Parliament and Political Support in Canada

Abstract

Legislatures are widely recognized as institutional embodiments of the concept of representation in contemporary liberal democracies, but how support for legislatures and evaluations of their members's activities influence support for national political regimes and communities is imperfectly understood. This article investigates the question with the use of data from a 1979 national survey of the Canadian public. Analyses of a model of support demonstrate that feelings about parliament and assessments of MPs' performance have significant effects on levels of support for the national political community and regime. Other important variables include cost-benefit evaluations of the personal impact of governmental activity, more general evaluations of governmental performance, and subcultural variations in political socialization.