THE DYNAMICS OF PARTY IDENTIFICATION IN FEDERAL SYSTEMS - THE CANADIAN CASE

Theory: Decentralized federal systems provide voters with opportunitie s to develop different national and subnational party identifications. According to an evaluative theory of party identification, voters use their storehouse of party performance judgments at a given level, tog ether with newly acquired information at both levels, when revising th eir partisan attachments at either one. Hypothesis: Other-level perfor mance evaluations influence the dynamics of party identification at a particular level of the federal system. Methods: A cross-level effects partial adjustment model of party identification is tested using data from five national inter-election panel surveys conducted in Canada b etween 1974 and 1993. Models are estimated using a two-stage ordered p robit procedure. Results: Inconsistency and instability are ongoing an d related features of party identification. Contemporaneous issue and leader evaluations and provincial party identification have properly s igned and statistically significant effects on time t federal party id entification.