麻豆AV

Scholars have observed an increasingly strong relationship between population density and partisan support in the United States, with Democratic support coming from higher-density urban counties and Republican support from lower-density rural ones. We analyze the density-partisan relationship in Canada with an original data set consisting of election returns by polling division for the eight Federal elections between 2000 and 2021. The large number polling divisions in Canada (over 50,000) permit analyses from the micro-scale of the precinct (200-500 people) to the level of districts (up to 100,000 people). In addition to the fine geographic detail provided by these data, Canada鈥檚 multi-party system permits a more systematic, nuanced analysis than the American case. The preliminary results show that the centre-left Liberal Party follows a pattern similar to the Democratic Party in the U.S., but other Canadian parties do not display strong density-partisan relationships.

Benjamin Forest is an Associate Professor of Geography, an Associate Member of the Department of Political Science, a member of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, and a fellow at the 麻豆AV Institute for the Study of Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from UCLA in 1997, and was an Assistant and then Associate Professor at Dartmouth College from 1998 to 2006. His current research examines redistricting and concepts of political community, the political representation of ethnic minority groups and women, the politics of memory and identity (particularly in the post-Soviet sphere), and various issues of electoral geography, political parties, and governance. In recent years, he has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Fonds de recherche du Qu茅bec - soci茅t茅 et culture (FRQSC).