Journal Articles

Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada

---

This article presents a case study of the recent merger between the Progressive-Conservative Party and the Reform/Canadian Alliance parties. The selection of this case serves to illustrate the current limits of existing party organisational change and party coalition theories when it comes to explaining party mergers. We propose an alternative theoretical framework that introduces some minor adjustments to the existing literature in order to account for the party merger phenomenon. In this framework, three factors are shown to be most likely to have led to a party merger in the Canadian context: votes-seats disproportionality, access to new resources (electoral and financial) and rebranding. We conclude with a discussion regarding these factors’ potential for explaining other cases of party mergers.

---

Availability

No copy data

Detail Information

Series Title

Parliamentary Affairs

Call Number

-

Publisher

Oxfordshire, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press., 2010

Collation

-

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

00312290

Classification

-

Content Type

-

Media Type

-

Carrier Type

-

Edition

Volume 63, Number 1. January 2010. Pp. 41-65

Subject(s)

-

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment