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The paper examines the leadership convention held by the Nova Scotia Conservatives in 2006. Based on a survey of delegates to that convention as well as elite interviews, the paper examines the rationale for the party's retreat from the universal ballot.

Examination of the process is focused on the rationale offered by the party, namely to have a more fair, equal, and exciting process. Following a discussion of each of these issues, the paper concludes that the party fell short on its own measures and the retreat from a universal ballot was far from strategic.

The 2006 Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leadership race was notable for the surprising victory of Ed Stelmach and the fact that nearly 150,000 Albertans participated in the process. We argue that the use of an open, plebiscitary vote to select the leader of this governing party was essential to Stelmach's success, and acted as a mechanism for sustaining Tory dominance. The contest mimicked a general election: By offering three leading candidates with distinctive ideological views, it enlarged and engaged the party membership and reinvigorated the party's links to civil society. Stelmach's victory had much to do with his perceived role as the moderate, middle, candidate able to unite the party. To explain this outcome, we explore patterns of support by constituency and the impact of endorsements on the outcome. To paraphrase Duverger, leadership contests in Alberta impress on voters, even non-supporters, that the Tories are a dominant party.

In this article, we compare the experiences of male and female party leaders at the provincial and federal levels in Canada between 1980 and 2005 and test several hypotheses regarding gender and party leadership. The Canadian case provides an excellent case study given the relatively large number of women (21 in total) who held the position of party leader during the time period in question. The case study reveals that major parties are less likely to elect women as their leaders, while parties on the ideological left are more likely than other parties to select women. The leadership races won by women are as competitive, if not more so, than those won by men, although the mandate secured by women leaders is less overwhelming. Not surprisingly, then, men are found to enjoy longer tenures as leaders than women, and, moreover, to enjoy greater electoral success.

Party politics in Alberta can seem dull. Election after election the Conservative party is returned to power with a comfortable majority and campaigns are marked by little in the way of suspense (see Bell et al, 2007 and Stewart and Archer, 2000). The last time government changed hands in Alberta was 1971 when the Peter Lougheed led Progressive Conservatives eked out a narrow win over the Social Credit dynasty. Lougheed and the Conservatives positioned them- selves as safe, conservative change. This was also the case when the Progressive Conservatives faced their most serious challenge to date, in 1993. The Liberals, led by former Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore, launched a fiscal attack on the Conservatives, presenting themselves as the safe, conservative alternative (Stewart, 1995). The Ralph Klein Conservatives beat back that challenge and the party has easily carried each subsequent election.

The Alberta Tory dynasty begun by Peter Lougheed is now 40 years old. With only four leaders across four decades, the party has managed to maintain its hold on the political imagination of Albertans. It has weathered a number of storms, from minor party assaults during the tumultuous 1980s to the Liberal threat of 1993 and the stresses associated with the global financial crisis. Now it confronts a new challenge in the form of the Wildrose Alliance led by Danielle Smith.Just as the Tories stole the centre ground from beneath Social Credit in the 1970s, the Wildrose leadership team hopes to take what was a fringe right wing party and turn it into a broad coalition capable of appealing to a large number of Albertans. What challenges do they face in repositioning the party? And how will the Tories protect their home turf?In brief, the Wildrose Alliance must modify its policies and present them in such a manner as to be able to plausibly claim that it now reflects the core values of Albertans better than the current government.For its part, the government must select a new leader capable of successfully painting Wildrose as outsiders who cannot be trusted to cleave to the values that Albertans hold dear. What are these values? Strong support for individualism, a populist view of government – including wariness of the federal government – combined with a deep commitment to a role for government in providing core programs in areas such as health care, the environment, and social welfare.

The Alberta Tory dynasty begun by Peter Lougheed is now 40 years old. With only four leaders across four decades, the party has managed to maintain its hold on the political imagination of Albertans. It has weathered a number of storms, from minor party assaults during the tumultuous 1980s to the Liberal threat of 1993 and the stresses associated with the global financial crisis. Now it confronts a new challenge in the form of the Wildrose Alliance led by Danielle Smith.Just as the Tories stole the centre ground from beneath Social Credit in the 1970s, the Wildrose leadership team hopes to take what was a fringe right wing party and turn it into a broad coalition capable of appealing to a large number of Albertans. What challenges do they face in repositioning the party? And how will the Tories protect their home turf?In brief, the Wildrose Alliance must modify its policies and present them in such a manner as to be able to plausibly claim that it now reflects the core values of Albertans better than the current government.For its part, the government must select a new leader capable of successfully painting Wildrose as outsiders who cannot be trusted to cleave to the values that Albertans hold dear. What are these values? Strong support for individualism, a populist view of government – including wariness of the federal government – combined with a deep commitment to a role for government in providing core programs in areas such as health care, the environment, and social welfare.

AbstractThe long-standing centrality of party leaders to Canadian elections and politics, and the use of televised extra-parliamentary conventions to choose leaders, have led parties to believe that a new leader will provide them with an electoral boost at the subsequent election. This article tests this perception using the record of 136 cases of leadership change in Canadian provincial parties over the last three decades. The data allow the authors to consider the impact of divisive contests, the relevance of a party's competitive position, and the regional variance on any leadership convention electoral boost. It concludes the conventional wisdom is wrong.

This article adds to our understanding of the gendered impact of informal rules and norms for party leaders. Specifically, it examines the gendered nature of party leader tenures and exits. Using original data collected on party leader experiences in Canada, we test for the existence of gender differences in leader tenures and exits, and examine two potential explanations for any differences. We find that leader tenures and exits are indeed gendered but only within parties with the potential to form government, ones where the political stakes are highest. Within these major parties, women's tenures as party leaders are significantly shorter than men's and they are significantly more likely to be forced to resign from the position. We find clear evidence of the existence of the glass cliff phenomenon in major parties but unclear evidence of its role in women's shorter tenures. Instead, women's shorter tenures are explained by the harsher set of standards being applied to women party leaders.