Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaften und öffentliche Angelegenheiten
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Support for Political Leaders and Elected Representatives in Quebec

Mebs Kanji and Kerry Tannahill

The literature on political support in advanced industrial democracies has expanded fairly steadily over the last fifty years, but the findings on people’s outlooks toward political authorities and their consequences are far from conclusive. There is also ongoing debate about what factors best account for the way people feel about their political authorities. In this paper we take a more focused analytical approach and employ data from the recent Comparative Provincial Election Project to examine how Quebecers feel about their different political authorities across various levels of government. We also explore some potential consequences and test some prominent explanations. Our findings indicate that only minorities of Quebecers like their leaders and elected representatives (whether new or old, federal, provincial, or municipal) and even fewer like all of their respective leaders and elected politicians across all levels of government. Our evidence also suggests that this low support may result in further political disengagement and decreased confidence in the ability of authorities and political institutions. Furthermore, we find that variations in support for political authorities in Quebec are best explained by government performance as well as some cultural and structural factors.