Concede or Resist? Experimental Evidence from Canadian Municipal Officials
May 15, 2023 — All day
Event organized by the Centre on Governance and the Jean-Luc Pepin Research Chair
About this event
Speaker: Alexandra Artiles, Political Science Ph.D. Candidate at Florida State University and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ottawa
Moderator: Prof. Jennifer Wallner, Associate Professor in the School of Political Studies and holder of the Jean-Luc Pepin Research Chair at the University of Ottawa
Description:
Do municipal officials oppose and resist centralization at higher rates when an out-party provincial government does it? To answer these questions, I conduct a survey experiment on a representative sample of 790 municipal officials through the Canadian Municipal Barometer. I hypothesize that municipal officials will oppose and resist centralization at higher rates when an out-party provincial government does it. Results confirm that municipal officials are generally opposed to centralization. However, their opposition to centralization increases when it is done by a provincial government that does not share their political orientations.
Moreover, municipal officials are more likely to support being consulted – or being required to give their consent – when they face centralization from a politically incongruent provincial government. Results were especially pronounced among liberal municipal officials who learned a conservative government was taking away their power. Results from the survey have important implications for how municipal and provincial governments interact with one another and represent their constituents.
Bio:
Alexandra Artiles is a Political Science Ph.D. Candidate at Florida State University and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ottawa. She studies public policy, state politics, and federalism. Her research has been featured in PS: Political Science & Politics, Educational Policy, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, and Federalism in Times of COVID-19: A Comparative Perspective. She teaches Health Services Organization and Policy, Public Policy Analysis, Introduction to Public Policy, and Introduction to American Government.