Melanee Thomas, Ph.D.
thomasm@ucalgary.ca
University of Calgary
About Me:
Melanee Thomas studies gender and politics, Canadian politics, political behaviour and public opinion, and political psychology. Her research focuses on the causes and consequences of gender-based political inequality in Canada and other post-industrial democracies, with a particular focus on political attitudes and behaviour. Her current projects include an edited collection titled Mothers and Others: The Role of Parenthood on Politics (funded by a SSHRC Aid to Workshops Grant), an exploration of the effects of gender, stereotype threat, and psychological orientations to politics (funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant), a project examining the role electoral districts play in voter turnout, party competition, and representational diversity, and an investigation of attitudes towards energy transition.
Research Interests
Public Opinion
Canadian Politics
Gender and Politics
Experimental Research
Research Methods & Research Design
Representation and Electoral Systems
Countries of Interest
Canada
Publications:
Journal Articles:
The majority of Canada's women premiers were selected to that office while their parties held government. This is uncommon, both in the comparative literature and among premiers who are men. What explains this gendered selection pattern to Canada's provincial premiers’ offices? This paper explores the most common explanation found in the comparative literature for women's emergence as leaders of electorally competitive parties and as chief political executives: women are more likely to be selected when that party is in crisis or decline. Using the population of women provincial premiers in Canada as case studies, evidence suggests three of eight women premiers were selected to lead parties in government that were in crisis or decline; a fourth was selected to lead a small, left-leaning party as predicted by the literature. However, for half of the women premiers, evidence of their party's decline is partial or inconclusive. As a result of this exploration, more research is required to draw generalizations about the gendered opportunity structures that shape how women enter (and exit) the premier's office in Canada.
How is electoral support for incumbent candidates shaped by natural disasters? Do voters in districts newly recovering from a national disaster punish or reward incumbents for their response to the disaster when compared to their counterparts in unaffected districts? The City of Calgary is used here as a case study. On 20 June 2013, the Bow and Elbow rivers flooded in the Calgary, devastating 26 neighborhoods and displacing approximately 75,000 people, or 7 per cent of the city's population. Four months later, a municipal election was held. When analyzed as a natural experiment, results suggest that support for the incumbent mayor increased city-wide between the 2010 and the 2013 elections, but at a lower rate in areas that experienced residential flooding. However, the flood did not produce equivalent treatment and control groups, as flooded areas differ systematically from areas that were not flooded in ways key to the election outcome. When analyzed more conservatively, results show that the flood had no effect on incumbent support or voter turnout. Thus, this disaster introduces a note of caution into the literature examining the effects of natural disasters on electoral behavior.
Women’s continued political underrepresentation suggests that women candidates might be more likely than men to be ‘sacrificial lambs’ – that is, more likely than men to serve as party standard bearers in districts where their party has little chance to win. Using data from the 2004–2011 Canadian federal elections, we find support for the sacrificial lamb hypothesis when district competitiveness is measured dynamically, rather than statically. Our dynamic measurement of district competitiveness further shows that women incumbents’ seats are not as safe as are men’s. We conclude that these two factors help to explain why women remain underrepresented in Canadian federal politics.
In the 1960s, the gender gap in subjective political competence was assumed to reflect women's lack of socioeconomic resources, their confinement to the domestic sphere and their gender role socialization. Since then, women have moved into the labour force in vast numbers and conceptions of gender roles have been radically altered under the influence of the feminist movement. Yet, the gender gap in subjective political competence persists. This paper uses the Canadian Election Studies (1965–2008) to analyze gender differences in subjective political competence across time. Not only is the association between affluence and subjective political competence weaker for women, but the effect of affluence has weakened over time for women but not for men. Few generational effects are found; this suggests that the politicizing role of feminist socialization is much weaker than had been anticipated.
Despite the gains women have made since the advent of second-wave feminism, women remain less confident than men of their ability to understand politics. This gender gap has remained unchanged for decades, yet it has attracted surprisingly little scholarly attention in recent years. This article uses data from the 2000 American and 2004 Canadian election studies to assess whether differences in women's and men's socioeconomic resources help to explain the gender gap. We also examine whether there are differences in the ways that socioeconomic resources affect women's and men's self-perceived ability to understand politics. We focus particular attention on the effects of parenthood on women's confidence in their understanding of politics. Finally, we consider the role of feminism and gender role conceptions.
Books Written:
When women in politics interact with reporters, opponents, and constituents, they are forced to confront their parental status. If they have children, they are questioned about their competence in both their public and private lives. If they don’t, they face criticism for not understanding or relating to key policy domains. This “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” conundrum raises difficult questions about how politicians, voters, and the media navigate the intersection of gender, parental status, and politics. Mothers and Others brings together scholars researching political careers, party organization, political behaviour and representation, and public policy to discuss the role of parental status in political life. They look at three main areas of citizen engagement with the political system – parenthood and political careers, parenthood in the media, and parenthood and political behaviour – to argue that being a parent is a gendered political identity that influences how, why, and to what extent women (and men) engage with politics. The first major comparative analysis of the role of parenthood in politics, Mothers and Others makes important observations about what we know and what we still need to find out. Mothers and Others is for scholars and students of political science, gender and women’s studies, and sociology both in Canada and abroad.
Book Chapters:
In The Blueprint: Conservative Parties and their Impact on Canadian Politics Edited by J.P. Lewis and Joanna Everitt In this collection, J.P. Lewis and Joanna Everitt bring together a group of up-and coming-political scientists as well as senior scholars to explore the recent history of the Conservative Party of Canada, covering the pre-merger period (1993–2003) and both the minority and majority governments under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The contributors provide nuanced accounts about the experience of conservatives in Canada which reflect the contemporary evolution of Canadian politics in both policy and practice. They challenge the assumption that Harper’s government was built upon traditional "toryism" and reveal the extent to which the agenda of the CPC was shaped by its roots to the Reform and Canadian Alliance Parties. Organized thematically, the volume delves into such topics as interest advocacy, ethno-cultural minorities, gender, the media, foreign policy, and more. The Blueprint showcases the renewed vigour in political studies in Canada while revealing the contradictory story of the modern Conservative Party.