UBC Press publishes 'The Dawn of Competitive Party Politics in Alberta'

A new book from UBC Press examines the forces that have shaped Alberta's political landscape: a century of alienation from Ottawa and a resulting pattern of electoral loyalty to single parties that has few parallels in Canada.

'The Dawn of Competitive Party Politics in Alberta,' authored by Anthony M. Sayers, Royce Koop, and David K. Stewart, identifies five distinct phases of partisan competition in the province, each marked by a dominant party competing mainly within itself rather than against rivals.

The United Farmers of Alberta, a grassroots rural movement, defeated the urban-elite Liberal party. William Aberhart's Social Credit party then formed the first government in 1935 and stayed in power for close to four decades, eventually adapting its ideology to accommodate Alberta's growing urban population. The Progressive Conservative party navigated the province's shifting character from 1971 until 2015, when the Alberta NDP's unlikely victory ended the long-standing Conservative administration.

The authors argue that the rural-urban divide remains a critical feature of Alberta politics. Peter Lougheed's urban appeal earned the Progressive Conservative party its first government in 1971; more recently, in 2008, the Wildrose party emerged as a far-right alternative with a rural base, splitting the conservative vote and delivering Rachel Notley's NDP victory in 2015.

Ideology has seldom played a prominent role. Instead, Albertans have found solace in having a premier fight for their interests in the wider federal context. Ideological flexibility and resource revenues enabled governments to implement both socially progressive programs and fiscally conservative policies favouring private interests.

"In addition to standard economic and social dimensions, provincial politics is often driven by a cultural sense of Alberta exceptionalism manifest in both the alienation from Ottawa and a populist hue," the authors write. "This exceptionalism is rooted in the prairie west as the periphery of a developing Canada struggling to maintain national unity, radically antagonized by its exclusion while reshaped and emboldened by its phenomenal economic and social growth."

The authors conclude: "Albertans as a group have chosen to support long-running dominant governments to press the same issues of concern within the federation and enhance provincial fiscal power and capacity to resist Ottawa."