“The Impact of Political Knowledge on the Voting Decision” in the Canadian Journal of Political Science
The article addresses ongoing debates in the study of political knowledge and voting behavior. The article identifies significant divergences in previous work which may explain why such debates persist, including in the measurement of political knowledge and the inclusion of confounding variables. The article remedies these issues in an observational study examining how political knowledge affects the impact of spatial considerations and cognitive shortcuts on the vote. The article also contributes the first randomized experiment on this research question in the literature. Using the framework of conjoint analysis, the experiment evaluates how political knowledge affects the impact of spatial considerations and cognitive shortcuts on the vote. The article hypothesizes that political knowledge will increase the impact of spatial considerations on the vote but will not modify the impact of cognitive shortcuts. This expectation is supported in both the observational and experimental results.
Maxime Héroux-Legault. 2023. “The Impact of Political Knowledge on the Voting Decision.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 56 (3): 596-619.
The article can be accessed here.
“United in Division: Explaining attitudes towards Muslims in Canada and Quebec” in Ethnic and Racial Studies
This article evaluates the gap in attitudes towards Muslims between Quebec and the rest of Canada (ROC) and compares this gap to the importance of other explanatory variables. To do so, the article provides a comprehensive model that constitutes the most extensive study of attitudes towards Muslims in Canada yet. This model boasts the highest explanatory power found in the recent literature. The article finds that while there is a difference in attitudes between Quebec and the ROC, these differences are modest in comparison to inter-individual differences within each region and have weak explanatory power. Group threat theory, social identity theory, and leader evaluations all show greater explanatory power than the aforementioned Quebec gap. Contact theory has weak explanatory power. None of the variables associated with Quebec nationalism appear to have a statistically significant effect in the analysis focused on Quebec cases either.
Maxime Héroux-Legault. 2023. “United in Division: Explaining attitudes towards Muslims in Canada and Quebec.” Ethnic and Racial Studies.
The article can be accessed here.
“The Decline of the Bloc Québécois during the Harper Decade” in Open Federalism Revisited: Regional and Federal Dynamics in the Harper Era
The chapter begins with a review of quantitative data that support the idea that the Bloc Québécois declined steadily over the time period, and that this decline occurred because Quebecers were more satisfied with how the province was treated in the federation under Harper. After identifying these trends, the chapter accounts for them by using focused qualitative comparisons of the policies defended by previous Liberal and Conservative governments. It demonstrates that Liberal policies were less in tune with Quebecers’ understanding of federalism than were the Conservative early policies, thus explaining why the Bloc support fared well under the former but declined under the latter. The chapter concludes with a discussion of these results and their implications for the future of Canadian federal politics.
Maxime Héroux-Legault. 2021. “The Decline of the Bloc Québécois during the Harper Decade.” In Open Federalism Revisited: Regional and Federal Dynamics in the Harper Era, Julie Simmons and Jim Farney, eds. University of Toronto Press.
The book can be found here.
“Using Electoral Simulations to Study Voting Behavior”, with SAGE Publications
Studies interested in the effects of electoral systems have to contend with a difficult problem. Ideally, to properly estimate these effects, one would wish to compare elections that are completely identical except for their electoral system. This ideal situation, however, never occurs in real life. To circumvent this limitation, we created electoral simulations that approximate this ideal situation. In the context of a general election, we asked respondents to take part in multiple simulated votes, each of them using different electoral rules. By studying the different choices of voters and different outcomes of these elections, we gain the ability to identify how electoral systems determine voting behavior. This design was used to identify the relative importance of psychological and mechanical effects on the vote as well as voting preferences for female political candidates.
Maxime Héroux-Legault. 2019. “Using Electoral Simulations to Study Voting Behavior.” SAGE Publications.
The article can be accessed here.
"Public Opinion in Quebec under the Harper Conservatives" in the Canadian Political Science Review
An important part of Stephen Harper’s early strategy to form a majority government was to appeal to Quebec voters. Open federalism, the recognition of the Quebec nation in the House of Commons, and international representation at the UNESCO were all measures aimed at increasing support for the Conservatives in the province. This article reviews Quebecers’ reception to several key policy decisions taken by Stephen Harper’s government in the 2006-2011 time period. It also estimates the impact of these policies on satisfaction towards the federal government, appreciation of Stephen Harper, and voting intentions towards the Conservatives in Quebec.
Maxime Héroux-Legault. 2018. “Public Opinion in Quebec under the Harper Conservatives.” Canadian Political Science Review 11: 1-36.
The article can be accessed here.
"The Evolution of Methodological Approaches in the Canadian Journal of Political Science" in the Canadian Journal of Political Science
The article makes three contributions to our knowledge of the Canadian political science literature. First, it offers a historical survey of the methodologies and techniques used in the discipline. Second, the findings of this paper constitute a reference for future work interested in commenting the methods and techniques used in CJPS and provide scholars with data they can use to better situate their work within the broader literature. Finally, the paper answers three questions that permeate discussions of the Canadian political science literature. It investigates whether the proportion of qualitative works has declined over time, whether Canadian scholarship is more qualitative than quantitative today and whether there are important differences in the methodologies and techniques used in Canada and in the United States. The article concludes with a discussion of the future of political science methodology based on the findings.
Maxime Héroux-Legault. 2017. “The Evolution of Methodological Approaches in the Canadian Journal of Political Science.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 50: 121-142.
This article can be accessed here.
"Advancing the Study of Political Cleavages through Experimentation: Revisiting Regionalism and Redistributive Preferences in Canada" in Regional and Federal Studies
The maintenance of welfare state policies requires citizen support for the provision of a social safety net through taxation and redistribution. Research has shown that a diverse political polity presents a risk to the welfare state; however, Canada bucks the trend and does not see citizen support for economic redistribution decline in response to immigration-based population diversity. Using Canada as our case, we argue that scholars of welfare state politics and redistribution should turn their attention to other sources of population heterogeneity in an effort to better understand how different political cleavages affect citizens’ redistributive preferences. We use an online experimental survey to manipulate the in-group identity of 500 Canadians. The survey enables respondents to identify with other in-group identities along regional, linguistic, income-group, and urban/rural characteristics. Our results find that while Canadians do have a strong baseline preference for redistributive behaviour, regional and linguistic cleavages moderate this outcome.
Adrienne Davidson, Matt Lesch, Maxime Héroux-Legault, Tanya Whyte, Karol Czuba, Zain Asaf, Alesha Porisky. 2017. “Advancing the Study of Political Cleavages through Experimentation: Revisiting Regionalism and Redistributive Preferences in Canada.” Regional and Federal Studies 27: 1-23.
This article can be accessed here.
"Substate Variations in Political Values in Canada", in Regional and Federal Studies
The article aims to make three methodological and substantive contributions to the literature on substate cleavages in political values. Considerable controversy characterizes this literature. The paper argues that this controversy is due to how indicators representing political values are chosen and constructed. The paper proposes to use factor analysis to select and construct indicators of political values. The analysis identifies five dimensions, which collectively account for 57% of Canadians’ political values. They include support for moral traditionalism, egalitarianism, pluralism, openness to immigration and personal responsibility. Second, the paper shows that there is only limited variation across provinces in political values. Third, the paper shows that this result holds when considering regional variations rather than provincial variations.
Maxime Héroux-Legault. 2016. “Substate Variations in Political Values in Canada.” Regional and Federal Studies, 26:171-197. [This article was shortlisted for an award as best article in Regional and Federal Studies in 2016]
This article can be accessed here.
"Nationalism and Ethnic Heterogeneity: The Importance of Local Context for Nationalist Party Vote Choice", in Electoral Studies
This article explores the individual-level correlates of nationalist party vote choice and the extent to which these correlates are conditioned by an individual's local context. We argue that the influence of individuals' policy positions on nationalism should vary in importance for predicting voting for nationalist parties in localities where voters feel threatened culturally or economically. To test this argument we use the case of support for the Bloc Quebecois in the Canadian province of Quebec and data from the 2011 Canadian Vote Compass. We show that voters' policy positions on nationalism become more important in predicting a vote for the Bloc Quebecois when the percentage of English speakers (our proxy for ethno-cultural threat) increases in their locality. By contrast, we find that the relationship between nationalism and support for the Bloc Quebecois is not conditioned by economic hardship in the place where an individual lives. To test the robustness of our findings, we reestimate our models using a different dataset from multiple elections – the Canadian Election Study as well as an additional modelling approach. Our findings contribute to the broader vote choice literature by examining the role that local context plays in individuals' choice of parties. Furthermore, our findings lend support to arguments made in the literature on the importance of an ethno-cultural calculus among voters voting for nationalist parties.
Peter Loewen, Maxime Héroux-Legault, Carolina de Miguel. 2015. “Nationalism and Ethnic Heterogeneity: The Importance of Local Context for Nationalist Party Vote Choice.” Electoral Studies, 39:129-141.
This article can be accessed here.
"To Vote or to Abstain? An Experimental Study of First Past the Post and PR Elections", in Electoral Studies
We test the rational choice model of turnout in the lab. We performed laboratory experiments in which participants had to decide whether to vote or not in a number of first past the post and proportional representation elections. We test the predictions of rational choice theory from three different angles:
(i) First, we compare aggregate turnout with the Nash equilibrium predictions.
(ii) Second, we compare individual decisions with those derived from a rational calculus and count the number of decisions which are consistent with the rational recommendation, and.
(iii) Third, we determine, still at the individual level, whether, at the margin, people are more likely to vote as the expected payoff increases.
The overwhelming thrust of the evidence is inconsistent with the rational calculus paradigm.
André Blais, Jean-Benoît Pilet, Karine Van der Straeten, Jean-François Laslier, Maxime Héroux-Legault. 2014. “To Vote or to Abstain? An Experimental Study of First Past the Post and PR Elections.” Electoral Studies 36: 39-50.
This article can be accessed here.
"Assessing the Psychological and Mechanical Impact of Electoral Rules: A Quasi-Experiment", in Electoral Studies
The paper assesses the influence of electoral rules on vote choice and election outcomes using a quasi-experiment conducted during a recent Canadian provincial election. Respondents were invited to vote under three voting systems (first past the post, alternative voting and proportional representation) and to answer a short questionnaire. We examine how the distribution of votes and seats is affected, and we ascertain how much of the total difference is due to psychological and mechanical effects. We find that a PR system would have increased legislative fractionalization by the equivalent of one effective party and that the mechanical effect is much more important than the psychological effect. As for AV, its mechanical and psychological effects act in opposite directions.
André Blais, Maxime Héroux-Legault, Laura Stephenson, William Cross and Elisabeth Gidengil. 2012. “Assessing the Psychological and Mechanical Impact of Electoral Rules: A Quasi-Experiment.” Electoral Studies 31: 829–837.
This article can be accessed here.
Online Presence
You can find more about Maxime Héroux-Legault on the following websites: