Political-Financial Scandal, Political Disaffection, and the Dynamics of Political Action by Nicholas Maxwell Ruderman A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Political Science University of Toronto © Copyright by Nicholas Maxwell Ruderman 2017 i [Type a quote ii Political-Financial Scandal, Political Disaffection, and the Dynamics of Political Action Nicholas Maxwell Ruderman Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Political Science University of Toronto 2017 Abstract This thesis examines whether and to what extent political-financial scandals shape public attitudes toward the political system and citizens’ patterns of participation in political action. The investigation employs a combination of Canada-focused case studies and large-N cross-national analyses. The findings indicate that while political-financial scandals do seem to contribute to an erosion of specific and intermediate forms of political support, they also suggest that scandals do not vitiate public support for broader democratic principles. With respect to the impact of scandals on political participation, the thesis highlights and investigates a puzzle. The Canadian case studies presented here suggest that revelations of political actors’ ethical transgressions serve as a catalyst for both traditional and non-traditional forms of political participation in the short and medium-term. Even so, multi-level analyses of cross-national individual and aggregate-level data suggest that persistently high perceptions of corruption in government undermine citizens’ intrinsic motivation to vote, and that political-financial scandals might well suppress voter turnout over longer time horizons. iii Acknowledgments I owe thanks to many friends, colleagues, and mentors for their support in writing this dissertation. First and foremost, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to undertake this research under the supervision of an excellent committee. I first met my supervisor, Neil Nevitte, as a student in his core comparative politics seminar, and went on to act as his research assistant, and later as his co-author on several academic papers. I am very fortunate to have worked with him so closely, and to have written this thesis under his expert supervision. Lawrence LeDuc consistently help to guide the research in productive directions, and Andrew Stark has been a great source of insight and support throughout the research and writing process. I greatly value the time that I have spent in conversation with each of these outstanding scholars, and the insightful feedback they have provided on my work. Many thanks also to my internal and external examiners, Robert Schertzer and Michael Johnston, who provided thoughtful, detailed, and stimulating feedback on the project. Beyond my committee, I owe thanks to several other faculty members at the University of Toronto. I am particularly grateful to Peter Loewen and Nelson Wiseman for the generous encouragement and support they have provided. Seminars taken with Jacques Bertrand, Donald Forbes, Randall Hansen, Margaret Kohn, and Graham White greatly enhanced my experience in the doctoral programme. I also thank Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant and Scott Matthews for their early encouragement to undertake doctoral studies in the field, and for the research and teaching opportunities they made available while working on my master’s degree at Queen’s University. My fellow graduate students at the University of Toronto were a source of friendship, sage advice, and lively conversations about politics and the discipline. I would especially like to thank Cheryl Auger, Zain Asaf, Heather Bastedo, Sophie Borwein, Stephen Brown-Okruhlik, iv Wayne Chu, Yannick Dufresne, Bill Flanik, Jonathan Kent, Evan Rosevear, Will Schatten, Izabela Steflja, Paul Thomas, Deb Thompson, Ethel Tungohan, Cliff van der Linden, and Zhen Zhao. Mary-Alice Bailey, Carolynn Branton, and Louis Tentsos were friendly and helpful point people in the Department of Political Science, and I am grateful for their assistance in navigating the University’s policies and processes. Of course, I could not have written this thesis without my family. I am particularly grateful to my mother Dale Maxwell, father John Ruderman, and brothers Daniel Ruderman and Michael Ruderman. They helped guide me through important moments and challenging decisions, and generally provided much emotional and material support during my time working on this project, and long before. I owe them a great deal, and I cannot thank them enough. v Table of Contents Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................v List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix Chapter 1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................1 1.1 Research Question ...............................................................................................................1 1.2 Analytic Rationale ...............................................................................................................2 1.3 Case Selection, Data, and Methodology ..............................................................................4 1.4 The Canadian Experience: An Historical Overview of Canadian Political Scandals ..........7 1.5 Roadmap ............................................................................................................................16 Chapter 2 Theoretical Foundation and Hypotheses .......................................................................17 2.1 Dependent Variable I: Political Support ............................................................................17 2.1.1 Addressing Critiques of Political Support .............................................................20 2.1.2 Why Care? The Consequences of Political Support ..............................................22 2.1.3 Explaining Variance in Political Support ..............................................................24 2.2 Dependent Variable II: Political Participation ...................................................................31 2.2.1 Voter Turnout.........................................................................................................31 2.2.2 Explaining Longitudinal Variance in Turnout .......................................................34 2.2.3 “Non-Traditional” Participation: The Dynamics of Protest Politics......................37 2.2 Focal Independent Variable: Political-Financial Scandal ..................................................41 2.3.1 Defining Political-Financial Scandal .....................................................................41 2.3.2 A Model of Scandal Effects ...................................................................................46 Chapter 3 The Mulroney Years......................................................................................................57 3.1 Political-Financial Scandal in the Mulroney Years ...........................................................58 vi 3.2 Subsidiary Hypotheses, Analytic Strategy, and Data ........................................................63 3.3 Canadians’ Perceptions of the Ethics and Integrity of Political Leaders, 1988-1993 .......64 3.4 Multivariate Results ...........................................................................................................68 3.5 Discussion ..........................................................................................................................75 Chapter 4 Canadians’ Perceptions of Corruption in Cross-National Perspective..........................86 4.1 Data and Methodology .......................................................................................................87 4.2 Canada in Cross-National Perspective ...............................................................................88 4.3 Canadian Attitudes toward Corruption in Focus ...............................................................92 4.4 Do Perceptions of Corruption Contribute to Disaffection and Demobilization? Evidence from 26 Countries ..............................................................................................98 4.5 Discussion ........................................................................................................................107 Chapter 5 The Sponsorship Scandal ............................................................................................127 5.1 The Programme, the Scandal, and the Fallout .................................................................128 5.2 Data and Methodology .....................................................................................................131 5.3 Results I: The Sponsorship Scandal and Political Support ..............................................133 5.4 Results II: The Sponsorship Scandal and Political Participation .....................................137 5.5 Discussion ........................................................................................................................140