Leadership Capital in Canada: Looking Through an Institutional Dimension

Transcription

1 42nd ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca April 2014 Political Capital and the Dynamics of Leadership: Exploring the Leadership Capital Index Leadership Capital in Canada: Looking Through an Institutional Dimension Jonathan Malloy Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada The concept of leadership capital is an intuitively useful concept to explore and explain how political leaders exercise their authority. Two leaders may win similar margins of victory, enjoy similar levels of polling popularity, or even last for similar tenures in power - yet their ability to accomplish goals and effect change can vary considerably. Why is this? Another comparison is between one leader who wins a smashing election victory that provides momentum and a sense of inevitability, while another wins a marginal result leaves them clinging to power and devoid of a clear mandate. But the first type may flounder and decline, while the second manages to build an impressive legacy. Again, why? Apart from electoral victories, other circumstances political, economic, social, security, global, etc. further shape the specific context in which leaders operate. Leadership capital emphasizes how leaders either capitalize on or overcome these circumstances to accomplish goals, effect change, and generally retain or replenish popularity in order to win reelection. Canada offers a variety of cases to illustrate these concepts and develop them further. As a quick initial comparison, John Diefenbaker (prime minister from ) and Lester Pearson ( ) are particularly illustrative. Both had similar lengths in power and fought four elections against each other. Diefenbaker won a huge victory in 1958 and two further parliamentary minorities; Pearson won only two minorities and never scored high popularity results. Yet Pearson is overwhelmingly seen as the more effective leader whose policies shaped Canada for decades, while Diefenbaker s legacy is shallow and mixed (Azzi and Hillmer 2013).

2 The accumulation and careful spending of leadership capital may help explain the difference. Pearson exhibited skills in managing his party, its minority status in Parliament, and other actors such as provincial premiers, while Diefenbaker only drove potential allies away with his egotistic and alienating behavior. Diefenbaker may have accumulated great initial relational capital through impressive oratory and early parliamentary skills, but squandered it as a dithering administrator; Pearson, a Nobel-prize winning diplomat, built and replenished his relational capital through careful relationships and an understated image. These in turn affected each leader s reputational capital Diefenbaker descended into an increasing caricature without authority except among his sycophants, while Pearson s stature increased (although admittedly more after he left office). Leadership capital is clearly a useful general concept for analyzing and comparing leaders. However, can it be developed into a parsimonious tool for comparing leaders not only across time but across countries and systems of government? This paper will offer some general explorations of the concept of leadership capital and the draft Leadership Capital Index (LCI) (Bennister et al 2013), drawing particularly on its applicability to Canada. It focuses particularly on the role of institutions and how they may protect or constrain leaders and affect the accumulation and spending of leadership capital and the potential difficulty that institutional differences may place on developing a robust and meaningful set of LCI measures. To be clear, we are not necessarily arguing that institutions are crucial explanatory variables here; in fact, much of the paper draws contrasts between leaders facing similar institutional circumstances. However, starting from an institutional standpoint allows us to better understand and explore how leaders accumulate, spend and replenish leadership capital, especially when we control for similar institutional circumstances. The Canadian case offers several particular institutions of interest. One is the relatively strong entrenchment of party leaders and difficulty of removing them; another is the relative docility of the Canadian parliament. Both are cases of institutional protection of leaders. What is the role and significance of leadership capital when leaders need not devote time and energy to their own survival? On the other hand, some Canadian leaders must manage in minority government situations, somewhat similar to parliamentary coalitions but more fluid, and a case of institutional constraint. Another example of constraint is the decentralization of the Canadian federation, making federal-provincial negotiations a key institutional challenge for leaders. In both cases, leadership capital is presumably significant in determining how leaders overcome these institutional circumstances. Examining leadership capital through these institutional dimensions allows us to draw some conclusions both about the draft LCI index and the role of leadership capital in Canada.

3 This paper focuses on Canadian federal prime ministers but with occasional reference to provincial premiers, 1 given the similar institutional contexts at both levels of government and their constitutional equality with each other, as well as the predominant or exclusive jurisdiction of provinces in major areas such as health and education. The paper also draws comparisons particularly with the most-similar Westminster model systems of Britain, Australia and New Zealand, though without ignoring the larger context of other parliamentary as well as presidential and hybrid systems. Much of the paper is exploratory rather than systematic, as our goals are both to apply the LCI index to Canada but also to offer critiques and suggestions for further refinement. The first part of the paper focuses on institutions that tend to protect leaders, while the second considers institutions that pose constraints, considering how both sets affect the accumulation and spending of leadership capital. Leadership Capital and Institutional Protections Canadian leaders (both national and provincial) enjoy strong institutional protections that make them almost impossible to overthrow internally or seriously challenge their programs between elections. If we understand leadership capital as instrumental in the difference between merely being in office, and being able to exert true power and authority to persuade and change course, what is the effect of an institutional context in which leaders can stay in office insulated from challenges beyond the electorate itself? As suggested below, in some cases this may promote a lazy reliance on their entrenched positions rather than the LCI measures of skills, relational and reputational capital, especially on a day-to-day basis. But alternatively, protection may allow leaders to rise to greater challenges. Leadership capital need not be expended to beat off challengers, and instead used to confront prevailing policy legacies and conditions and take bold new steps. In the following sections we will look briefly at two forms of institutional protection - party leadership selection and parliamentary weakness and suggest examples of both hypotheses above. Party Leadership Selection and Deselection It is difficult to become leader of a Canadian political party and perhaps even more difficult to be removed. Leaders of all major parties at both the federal and provincial levels have been selected through conventions or increasingly all-member votes, and parties have weak and complex mechanisms for leadership review and removal. Compared especially to other Westminster-style systems that still rely to a large or partial extent on parliamentary party groups alone, Canadian selection and deselection of leaders is clearly the most decentralized (Cross and Blais 2012; Malloy 2013). Compared more widely to other 1 Historically Canadian provincial leaders were also known as prime ministers but in recent decades premier has become the customary term in all provinces except Quebec which retains prime minister/première minister (m: premier ministre). Collectively, the leaders are referred to as first ministers.

4 parliamentary systems, Canadian leadership procedures are less distinctive but still considerably decentralized (Kenig 2009). Two points are especially salient. One is the reliance on special ad-hoc entities (Kenig 436) for leadership selection, with a high number of shortterm members recruited by leadership campaigns to join the party solely joining to vote for their candidate, after which their membership and involvement typically lapse. Second and relatedly is the lack of meaningful accountability mechanisms. Selected by mass means and a shifting membership, leaders are elected to open-ended terms and then can only be removed by similar mass means, such as votes at biannual conventions, and even the latter are relatively recent innovations. 2 Unlike some parties, again particularly Westminster-style ones, there are no triggers for parliamentary party groups, party executives or others to challenge or remove leaders. Party leaders are thus almost immune from direct challenge and can only be forced out after extended insurrections or other extraordinary and complicated means. Jean Chretien is the only modern Canadian prime minister to resign under pressure while still in office (the other being Mackenzie Bowell in 1896), and he did so only after years of internal party struggles and was still able to dictate his departure date of December 2003, a full sixteen months after his resignation announcement of August Two other prime ministers (John Diefenbaker, Joe Clark) have been forced out of leadership after election losses but again only after years of pressure and once they concluded they had insufficient internal support to continue. Looking at the sub-national level with its many more cases, there are several examples of provincial premiers resigning under pressure from their own parties, most recently Alison Redford of Alberta in March 2014, but again these are rare and follow the same constraints and dynamics as the national level. (Moving beyond prime ministers and premiers, it is worth noting that opposition leaders also enjoy relative insulation from challengers, with a convention that all leaders receive at least one chance at a general election. Michel Gauthier, leader of the Bloc Quebecois in , is the sole recent national party leader to not lead his party in at least one general election; the previous case was Arthur Meighen, briefly Conservative leader in More typically, leaders make graceful exits after poor electoral showings, as did Liberals Stephane Dion in 2008 and Michael Ignatieff in Actual force-outs of national party leaders are unusual, the most recent being Stockwell Day in 2002 amid widespread splintering of the then-canadian Alliance.) Regardless, in each case, party rules and norms mean the leader controls their final exit and forced resignations typically only occur after extended intra-party insurgencies and organizational disarray and breakdowns. 2 In the 1960s, the major parties introduced review votes at conventions held after an election loss. This meant, for example, that in the 1990s Paul Martin could not challenge Jean Chretien until Chretien lost an election. More recent rules now allow for automatic review votes regardless of election outcomes. 3 A further technicality is that Meighen was prime minister twice in the 1920s and led his party in three general elections in that decade. However, in his second leadership stint of he did not.

5 These dynamics of leadership selection, the general control of leaders over their parties, and the difficulty of leadership challenges in Canada may reduce the salience of at least some proposed LCI measures most notably: R1-08: The likelihood of credible leadership challenges (nearly always very low given the barriers to credible challenges) R2-09: Perceived ability to shape the party platform (typically very high if not almost exclusive. In general, Canadian formal party platforms hold very little significance, while leaders keep close control of campaign platforms and strategies and party machinery in general (Cross 2003)) And possibly S2-05: Election margin for the party leadership (votes increasingly result in landslides well over 20%). Of course, these measures particularly the last still provide some evidence of capital and its absence. For example, Joe Clark s narrow margin of 3% over his rival on the fourth ballot of the 1976 leadership convention presaged his difficulty establishing his authority within the party, even after becoming prime minister in Still, as Table 1 shows, recent Canadian prime ministers have generally won with comfortable margins and faced limited rivals, who in any event had few or no institutional means by which to challenge leaders. Table 1 Leadership Selection and Rivalries for Recent Canadian Prime Ministers Leader and Selection Date Harper (2003) Martin (2003) Chretien (1990) Campbell (1993) Mulroney (1983) # of Ballots Final Vote % 34.5% (B. Stronach) % 6.1% (S. Copps) % 25.9% (P. Martin) % 47.2 (J. Charest) % 45.6% (J. Clark) Runner-Up Ramifications Significant rivals to leader Stronach switched None parties in 2005 Key rivals resigned or were pushed out of party Martin emerged as growing rival, with increasing turmoil in party Lost general election 102 days later; party reduced to 2 seats Clark served loyally in cabinet; rivalry muted and not significant None Martin None None Exit as Party Leader Resigned after election loss Resigned under pressure from Martin; stayed 16 months further Resigned after election loss Resigned in 1993; party later devastated in election

6 Turner (1984) 2 54% 40% (J. Chretien) Clark (1976) % 48.6% (C. Wagner) B. Mulroney 15.8 % on 3rd Trudeau (1968) Pearson (1958) Diefenbaker (1956) % 40.3% (R. Winters) 8.2% (J. Turner) % 22.1% (P. Martin, Sr.) % 30.6% (D. Fleming) Lost general election 82 days later; rivalry with Chretien emerged subsequently Had difficulty establishing internal party authority, both before and after gov t. Turner resigned seat in 1976; rivalry continued but at arms length General discontent with Diefenbaker style as prime minister Chretien (post PMship) Various/ B. Mulroney after 1980 Turner None Various Resigned after two election losses (1984, 1988) Resigned and ran for reelection as leader in 1983; defeated by Mulroney Resigned in 1984; party lost subsequent election badly Resigned in 1968; party won increased majority Resigned under pressure after election losses; ran to succeed himself As the table suggests, the Chretien-Martin struggle was exceptional, especially for a sitting prime minister. John Turner was a perpetual but weak rival to Pierre Trudeau, Mulroney effectively neutered Clark, and other prime ministers (Diefenbaker, Clark, Turner) only faced rivalries after losing office and attempting to stay on as leader. Overall, prime ministers clearly choose their own exits and typically only after electoral defeats. We explore the implications for leadership capital below but will first look at a second type of protection. Parliamentary Weakness A second type of institutional insulation is the relative docility of Canadian legislatures, or what some have called their infantilization (Sayers 2006), again especially compared to most-similar institutions like the United Kingdom Parliament, and to some extent the parliaments of New Zealand and Australia. Among this group, the Canadian House of Commons has generally been seen as the least autonomous from government and party leaders, with highly manipulable rules, a weak committee system and a largely ineffective upper house. In recent years the power of prime ministers to unilaterally end a parliamentary session (separate from dissolving it entirely and calling an election) has been particularly noted, with abrupt prorogations in 2003, 2008 and 2009 that in each case were clearly timed to allow prime

7 ministers and governments to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and/or votes on critical issues. The exact terms in which the House can vote non-confidence in the government (thus triggering an election) are also unclear and allowed Paul Martin to escape such a vote in 2005 based on technicalities (Heard 2007). These and other matters have led scholars and others to call for greater formalization of Canadian constitutional and parliamentary rules (Aucoin et al 2011), but for now, they again allow Canadian leaders greater insulation than some of their counterparts. 4 Canadians commonly lament excessive (Aucoin et al 2011) party discipline in their legislatures, though dissents and defeats are more common that sometimes realized, especially when compared to non-westminster parliaments where party discipline may approach 100%. However, Canadian standing committees are generally seen as more docile than their Westminster counterparts, especially in challenging the government, and face the longstanding dilemma (Franks 1971) of choosing between autonomy and relevance. The appointed Canadian Senate provides an occasional but generally very weak check on governments (no province has an upper house.) All these provide further institutional insulation for Canadian leaders, either for their personal political survival, their policies, or both. This may complicate assessment of another LCI measure, R2-10 Perceived Parliamentary Effectiveness, given that parliaments rarely pose serious obstacles for Canadian prime ministers except in minority situations, as we will see below. On the other hand, leaders may dominate Parliament but still face various internal constraints within their cabinets and caucuses; management of these bodies may be a critical but difficult-to-study aspect of leadership capital, as we will see below in the comparisons of Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien. Institutional Protection and Leadership Tenure The overall strong institutional protection enjoyed by Canadian prime ministers especially within their own parties - likely contributes to their longer duration in office. As Table 2 shows, Canadian prime ministers average somewhat longer in office than their Australian and British counterparts (and longer if we increase the period under study; see explanatory note) and their median term is double that of Australian leaders and slightly longer than British leaders. Perhaps even more interesting is the bifurcation of tenures Canadian prime ministerships are either long or short. Only two leaders have served for periods between two and eight years, and none since Furthermore, of the four shortest, three were intraparty successions at the end of a long tenure (Trudeau to Turner; Mulroney to Campbell; 4 We should also note the recent introduction of fixed election dates in most Canadian jurisdictions, which reduce the power of prime ministers and premiers to control the timing of elections. Stephen Harper broke the spirit of this rule in calling the 2008 election, but is expected to honour the forthcoming 2015 fixed date.

8 Chretien to Martin) and the two shortest Turner and Campbell - were arguably passed a poisoned chalice by predecessors who had overstayed their welcome. Table 2 - Prime Ministerial Tenure Since May 10, (as of January 27, 2014) Y D Total Days Y D Total Days Y D Total Days Australia Britain Canada Menzies Thatcher King Howard Blair Trudeau Hawke Churchill Chretien Fraser Wilson Mulroney Chifley MacMillan St. Laurent Keating Major Harper Curtin Attlee Diefenbaker Gorton Heath Pearson Gilliard Cameron Martin Whitlam Callaghan Clark Rudd Brown Campbell Holt Eden Turner McMahon Douglas-Home Abbott Average Median While further comparisons to other systems, especially non-westminster ones, may yield more complex patterns, variations in average and median tenure may reduce the salience of another proposed LCI measure S2-04 Longevity in Office. Again, if we understand leadership capital to be related to making the best of circumstances beyond a leader s control, the need for skills, relational and reputational capital seems to be a less relevant or germane concept when leaders have so much institutional control or are grossly insufficient when they are passed the poisoned chalice of an unpopular reign, as for Turner and Campbell. However, the converse theory is that institutional insulation allows at least some leaders to rise above day-to-day concerns and truly concentrate on overcoming circumstances not within their control public opinion, socioeconomic, international, etc. Here, leadership capital may be 5 Calculations by author. This table offers a conservative view of long Canadian tenures. The start date of May 10, 1940 was chosen to include Churchill and part of the first Menzies ministry, while excluding King s long tenure in office in the 1920 and 1930s and the shorter Australian and British prime ministerships of the same era. If King s full 21 years in office are included, the Canadian average rises to 2634 days while the others fall slightly.

9 significant in understanding why and how some leaders follow predictable and safe paths while others strike out more boldly, building and spending their capital in more risky initiatives. Institutional Protection and the Use of Leadership Capital: Comparing Mulroney and Chretien The above competing theses can be illustrated by the cases of Brian Mulroney (in office ) and Jean Chretien ( ). Mulroney was arguably much better at both accumulating and spending leadership capital, while Chretien husbanded his considerable capital more carefully and perhaps ultimately futilely. Both leaders enjoyed similar institutional protections in Parliament and their parties. Yet the publicly unpopular Mulroney was able to choose the timing of his departure, while Chretien was forced out as leader while still enjoying high standing in the polls. Much of this was due to their contrasting internal management of their parties, and suggests lessons for our understanding of leadership capital. Mulroney s popularity rose and fell repeatedly; he was elected by a landslide in 1984, but quickly slid in poll standings, with his party in third-place standing by He engineered a strong comeback victory in 1988, campaigning for a mandate on free trade with the United States, but then slid again in polls with record-low support (11%) by He resigned in early 1993 and his successor Kim Campbell was decimated in the subsequent general election. Chretien s popularity was far more steady; his popular standings did not dramatically vary in his time in office and he won three general election victories (1993, 1997 and 2000) with generally similar results. Their policy legacies are similarly varied. While Mulroney exhibited an almost plastic, eager-to-please salesman image and seemed to have few core ideological beliefs, he nevertheless oversaw major and controversial trade, privatization, taxation and constitutional initiatives (the latter ultimately failing) and his government is generally seen among the most transformative in recent Canadian history (Lewis 2004, Blake 2006). In contrast, the Chretien government is generally seen as more reactive, building on Mulroney initiatives and/or driven by external shocks like the 1995 Quebec referendum and September 11 th, 2001, and noticeably less willing to embark on controversial projects. They also competed in different political environments; Mulroney s Progressive Conservatives were on the right against the centrist Liberals and leftist New Democrats, each of which provided strong challenges; Chretien s Liberals competed against a disarray of four weak challengers the New Democrats on the left and the three splinter parties of the Bloc Quebecois, Reform and rump Progressive Conservatives, none of which seriously challenged Liberal rule. Both leaders enjoyed the usual institutional protections of Canadian leaders but were noticeably different in how they managed their parties, and especially the display of skills and

10 talents that have been identified as important for leadership capital. Each leader had a clear rival: Clark for Mulroney and Martin for Chretien (though an important caveat is that Clark had already served and arguably failed as party leader, while Martin was still an aspirant.) However, Mulroney was noticeably much more successful at managing his rivals and parliamentary party compared to Chretien, even at times of deep unpopularity. Mulroney has long been noted for his strength and skill at managing his parliamentary caucus and keeping up his backbenchers spirits; while much of this admittedly relies on anecdotes and undocumented meetings (Thomas 1996) it remains among his most noted legacies. Clark himself served loyally in Mulroney s cabinet and, while assumed to still retain leadership aspirations, presented no challenge throughout this time. In contrast, Chretien was seen as more inattentive to his backbenchers and to Martin s own aspirations or at least failing to cultivate different impressions (Malloy 2003). This became a key vulnerability as Martin became increasingly open as a challenger and cultivated a majority of discontented backbenchers to his side. This contrast is admittedly complicated by other factors; Mulroney held the core of his party together, but a few MPs and many grassroots supporters splintered off and formed entirely new parties that decimated his successor. And while Chretien cannot always be faulted for not being able to manage his ambitious rival, he had great fortune to be confronted by an array of weak opposition parties. Still, they show clear differences in their accumulation and spending of leadership capital. Table 3 attempts to apply the draft LCI index measures to Mulroney at four points in time, with a comparison to Chretien at the height of his power in the late 1990s. Mulroney s capital varies considerably from his initial 1984 victory to the low point of his first term, his comeback in 1988 and the low of his last months in office. In contrast, Chretien s considerable score would likely not differ dramatically except for the increasing challenge from Paul Martin in later years, affecting measure 08. Significantly as well, much of Chretien s capital, especially measures 03 and 06, stemmed from the disarray and weakness of the opposition parties (suggesting party systems may pose another institutional dimension worth consideration).

11 Table 3 Comparing LCI Scores for Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien 6 Mulroney Chretien Political/policy vision Communicative performance Personal poll rating relative to opposition leader Longevity: time in office (Re)election margin for the party leadership Party polling relative to most recent election result Levels of public trust in leader Likelihood of credible leadership challenge within next 6 months Perceived ability to shape party s policy platform Perceived parliamentary effectiveness This comparison is not to say that one leader or another was more effective or even possessed more leadership capital indeed, Chretien scores highly but to suggest that Mulroney used leadership capital more freely and more effectively, spending it heavily on risky policies and then replenishing it. This was brilliantly timed for his 1988 re-election; less so for the collapse of his constitutional initiatives in and his final exit as the most unpopular prime minister in polling history. In contrast, Chretien husbanded his capital and other advantages more carefully, but was still ultimately done in by his party rival. Mulroney used his considerable political skills to keep his party united and loyal, accumulating leadership capital that could be spent on pushing the party and government to pursue controversial policy initiatives. These included free trade with the United States, a national consumption tax, the privatization of major government enterprises, and two constitutional accords (neither of which were ultimately successful, as discussed further below). 6 Scores by author; for purposes of space and clarity, sources and citations are not given in this version of the paper.

12 The risks of these policies were clear in his mercurial poll numbers and the near decimation of his party following his departure, but except for the constitutional accords they remain transformative and permanent. In contrast, Chretien engaged in limited transformative change in his own right; rather, his government largely extended or modified Mulroney s policies (Lewis 2004). Chretien neither built up, nor expended leadership capital as Mulroney did. The Mulroney case might be compared with that of Margaret Thatcher. Both leaders took bold policy risks, seeing their popularity rise and fall but timed well with reelection. Both also managed to keep their parliamentary party groups and core membership loyal, though driving other dissenters out entirely. Thatcher overstayed her welcome and was ultimately deposed by her own parliamentary party group, a risk Mulroney did not face. However, both leaders may be examples of the aggressive spending, re-accumulation and occasional squandering of leadership capital, even though they suffered different fates because of different party institutional contexts. Institutional Constraints The above has emphasized the strong institutional protections enjoyed by Canadian prime ministers, especially against party rivals. However, as we noted above, Canadian leaders may face other types of constraints, particularly parliamentary minorities and federal-provincial relations. In the next part of the paper, we turn to these. Most Canadian governments hold an outright majority of seats in the House of Commons or provincial legislature, but approximately a quarter of federal and provincial governments hold only minorities and must bargain informally with other parties for support. (Formal coalitions as found in some other parliamentary systems are extremely rare, with none of significance in recent years.) Minority governments provide a very different context for prime ministers, often with fluid situations of continuous bargaining, and this provides excellent terrain for the study of leadership capital, as we will see in the examinations of Lester Pearson, Joe Clark, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. A second constraint is federalism. The decentralized Canadian federation gives significant power to the provinces for education, social services and other policy areas, but primary fiscal authority to the federal government, creating extensive bargaining situations between prime ministers and premiers in which leadership capital again may play a strong role. (A third important constraint is the courts and especially the written Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which can curb prime ministerial initiatives. Here, bargaining is not typically an option, though a prime minister may build up their own capital either by showing themselves in line with the judiciary or, at times, by challenging them. However, this theme will not be developed here.) These pose very fertile ground for

13 understanding leadership capital, since some prime ministers have clearly been more successful at working within these contexts and overcoming their limitations than others. Minority Governments As noted, Canada has seen no formal governing coalitions of significance, but minority governments are not uncommon. In contrast to the insulated protection of majority prime ministers, minority leaders must bargain for survival. These circumstances, and the way in which some leaders prevail while others flounder, provide very useful tests of leadership capital in action. Minority governments typically operate in one of two ways. They may strike informal ongoing agreements with a single opposition party which offers parliamentary support in return for particular policies, a type of pseudo-coalition (most notably the Liberal-NDP deal of ; also an extensive Liberal-NDP accord in Ontario between ). Alternatively and more typically, they bargain on a day-to-day basis, trading off with different parties on legislation and confidence votes and/or bluffing by threatening an election that one or more opposition parties do not necessarily want. These dynamics, their success and failure, and the role of leadership capital, can be illustrated through the prime ministerships of Lester Pearson, Joe Clark, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. As suggested at the beginning of this paper, Lester Pearson ( ) is widely seen as a successful prime minister, though he only won two minorities and never enjoyed great popularity. He won a slight minority against John Diefenbaker in 1963 and tried but failed to win a majority in 1965, so that his five years in office were one of constant parliamentary bargaining and uncertainty. However, he was able to manage his minorities effectively, typically with the support of the New Democratic Party, to pass a variety of social welfare legislation, especially state health insurance and a national pension plan. He also implemented collective bargaining in the public service, a new Canadian flag, and unification of the armed forces. Despite a modest public image, he commanded respect within his party and showed a deft hand at managing its factions and especially the linguistic divide between French and English (he himself was unilingual). John Diefenbaker does not provide a ideal comparison with Pearson here since most of his time in office was with a (badly-managed) majority. A more effective comparison is Joe Clark, whose minority prime ministership was a clear failure. Elected in 1979 with a parliamentary minority (though Trudeau s Liberals surpassed him in the popular vote), Clark did not call parliament into session for a record 142 days (Aucoin et al 2011) and tried to govern without bargains, relying more on bluff as he assumed the opposition parties feared an election (especially when Pierre Trudeau announced his resignation in late 1979). But his government

14 exhibited confusion and uncertainty about its policies and accomplished little, soon losing a vote of confidence on his budget and then the subsequent February 1980 election to a resurrected Trudeau. Clark held on as leader for a further three years but was finally pressed out by Brian Mulroney. Does leadership capital explain the difference? In Table 4 we compare the LCI scores for Pearson in the midpoint of his government and Clark during his short tenure: Table 4 Comparing LCI Scores for Lester Pearson and Joe Clark Pearson Clark Political/policy vision Communicative performance Personal poll rating relative to opposition leader Longevity: time in office (Re)election margin for the party leadership Party polling relative to most recent election result Levels of public trust in leader Likelihood of credible leadership challenge within next 6 months Perceived ability to shape party s policy platform Perceived parliamentary effectiveness The contrast between the two is considerable, especially Pearson s control of his party but also his stronger policy vision and effectiveness in Parliament. Despite similar institutional circumstances, Pearson clearly held and used leadership capital much more effectively than the weak Clark.

15 A second minority government contrast can be drawn between Paul Martin (2003-6) and Stephen Harper (2006- ). Martin became party leader and prime minister in 2003 after forcing out Jean Chretien as we saw above. He assumed office with enormous popularity, both within his party (winning 93% of the leadership vote) and among voters, polling up to 50% support in the electorate against all other parties, a very high number. Yet his government quickly stumbled on two key fronts. One was a failure to reach out and heal wounds after the long civil war with Chretien, with cabinet and other personnel stacked with Martin supporters while opponents were denied renomination or marginalized. Second and relatedly was the political mishandling of a growing scandal involving government advertising (the sponsorship scandal ). The scandal only implicated members of the Chretien wing, and Martin calculated he could escape its consequences and perhaps even gain support by calling attention to it with an independent inquiry. In retrospect, this was a disastrous move that merely threw more fuel on the fire, as Martin and the party as a whole were implicated and fell sharply in the polls. Martin called a 2004 election that resulted in a minority (135 out of 208 seats); this ministry lasted seventeen months through deals with the NDP and independent members before collapsing. Martin was defeated in the subsequent 2006 election by Stephen Harper, though Harper won an even weaker minority (124 seats, with the Liberals at 103, the Bloc Quebecois at 51 and the NDP at 29.). Yet Harper was able to bargain effectively with all of the parties at various points, in what was seen as a model minority government (Russell 2008). He called an election in 2008 but only increased his minority (143 seats). In December 2008 he nearly lost power after an ill-considered set of policies that briefly created a united opposition coalition, but kept control through deft parliamentary and constitutional maneuvers. He continued this deft maneuvering and further inter-party bargaining, along with election bluffs against the weak Liberals, and won a full majority in Again, Martin and Harper show different fates for minorities despite similar institutional contexts. This is suggested in the next table examining their LCI scores at two points in time. Martin began with an enormous advantage and seemingly boundless leadership capital, but lost it quickly through actions related to his long civil war with Chretien and his tendency to overpromise to his supporters. In contrast, Harper showed enormous discipline, craftiness and a talent for exploiting his rivals weaknesses.

16 Table 5 Comparing LCI Scores for Paul Martin and Stephen Harper Paul Martin Stephen Harper Political/policy vision Communicative performance Personal poll rating relative to opposition leader Longevity: time in office (Re)election margin for the party leadership Party polling relative to most recent election result Levels of public trust in leader Likelihood of credible leadership challenge within next 6 months Perceived ability to shape party s policy platform Perceived parliamentary effectiveness A final point about Harper, however, is his divisive and confrontational style of governing. Harper has focused on cultivating leadership capital within his deeply loyal party and supporters, while alienating others through extensive parliamentary manipulations, personalized attacks on opposition leaders and most recently a controversial rewriting of election procedures. While his overall policies have been more incremental, his style has been extraordinarily aggressive. Capturing this through leadership capital is difficult, as Harper enjoyed enormous trust and loyalty among his supporters but has deeply polarized nearly all others with his aggressive and unyielding partisanship. Federalism A final example of institutional constraint and opportunity is federalism. This is particularly germane to Canada given the nominal constitutional equality of the two orders (not levels ) of government and primary provincial jurisdiction in areas such as health, education and many other aspects of the welfare state but primary federal jurisdiction in

17 taxation and revenue. The relevant aspect here is that prime ministers wishing to pursue major social policy initiatives must often do so in negotiation with the provinces and at times specifically with premiers, using the federal spending power to craft national programs. Over time these federal-provincial dynamics have been further complicated by the desire to patriate the constitution from its British origins, its partly-written nature with reliance on unwritten conventions, and the particular status of Quebec, making executive federalism (Smiley) a prominent aspect of Canadian political life. Federalism is separate but intertwined with the cultural and linguistic duality of Canada and its different regions. Approximately three-quarters of Canadians are primarily Englishspeaking (though many with another original mother tongue) and a quarter primarily francophone. Most Canadians are unilingual; only 17% speak both English and French with reasonable fluency. As well, most French-speakers are in the province of Quebec and neighboring areas in Ontario and New Brunswick, with only tiny presence elsewhere. This linguistic imbalance and two solitudes (Maclennan 1945) creates peculiarities for federalprovincial relations, as we will see in a moment. However, it can also be noted for its effect on leaders accumulation of capital through a sense of personal connection with voters. Most Canadian prime ministers until the 1960s spoke only English, and only in the 1980s and 1990s was it clearly established that serious candidates for a party leadership must be bilingual. Still, it is interesting to note the varying degrees to which leaders have established or failed to establish a more intangible sense of bicultural identity. The heavily accented Jean Chretien connected with many English-Canadians through self-deprecation and charm; Stephen Harper speaks French well but has largely failed to make any sense of connection or shared understandings with most French-speaking Quebecers. These sorts of connections and sense of shared values may be important for the accumulation and spending of leadership capital. On the other hand, their importance for political success is not clear; probably the most perfectly bilingual and bicultural prime minister in Canadian history was the failed Paul Martin. 7 Regionalism plays a related but also elusive role either as an institutional constraint or a factor affecting leadership capital. Canadian voting itself is highly regional, with parties typically strong in some provinces and regions and almost irrelevant in others. Apart from the linguistically and culturally unique Quebec, the western provinces of Canada exhibit a strong sense of regional identity and alienation from the rest of Canada and are particularly likely to polarize for and against prime ministers. John Diefenbaker and Stephen Harper came from the West and clearly drew their political base from there (while failing to build sustainable Quebec 7 The name Paul Martin is common in both French and English and he speaks both languages with no accent or idioms from the other. Martin was born and raised in Ontario but spent his adult life in Montreal and represented that bilingual city. His father, Paul Martin Sr. and himself a leading national political figure, was franco-ontarian by birth, but Martin Jr. s mother was anglophone.

18 support); Jean Chretien and especially Pierre Trudeau were deeply unpopular in the West and won almost no parliamentary seats. Brian Mulroney built a coalition of Quebec and Western voters alienated against Ontario elites, but this proved unsustainable and ended up creating breakaway parties in each region (the Bloc Quebecois and Reform Party). Again, if we understand leadership capital to stem from a sense of working with the context and constraints one is given, regionalism is a significant context in Canada. This applies not merely to voting patterns but, to return to the original theme of this section, the operations and policy dimensions of federalism. Prime ministers have approached these circumstances in different ways. Much of Pearson s welfare state was built on federal-provincial diplomacy (Simeon 1972) and comprehensive meetings of first ministers, not unlike his parliamentary bargaining. In sharp contrast, Stephen Harper has largely abandoned the comprehensive approach, preferring bilateral negotiations and meeting only once in eight years with all the premiers together. Both strategies draw on certain types of leadership capital, such as the soft skills of negotiation and personal relationships, and the reputational skills of being able to get things done, and this applies not only to prime ministers but also provincial premiers. Premiers may play confrontation, subservient or detached roles in these negotiations and significantly, party affinities may not be significant. (In the late 2000s. former premier of Newfoundland Danny Williams, a Progressive Conservative, urged federal voters to support ABC: Anybody But Conservative after a disagreement with federal Conservative Stephen Harper.) This complex environment makes it difficult to easily assess and compare leaders, as they may grapple with widely different fiscal and economic environments. However, this may be ripe for further development of leadership capital concepts. Where we will focus is the mega-constitutionalism (Russell 2004) of the 1970s-90s when prime ministers Trudeau and Mulroney, and to some degree Pearson and Chretien, engaged in elaborate negotiations over the partly-written Canadian constitution. The key issues were patriation of the founding British North America Act of 1867, a British statute, to Canadian control; a written charter of rights proposed by Trudeau; and an amending formula for the future. Trudeau engaged in numerous consultations with the premiers over the first decade of his prime ministership but eventually threatened in 1980 to proceed unilaterally through a popular referendum. This led to a mixed court ruling on its legality and a return to negotiations in 1981 that produced an agreement among all but Quebec premier Rene Levesque. Trudeau proceeded without Quebec s consent and the new constitutional deal and written charter was proclaimed in This was Trudeau s signature achievement as prime minister, consuming nearly all his leadership capital from soft skills to public reputation. Conversely, his record in other areas such as the economy was weak and his government became growingly unpopular until his resignation in 1984.

19 Brian Mulroney came to power in 1984, winning a nearly unprecedented Conservative landslide in Quebec and promising to bring Quebec into the constitution. A labour negotiator by trade, Mulroney believed in informal, personalized bargaining (indeed, this was how he managed his parliamentary caucus, as above), and preferred informal gatherings of premiers without staff rather than either confrontations or formal summits. An all-night session in 1987 led to the Meech Lake accord, supported by all the provinces including Quebec, and timely for Mulroney s 1988 reelection. It appeared to be a triumph of Mulroney s leadership and his capital. However, the accord was criticized for its decentralized vision of Canadian federalism (with Trudeau particularly scathing) as well as the process of constitutions being determined by eleven white men in suits, to use a phrase of the time. The accord eventually collapsed in two provincial legislatures in Mulroney then redoubled his efforts, leading to a new Charlottetown accord supported by all elites, but rejected in a 1992 national referendum. The vote was partly seen as a referendum on the now-unpopular Mulroney himself, who had spent his remaining leadership capital on producing the second accord and resigned four months later. As the above suggests, federal-provincial negotiations are an important part of the institutional context and circumstances facing Canadian political leaders. Like minority government, they allow us to see leadership capital at work or not. Having said this, we must caution that the environment of Canadian federalism is extremely complex, and sorting out the effects of leadership capital versus other factors, such as financial, is difficult. Conclusion This paper has attempted to examine the concept of leadership capital in Canada through an institutional context looking at both institutional protections and constraints on leaders. Again, this is not necessarily a neo-institutional perspective that argues institutions are a crucial explanatory variable that shapes leadership capital (though that cannot be ruled out.) Rather, it has looked more at how leadership capital can make a difference, even given similar institutional contexts. We have seen how leaders like Mulroney and Chretien, despite similar party and parliamentary protections, used their capital very differently, with the more cautious Chretien eventually done in by his rival anyway. We have also seen how minority governmenta and the complexities of federalism provide further opportunities for leaders to generate and use leadership capital, or the converse. In general, an institutional dimension allows us to compare leaders and see more clearly how leadership capital operates and is used or squandered. Some of the findings in this paper suggest possible modifications to the draft LCI measures, taking into account not just particular Canadian quirks but the range of institutional contexts in different countries. On the other hand, the measures presented here suggest the