Mikhail Filippov

Electoral Balancing in Federal and Sub-national Elections: The Case of Canada

The major premise of this study is that in federal countries voters can balance and moderate national policy by dividing electoral support between different parties in federal and sub-national elections. We compare the non-concurrent federal and provincial elections in Canada to assess the balancing properties of sub-national elections. The balancing hypothesis implies that the federal incumbent party may suffer additional electoral losses in provincial elections. We use several statistical tests - ordinary OLS, “fixed effect” and “unbalanced random effect” cross-section time series - to analyze Canadian electoral data for the period of 1949-1997. All tests sustain that the incumbent party at the federal level loses votes in provincial elections.

Russian Voting and the Initial Economic Shock of Hyperinflation

This paper addresses the issue of economicvoting in transitional democracies using data from the Russianfederal elections. It argues that the shock of inflation thatfollowed the fundamental economic reform has a lastinginfluence on voters. Specifically, it shows that in Russia,where inflationary policy led to hyperinflation and thewidespread loss of personal savings, the magnitude of savingslost at that time continues to explain a significant portionof the variation in the regional support for the Communistparty in parliamentary and presidential elections.

Designing Federalism: Political Parties in a Federal State

Political parties created democracy and … modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties. Schattschneider 1942: 1 Here is a factor in the organization of federal government which is of primary importance but which cannot be ensured or provided for in a constitution – a good party system. Wheare 1953: 86 Whatever the general social conditions, if any, that sustain the federal bargain, there is one institutional condition that controls the nature of the bargain in all instances … with which I am familiar. This is the structure of the party system, which may be regarded as the main variable intervening between the background social conditions and the specific nature of the federal bargain. Riker 1964: 136 In a country which was always to be in need of the cohesive force of institutions, the national parties, for all their faults, were to become at an early hour primary and necessary parts of the machinery of government, essential vehicles to convey mens loyalties to the state. Hofstadter 1969: 70–1 An Extreme Hypothesis Hofstadters argument is drawn from his assessment of the United States, but like the views of Schattschneider, Wheare, and Riker, that argument can apply to any stable democratic state. If the primary objective of political elites in a democracy is to win and maintain office and if political parties are the primary organizational vehicle for achieving that end, then parties and their relation to the state must play a pivotal role in any understanding not only of democracy generally but of the intergovernmental relations of federations in particular: “[P]olitical parties are the main means not only whereby provincial greivances are aired but also whereby centralist and decentralist trends are legitimized” (McKay 2001: 16).