Dissertation Project: Canada and the Changing Center-Right

Center-right parties, and the conservative ideology they exposit, are in the midst of transformational change. The historic paradigm – often labelled as “fusionism”, “neoliberalism”, or “Reaganite/Thatcherism” – has lost legitimacy, and a new generation of right-wing activists, leaders, and intellectuals are in conflict over a diverse range of future directions. My dissertation project aims to not only assess these trends, but examine how Canada’s Conservatives fit into them, consisting of three chapters:

1. Using survey data from the Canadian Election Study (CES), chapter one uncovers the emergent cultural and economic divisions among Canadians and how these impacts voting behavior. While I find that a new socio-structural (a combination of cultural and economic differences) cleavage is emerging in Canada it has, counterintuitively, made little impact on the centre-right electoral coalition in Canada. (A Substack Post outlining the argument and findings of this chapter is available here: https://sroutley.substack.com/p/conservatism-is-changing-but-not)
2. In Chapter Two, I draw upon natural language modelling (RoBERTa) to examine Canadian conservative discourse overtime. In particular, I am interested in exploring patterns in the way that competing types of conservativism – Red Toryism, Fusionism, and new right forms, for example – are used across different periods and contexts. It provides a unique way, I think, to not only think about what real-existing ‘Red Toryism’ was but get a sense of what, if anything, has and continues to make Canadian Conservatism unique.
3.  Chapter Three focuses, through deeper historical analysis, on how ideas associated with the “new right” have been received and developed through the conservative ideational space in Canada, consisting of not only the CPC itself but a range of proximate think tanks, media producers, and lobby groups. I draw upon the growth regime literature to establish an analytical dichotomy between established ‘neoliberal’ political thinking (to which fusionism belongs) and the alternative economic and social policy paradigm (“national conservatism”?) proposed by new conservative voices.

Other Published Academic Articles:

 “Social Identity Leadership in Canada: The Impact of Group Identity and Individual Prototypicality on Leadership Attainment” International Journal of Canadian Studies 62

 “The Effects of Personality Traits, Environmental Attitudes, and Demographic Factors on Green Party Support in Canada” (with Dave Armstrong). Canadian Journal of Political Science 57(3)