Divided government in Canada refers to the common situation when the federal and provincial governments are held by different political parties. The study of divided government can aid in the understanding of voter behaviour. The thesis reviews the relevant literature on divided government, split-ticket voting and party identification in Canada and the United States. From the literature several voter strategies are extracted that describe the possible individual level processes that result in the aggregate outcome of divided government. This linkage, between individual decisions and collective outcomes, is crucial to understanding divided election outcomes and it is to the exploration of this concept that the thesis contributes. Using a dataset of party vote shares in provincial and federal elections from 1904 to 2003, the thesis looks for aggregate effects of the individual level strategies that it identifies. The thesis argues that divided government in Canada is a result of staggered election timing and policy learning across levels which combine to produce a cyclical effect in election results.

Divided government in Canada refers to the common situation when the federal and provincial governments are held by different political parties. The study of divided government can aid in the understanding of voter behaviour. The thesis reviews the relevant literature on divided government, split-ticket voting and party identification in Canada and the United States. From the literature several voter strategies are extracted that describe the possible individual level processes that result in the aggregate outcome of divided government. This linkage, between individual decisions and collective outcomes, is crucial to understanding divided election outcomes and it is to the exploration of this concept that the thesis contributes. Using a dataset of party vote shares in provincial and federal elections from 1904 to 2003, the thesis looks for aggregate effects of the individual level strategies that it identifies. The thesis argues that divided government in Canada is a result of staggered election timing and policy learning across levels which combine to produce a cyclical effect in election results. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

This thesis demonstrates that Calvin Coolidge applied a philosophy of limited government to his executive decisions concerning two domestic issues, Prohibition and agricultural policy. In both matters, various groups attempted to pressure Coolidge into permanently increasing the scope of the federal government's activities. Coolidge refused to comply with their demands and maintained his belief in the benefits of a federal government that limited itself to minimal activism by mediating the disputes of conflicting interest groups. Through both Prohibition and the agricultural problem, Coolidge exhibited his effectiveness in handling divisive political issues while maintaining his philosophy of limited government. Overall, this thesis contributes to the scholarly revisionism of Coolidge. / Department of History

The purpose of this study is to explore the administrative setting of the Office for Civil Rights, treating especially the functional requisites of agencies: namely, the development of a viable role within its set and the internal necessity of developing among its functionaries a degree of cohesion and sense of common purpose. This case study is designed, moreover, to challenge the naturalistic assumptions of the pluralist model of administrative theory. Chapter I develops the theme of "social engineering agencies" as a distinctively new genre of public agency in the American political setting and adumbrates the theoretical challenges which these organizations present to the conventional pluralist paradigm.

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The essential problem of politics are ancient general, and persistent. A particular political system, such as that of the United States, can be interpreted as a way of coping with recurring problems. Some of the ways a political system deals with problems may be unique, some commonplace. Because it meets its problems in a particular time and place with a special body of past experiences to go on, each political system is unique; so too the American system is unique. But because some problems have recurred ever since civilized men have tried to live together, every political system has had to deal with enduring dilemmas. Its solutions may be unique, the basic questions are not. The focus of this paper is directed toward one particular problem -- the issue of conflict and consensus, political power and political order, in a changing democratic society with politics seen as the means whereby the community balances the tension between conflict and consensus. The American ancestors chose to live in a community, with its numerous and obvious advantages. But, when strong human beings seek the company of one another, conflict seems to be an inescapable aspect of community and hence of the human condition. While conflict has been the focus of attention by many -- philosophers, historians, social scientists, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke -- it is James Madison who perhaps more than any other single individual gave shape to American conflict in his modeling the American constitutional system. He held the conflict is built into the very nature of man, and thus a system must be devised through which it is channeled and controlled. Conflict and consensus, among other things, involve the interaction of power, order, liberty, and flexibility. It is to the Age of Jackson and the political philosophies promulgated by the founding fathers, that this research turns to gain an insight into how "factions" are channeled and controlled in the United States -- to gain insight into basic pluralistic political patterns of the United States.