Renegotiating the Bargain

The franchise bargain that once divided Canadian political parties into separate spheres of authority – with members on the ground and elites at the centre – has been displaced. Renegotiating the Bargain explains why parties have reformed their internal decision-making structures and shows how the new arrangement operates. Rob Currie-Wood draws on in-depth interviews with current and former party officials, party governance documents, and election financing reports to trace organizational change within Canadian political parties since the end of the twentieth century. Rank-and-file members now possess the same participatory rights as long-time activists and elected officials, but the central apparatus now also has capacity to regulate membership participation in key areas of policy-making, leadership selection, candidate nominations, and campaigning. Renegotiating the Bargain demonstrates that parties remain meaningful sites of civic participation in Canada's democratic life. Its findings reveal not only the evolution of power-sharing arrangements within parties but also how party democracy works.