Matthew Polacko, Peter Graefe & Simon Kiss
Perspectives
Perspectives
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@article{polackochanging2026,
title = {The {{Changing Class Basis}} of {{Canadian}} and {{Social Democratic Futures}}},
author = {Matthew Polacko and Peter Graefe and Simon Kiss},
number = {5},
url = {https://perspectivesjournal.ca/changing-class-socdem-future/},
year = {2026},
month = {jan},
note = {Last visited on 01/27/2026}
}
Matthew Polacko, Peter Graefe & Simon Kiss
Canadian Review of Sociology = Revue Canadienne De Sociologie
Canadian Review of Sociology = Revue Canadienne De Sociologie
Voting
social democracy
class
Canada
elections
public opinion
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According to the budget-maximizing bureaucrat model, public sector employees should rationally seek to increase government budgets to increase their own power. In contrast to most advanced democracies, class and sectoral voting has largely been neglected in Canada. The ideological and voting preferences of the public sector has been unexamined since the 1980s. Using the Canadian Election Study (1968–2019), we revisit and expand on this literature. We find that the public sector holds more economically leftist attitudes than the public and that a sectoral cleavage has emerged, with public sector employees increasingly supporting the leftist New Democratic Party (NDP). We also find that social class moderates these two relationships, as professionals and managers in the public sector are significantly more likely to vote for the NDP and hold more leftist economic attitudes than their counterparts in both the private sector, and the routine non-manual and working class in the public sector.
@article{polackorevisiting2025,
title = {Revisiting the {{Sectoral Cleavage}} in {{Canada}}: {{Evidence From}} the {{Canadian Election Studies}}},
author = {Matthew Polacko and Peter Graefe and Simon Kiss},
doi = {10.1111/cars.70014},
year = {2025},
month = {aug}
}
Matthew Polacko, Peter Graefe & Simon Kiss
Social Science Quarterly
Social Science Quarterly
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The recent success of far-right populism has led to a wave of public attention to its causes. Drawing on novel survey items from the Canadian Election Study, we investigate how economic insecurity, mediated by immigration and feminist attitudes, affects voting behavior. While economic distress has been linked to far-right voting in Europe, we find support that subjective measures of economic distress are significantly associated with voting for the Right in Canada, when interacting with immigration and feminist attitudes. However, the association only holds for men. The findings suggest that Canada, despite its comparatively weak nativist cleavage, is not immune to tensions arising from globalization and economic insecurity.
@article{polackosubjective2024,
title = {Subjective {{Economic Insecurity}} and {{Attitudes Toward Immigration}} and {{Feminists Among Voters}} on the {{Right}} in {{Canada}}},
author = {Matthew Polacko and Peter Graefe and Simon Kiss},
volume = {105},
number = {2},
pages = {281--295},
doi = {10.1111/ssqu.13336},
url = {https://sjkiss.github.io/publication/subjective_economic_insecurity/subjective_economic_insecurity.pdf},
year = {2024},
month = {jan},
note = {Last visited on 03/28/2024}
}