Third Party Study Of Canadian Political Parties

Party politics is an integral part of modern Canadian liberal democracy. Sincethe beginning of party politics, the two traditional major parties—the ConservativeParty and the Liberal Party have controlled the national politics, which greatly markedearly Canadian federal party system as “Two-Party System”. However, up untilWorld War Ⅰ, third parties gradually emerged and came into Canadian politicalsystem, provincial as well as federal. From that time on, the variability and durabilityof third parties have become traditional characteristics of Canadian party politics.On2ndMay2011, the New Democratic Party (NDP)–Canada’s leading federalthird party–astoundingly became the Official Opposition with103seats in the41thHouse of Commons. This unorthodox phenomenon has broken up the dominantpolitical scene as two traditional major parties occupying the power in federalparliament ever since a short disruption by the Bloc Quebecois in1993FederalElection. Following this line of thinking, we conduct a comprehensive research onhow third parties reach electoral success in federal party politics, using MauricePinard’s third party theory to retest this empirical phenomenon. It is worth mentioningthat we modify Pinard’s original model and propose a modified model afterconsidering the characteristics of Canadian political system, which altogether serve asthe theoretical framework for empirical research.This thesis has applied both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Casestudy and data analysis have given a thorough examination of the NDP’s rise in2011Federal Election. The results further show that the rise of the NDP in2011FederalElection was rooted in two necessary conditions: the structural factors of one-partydominance and structural(economic) strain. The highly significant role of provinceswas sufficient conditions while the NDP’s campaign breakthrough in Quebec was thefinal causal factor.