The related subjects of political legitimacy and system support are key theoretical concerns of students of democratic societies. They have received very little scholarly attention, however, because of the conceptual and methodological complexities they engender. In this book the authors address these concerns through systematic multivariate analyses of the sources, distribution, and consequences of variations in citizen support for key political objects in one such society, Canada. Although the authors do so within a comparative context, their primary focus is on Canada because it is one of the world's oldest democracies and is a country that has experienced support problems that periodically have reached crisis proportion. Many of the problems facing Canada are more extreme examples of difficulties that have vexed other democracies. This study helps illuminate both the conditions under which democracies in general are able to sustain themselves and those under which they could flound
The related subjects of political legitimacy and system support are key theoretical concerns of students of democratic societies. They have received very little scholarly attention, however, because of the conceptual and methodological complexities they engender. In this book the authors address these concerns through systematic multivariate analyses of the sources, distribution, and consequences of variations in citizen support for key political objects in one such society, Canada. Although the authors do so within a comparative context, their primary focus is on Canada because it is one of the world's oldest democracies and is a country that has experienced support problems that periodically have reached crisis proportion. Many of the problems facing Canada are more extreme examples of difficulties that have vexed other democracies. This study helps illuminate both the conditions under which democracies in general are able to sustain themselves and those under which they could flound
All governments require popular support, and in democracies this support must be maintained by noncoercive means. This book analyzes the question of political support in Canada, a country in which the
Recent national elections in Canada and the United States have been exciting, consequential contests. In the 2004 federal election in Canada, the Liberal Party narrowly clung to power after a volatile
