Mebs Kanji

Adaptation to Democracy among Immigrants in Australia

This article examines adaptation to democracy among immigrants who leave authoritarian regimes to settle in Australia. Two questions are addressed. First, do immigrants from authoritarian regimes successfully adapt to democracy, in terms of both supporting democracy and participating in the electoral process? And second, does the pre-migration socialization in authoritarian regimes influence immigrants’ democratic transition? Using the 2004 Australian Election Study and the Australian section of the 2005 World Values Survey, the findings indicate that if immigrants from authoritarian regimes lag behind the rest of the population in terms of support for democracy, they tend to participate at least as much as the rest of the population in electoral activities. Overall, the study highlights both the persistence of and the change in immigrants’ pre-migration political orientations.

Value Diversity and Support for Electoral Reform in Canada

Political representatives in Canada have traditionally been selected using a first-past-the-post electoral system. The major problem with this process of determining “who governs” is that larger parties are often rewarded the majority of seats in legislatures without winning a majority of popular support. Recently, the debate on electoral reform in Canada has begun to gain steam, as several provinces have started to look more seriously at alternatives (Milner 2004 ). Declining voter turnout may explain why even governments that benefit from the current electoral system are finding it increasingly difficult to simply sideline this issue. But what accounts for the Canadian publics more recent frustration with their traditional electoral system? We would like to thank Nicki Doyle for her research assistance and Concordia University for its financial support.

Value Diversity and Support for Political Authorities in Canada

Canada is a diverse society with several historic divides, which makes democratic governance challenging. There are reasons to suppose that governing in Canada may be becoming even more complex, and this could have important implications for political support. It is also conceivable that the Canadian case may reflect some of the same challenges that could affect many other post-industrial democracies. Several structural and lifestyle changes have been altering the socio-cultural mix of Canadian society, possibly contributing to the expansion of various new value divides. Because values play a prominent role in shaping peoples policy demands and political preferences, it is plausible that such a transformation could elevate the degree of intra-societal stress on Canadas political system and make governing more complex. In this essay, we have two main objectives. The first is to employ data from the Canadian World Values Surveys to explore the possibility that value diversity across various new value divides may be on the rise. The second is to test whether the degree of value diversity between different social groups poses negative implications for political support – specifically, support for people in government.

Support for Political Leaders and Elected Representatives in Quebec

The literature on political support in advanced industrial democracies has expanded fairly steadily over the last fifty years, but the findings on people’s outlooks toward political authorities and their consequences are far from conclusive. There is also ongoing debate about what factors best account for the way people feel about their political authorities. In this paper we take a more focused analytical approach and employ data from the recent Comparative Provincial Election Project to examine how Quebecers feel about their different political authorities across various levels of government. We also explore some potential consequences and test some prominent explanations. Our findings indicate that only minorities of Quebecers like their leaders and elected representatives (whether new or old, federal, provincial, or municipal) and even fewer like all of their respective leaders and elected politicians across all levels of government. Our evidence also suggests that this low support may result in further political disengagement and decreased confidence in the ability of authorities and political institutions. Furthermore, we find that variations in support for political authorities in Quebec are best explained by government performance as well as some cultural and structural factors.

The Generational Value Divide and the Changing Context of Public Policy Making

Abstract A growing body of evidence suggests that different formative experiences and changing socialization patterns may be fueling an expanding value divide between younger and older generations. Such a development could affect social interaction and the prospects for generating social capital, which may pose a variety of consequences. It could also further complicate the already difficult task of democratic governance and have implications for political support. All of this may create an even more difficult context in which to make public policy decisions. Evidence from the World Values Surveys reported in this analysis suggests that in addition to concerns over population ageing, politicians and policy makers would be well advised to take heed of the potential complications that may be developing in the policy-making context as a result of the generational value divide.