquisites that went with it. Labor's bitterness towards Colston stems not merely from the fact that he showed extraordinary ingratitude towards a party that had allowed him a parliamentary career but more especially because, between his defection from the party in August 1996 and his retirement from Parliament in June 1999, his vote allowed the Liberal-National Party government led by John Howard to pass legislation through the Senate that might otherwise have been rejected.

“I think Canadians look like all sorts of people”: ethnicity, political leadership, and the case of Jagmeet Singh

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Joanie Bouchard
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Sociodemographic Profile ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Voting Intentions

Abstract Research into the impact of a politician's sociodemographic profile on vote choice in Westminster-style systems has been hindered by the relative sociodemographic homogeneity of party leaders. Past research has focused mainly on the evaluation of local candidates in the American context, but given that elections in plurality systems are far less candidate-oriented , the evaluation of local candidates tells us little about the prevalence of affinity or discrimination in other contexts. This article investigates the effect of political leaders' ethnicity on political behavior by looking at the case of Jagmeet Singh in Canada, the first federal party leader of color in the country's history. While the literature has shown that the gender of leaders in Canada can matter, little is known about the attitudes of Canadians toward party leaders of color specifically. We are interested in the evaluations of Singh and his party, as well as the shifts in voting intentions between elections in 2015 and 2019. We uncover affinity-based behaviors from individuals who identify as Sikh, as well as a negative reception of Singh's candidacy in Quebec.

Party Matters

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hopkin
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
National Party ◽  
Strategic Responses ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Real Picture ◽  
The Relationship

This article addresses the relationship between political decentralization and the organization of political parties in Great Britain and Spain, focusing on the Labour Party and the Socialist Party, respectively. It assesses two rival accounts of this relationship: Caramani's `nationalization of politics' thesis and Chhibber and Kollman's rational choice institutionalist account in their book The Formation of National Party Systems. It argues that both accounts are seriously incomplete, and on occasion misleading, because of their unwillingness to consider the autonomous role of political parties as advocates of institutional change and as organizational entities. The article develops this argument by studying the role of the British Labour Party and the Spanish Socialists in proposing devolution reforms, and their organizational and strategic responses to them. It concludes that the reductive theories cited above fail to capture the real picture, because parties cannot only mitigate the effects of institutional change, they are also the architects of these changes and shape institutions to suit their strategic ends.

scholarly journals Swords and Ploughshares: The Election Prerogative in Canada

1972 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-291
Author(s):  
James Lightbody
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
General Election ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Assembly

Modestly impressive by its lack of mention both in a recent examination of the political leadership of the prime minister and the more traditional texts of the Canadian political process, is serious notice of environmental limitations on the prime ministerial prerogative in dissolving the Legislative Assembly and announcing a general election.

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