The political ecology of local party organization: The case of Canada

This paper explores the extent to which it is possible to describe and measure a local dimension to party organization using Canada as a case study. It presents data on nine organizational variables (covering structural, resource and behavioural dimensions) collected from a national survey of the national parties' local organizations and, using constituency level data on position, party and the socio-economic local environment as independent variables, it demonstrates that there is a distinctive local dimension to party organization. Incumbency in single-member districts appears a particularly important variable, raising questions about which comes first - organization or electoral success.