Primaries: a Dress Rehearsal for the Election? Analyzing the Conservative Party of Canada's 2016-2017 leadership primary Mémoire Audrey Brennan Maîtrise en science politique - avec mémoire Maître ès arts (M.A.) Québec, Canada © Audrey Brennan, 2018 Primaries: a Dress Rehearsal for the Election? Analyzing the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2016-2017 leadership primary Mémoire Audrey Elizabeth Brennan Sous la direction de: Marc André Bodet Résumé Primaire: une répétition générale pour l’élection? La sélection des chefs de partis de façon dé- centralisée étant un phénomène récent au Canada, en quoi cette nouvelle formule de sélection se distingue d’une campagne électorale? Ce projet est une étude d’un cas actuel soit, la course à la chefferie du Parti conservateur du Canada. À l’aide d’une analyse de contenu médiatique, de données issues des réseaux sociaux et d’entretiens semi-dirigés, nous tentons de répondre à la question suivante: Comment est-ce que les règles de la course à la direction 2016-2017 du Parti conservateur du Canada influencent-elles la perspective électorale du parti. La loi d’airain de Mi- chels (1915c) suggère qu’en raison du manque d’intérêt des électeurs, les partis centralisent leurs organisations de plus en plus complexes autour des chefs de partis politiques. Trois composantes conduisent à l’oligarchisation des partis politiques dans les démocraties: la psychologie des can- didats; le besoin d’organisation; et la psychologie des masses (Michels, 1915c, 516). Ce projet met à jour et teste la loi de d’airain. La campagne à la chefferie du Parti conservateur du Canada n’est pas une répétition générale pour les élections. Celle-ci est une audition. Il s’agit de choisir qui seront les principaux acteurs de l’élection, aucune répétition générale nécessaire. Il s’agit de préparer la mise en scène, d’écrire le scénario et de choisir qui sera le metteur en scène lors de la répétition générale. Celle-ci débutera réellement lor du congrès du parti qui aura lieu à l’été 2018. Une année après la sélection du nouveau chef. iii Abstract Primaries: A Dress Rehearsal for the General Election? Since the selection of party leaders in a decentralized manner is a recent phenomenon in Canada, how is this new selection procedure different from an election campaign? This project is a study of a current case, the leadership se- lection of the Conservative Party of Canada. The research question is: How do the rules of the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2016-2017 leadership race influence the electoral prospect of the party? It is answered using an analysis of media content, data from social networks, and semi- structured interviews. Michels’ (1915c) Iron Law of Oligarchy suggests that due to the lack of in- terests of voters, parties have centered their increasingly complex organizations around leaders. Three components lead to the oligarchization of political parties in democracies: the psychology of candidates; the need for organization; and the psychology of the masses (Michels, 1915c, 516). This project updates and tests the Iron Law. The Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership campaign is not a dress rehearsal for the general election. This leadership primary is more like an audition. It is about choosing who will be the key players at the election, no dress rehearsal needed. It is about setting the scene, writing the plot and choosing who will lead the party at the dress rehearsal. Which will really begin during the policy convention that follows the leadership selection in the summer of 2018. iv Contents Résumé iii Abstract iv Contents v List of Tables vii List of Figures viii Acknowledgments xii Introduction 1 1 Literature Review4 1.1 Decentralization of leadership selection......................... 5 1.1.1 Changing patterns of political participation.................. 5 1.1.2 The importance of party leaders......................... 7 1.2 How are leaders chosen? .................................. 7 1.3 The rules governing primaries............................... 10 1.4 Why choose a primary? ................................... 11 1.5 Michels’ Iron Law....................................... 13 1.6 Conclusion........................................... 15 2 Theoretical Framework 17 2.1 Modernizing Michels’ Theory ............................... 17 2.2 The case study......................................... 20 2.3 Conclusion........................................... 23 3 Research Question and hypotheses 24 3.1 Research Question...................................... 24 3.2 Hypotheses........................................... 24 3.3 Conclusion........................................... 25 4 Methodology and Data 26 4.1 The influence of rules on individual campaigns.................... 26 4.2 Influence of rules on candidacies............................. 29 4.3 Media coverage of the campaign ............................. 30 4.4 Conclusion........................................... 31 v 5 Setting the Scene: Primary rules and candidacies 33 5.1 Candidacy rules in the leadership primary ....................... 33 5.2 Conclusion........................................... 38 6 Open-House: Effect of rules on candidates’ campaigns 40 6.1 Introduction.......................................... 40 6.2 Conservative Party Rules and their Influence...................... 41 6.3 Target Audience........................................ 43 6.4 Campaign messaging during the leadership primary................. 46 6.4.1 Message transmission strategies......................... 46 6.5 Conclusion........................................... 53 7 All the World’s a Stage: Newspaper coverage of the campaign 55 7.1 Behind the Scenes: Perspectives on the news...................... 55 7.2 Center Stage: Type of Coverage .............................. 61 7.3 Conclusion........................................... 65 Conclusion 66 A Media Analysis Code-book 72 B Interview Questions 75 C Latent Dirichlet Allocation Topic Modeling: Results and robustness tests 76 C.1 Chris Alexander........................................ 76 C.2 Maxime Bernier........................................ 79 C.3 Steven Blaney ......................................... 81 C.4 Michael Chong ........................................ 83 C.5 Kellie Leitch .......................................... 85 C.6 Pierre Lemieux ........................................ 87 C.7 Deepak Obhrai ........................................ 89 C.8 Kevin O’Leary......................................... 91 C.9 Erin O’Toole.......................................... 93 C.10 Rick Peterson ......................................... 95 C.11 Lisa Raitt ............................................ 97 C.12 Andrew Saxton ........................................ 99 C.13 Andrew Scheer ........................................ 101 C.14 Brad Trost............................................ 103 References 105 vi List of Tables 1.1 Typology of primary election methods............................ 8 2.1 The evolution of leadership selection change methods in Canada........... 21 4.1 Summary of Methodology.................................... 27 4.2 Topic Models............................................ 28 4.3 Search protocol: Factiva and Eurekka c.c........................... 30 5.1 Candidacy Rules Time-line................................... 35 6.1 Salient topics............................................ 50 6.2 Salient topics (cont’d) ...................................... 51 6.3 Salient topics (cont’d) ...................................... 52 C.1 Chris Alexander Topic Summary................................ 77 C.2 Maxime Bernier Topic Summary................................ 80 C.3 Steven Blaney Topic Summary................................. 82 C.4 Michael Chong Topic Summary................................ 84 C.5 Kellie Leitch Topic Summary.................................. 86 C.6 Pierre Lemieux Topic Summary ................................ 88 C.7 Deepak Obhrai Topic Summary................................ 90 C.8 Kevin O’leary Topic Summary ................................. 92 C.9 Erin O’Toole Topic Summary** ................................. 94 C.10 Rick Peterson Topic Summary................................. 96 C.11 Lisa Raitt Topic Summary.................................... 98 C.12 Andrew Saxton Topic Summary ................................ 100 C.13 Andrew Scheer Topic Summary ................................ 102 C.14 Brad Trost Topic Summary ................................... 104 vii List of Figures 1.1 Party affiliation: the multi-speed model........................... 6 2.1 Schema of Oligarchy....................................... 18 4.1 Tweeting Frequency by Candidate............................... 29 7.1 Coverage by language ...................................... 58 7.2 Candidate Mention Frequency................................. 60 7.3 Personality vs. Policy Coverage................................. 62 7.4 Personality vs. Policy: Candidates Types........................... 63 7.5 Personality vs. Policy: All Candidates............................. 64 7.6 Oligarchy in the Canadian Context .............................. 68 C.1 Chris Alexander Perplexity ................................... 76 C.2 Chris Alexander Topics...................................... 77 C.3 Chris Alexander Topic Spread ................................. 78 C.4 Maxime Bernier Perplexity ................................... 79 C.5 Maxime Bernier Topics...................................... 79 C.6 Maxime Bernier Topic Spread ................................