Site MenuExplaining Aboriginal Turnout in Federal Elections: Evidence from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba
Explaining Aboriginal Participation
The political behaviour literature on electoral participation is massive, and a host of variables have been found to be important predictors of turnout. As suggested above, at the heart of many of these studies is a view of political participation that is strongly based in the individual-level resources at citizens' disposal.footnote 4 Standard models of turnout tend to emphasize three sets of factors: socio-economic resources (e.g. education and income),footnote 5 social networks (e.g. civic involvements and religious attendance),footnote 6 and psychological engagement (e.g. political interest and knowledge).footnote 7 The links between these factors and political participation are multiple and, for the most part, complimentary. Critical intervening variables include civic skills (especially cognitive ones), social and political trust, and political recruitment opportunities. At a more general level, scholars of turnout (particularly in Canada) have also emphasized the special significance of age-related differences in turnout – both as a feature of the life-cycle and as a reflection of generational changes – and the role of election-specific contextual factors, especially electoral competitiveness.footnote 8
Scholars focused on Aboriginal participation in Canadian elections have found that factors cited in the general literature on turnout are also significant variables in their work. For example, a number of studies cite socio-economic status as an important factor in explaining the level of Aboriginal turnout.footnote 9 Likewise, demographic factors such as age, location and social mobility (specifically, the tendency of Aboriginals to move around more than non-Aboriginals) have been identified as important factors impacting the rate of Aboriginal turnout.footnote 10 Along the same lines, factors such as the political opportunity structure (e.g. the electoral system, the party system and the like) have also been found to shape the level of Aboriginal turnout.footnote 11
Along with these general factors, scholars of Aboriginal turnout have noted important variation across Aboriginal communities. For example, in a study of Aboriginal voting in the Maritimes, Bedford and Pobihushchy found substantial variation in turnout among Status Indians in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in both federal and provincial elections.footnote 12 Guérin has similarly pointed to significant variation across provinces, and noted that the geographic dispersion of Northern communities and the concentration of off-reserve Aboriginals in part explain variations across communities.footnote 13
While empirical studies of Aboriginal turnout have been limited, a rich literature on Aboriginal politics in Canada does point to specific factors that may impact Aboriginal electoral participation. This literature tends to fall into one of two theoretical positions regarding Aboriginal engagement (or non-engagement, as the case may be) with Canadian political institutions.
The first position, what we will term "the nationalism thesis," argues that Aboriginal peoples constitute distinctive nations that are in a "nation-to-nation" relationship with the Canadian state.footnote 14 From this view, Aboriginal governments and organizations are the legitimate voice of Aboriginal nations and members of Aboriginal nations should vet their politics through Aboriginal institutions.footnote 15 For scholars such as Cairns, the popularity of the nationalism thesis among Aboriginal peoples explains low levels of Aboriginal turnout. Specifically, the existence of Aboriginal institutions (that is, Aboriginal governments and organizations) that are accorded the authority to speak on behalf of Aboriginal nations encourages disengagement from Pan-Canadian democratic institutions.footnote 16 Cairns concludes, "[t]he logical consequences of these rival [that is, Aboriginal] systems of representation is that elections have diminished significance, which reduces the incentives to vote."footnote 17 From this view, the existence of competing systems of representation and the issue of voice are two important Aboriginal-specific factors that help to explain Aboriginal turnout.
The second position, what we will term "the postcolonial thesis," argues that the root cause of Aboriginal subordination and oppression is the Canadian state itself. As Turpel explains, Aboriginal peoples "find themselves caught in the confines of a subsuming and frequently hostile, state political apparatus imposed by an immigrant or settler society."footnote 18 Moreover, Alfred contends that "Native peoples view non-Native institutions as transitory and superfluous features of their political existence," going on to conclude that "[t]he structures which have been created to colonize Native nations do not represent an acceptable framework for co-existence between the indigenous and newcomer societies."footnote 19 For Alfred, the state's institutions are instruments of colonization that facilitate Aboriginal subordination and oppression in Canada. As a consequence, adherents of the postcolonial thesis advance that Aboriginal peoples should disengage from the state's institutions and engage in a politics of resistance by actively challenging these institutions. More often than not, young people and "neo-traditionalists" are generally identified as the supporters of this view of the state and this strategy of resistance – that is, as adherents of the postcolonial thesis.
The implication for electoral participation is that this view of the subordination and oppression of Aboriginal peoples fosters hostility towards Canadian institutions (at the federal, provincial and band levels), and promotes alternative forms of political action outside the realm of traditional politics, especially among young people.footnote 20 Alfred, Pitawanakwat and Price, for instance, put forward in their work on Aboriginal youth participation that "[i]ndigenous youth are becoming increasingly alienated from institutions and the state as the locus of their identity."footnote 21 They go on to conclude that some "Indigenous youth favour political participation in non-conventional and indirect ways."footnote 22 For these scholars, the postcolonial view of the state and its strategy of disengagement and resistance explain why certain segments of the Aboriginal population decide not to vote.