The Politics Prime Ministers Make: Secular and Political Time in Canadian Context

Abstract

This paper uses Stephen Skowronek’s framework for the study of presidential politics to detect recurrent leadership patterns in Canada. While institutional differences, most notably variation concerning the incumbent’s time in office as well as the less fragmented institutional architecture of Canada’s Westminster democracy, require some modifications, the paper demonstrates that prime ministers and presidents, in principle, face a similar leadership problem. Depending on the condition of the political regime (vulnerable or resilient) and the respective incumbent’s political identity (opposed or affiliated), Canadian prime ministers – just as presidents in United States – tend to engage different leadership patterns. These insights, the paper concludes, open up interesting opportunities to put the American presidency into a comparative perspective.