As Lévi-Strauss puts it, social facts are primarily communication facts. From this point of view political communication is not characterized by the objects it bears upon, but by its praxeologicial character; it is concerned with the effectiveness of communication, and more precisely with power relations and with strategies. So, political communication is to be analysed as a game structure, and not as a network structure or a code structure. It is shown by an example that political communication really presents a game structure, after which some distinctions are made between mastery and control, and then between material, informational, symbolic, and juridical means of power. Like the other structures, game structures are characterized by the laws which govern them. Three of them are specified: the law of equilibration, the law of connectedness, and the law of communal closure. Finally, after reviewing briefly the different orders (practical, institutional, and ideological) where a structure can be seen in operation, three positive aspects of such a game analysis are noted: it is concerned with the inner part of human action, it is well-suited to overcome the limits of functional and systems analysis, and it has the virtue of isolating a truly political dimension in human action.

In 1960 and 1962 an intensive study was conducted of voluntary organizations and social participation in the town of Biggar, Saskatchewan. While the research was primarily focused upon the structure and characteristics of local voluntary groups, their leadership and their participants, it also delved into the related subjects of voter turnout (on the local, provincial, and federal election levels) and political party preference (on the provincial and federal levels). It is the purpose of this paper to present, and examine the implications of, these latter data. Following a brief description of the research site, and the sample chosen for study, the data are first examined in terms of the apparent relationship between voter turnout and party preference in a community where party switching (that is, voting for one party on the provincial level, another on the federal) is not an uncommon phenomenon. This analysis suggests the probability that a relatively small number of “switch voters” may be the key to party success in many Canadian communities, and examines the question of whether party popularity or keenness of a local competition plays a greater role in stimulating voter turnout. A series of eight social factors are then considered, independently, in terms of their relationships to turnout and party preference. A number of significant findings emerge, some of which support, others of which question, expectations based upon previous research in Canada and elsewhere.

Many practitioners of political science are currently questioning the bona fides of comparative politics as a valid academic subdiscipline in their trade. At the same time, in trying to perform comparative politics in the classroom over a period of five years, I have found the standard, multi-country comparative politics course to be increasingly unsatisfactory as a component of the political science curriculum. Many factors combine to make it extremely difficult to generate an adequate university learning experience from this kind of course:

1. Superficial learning is inherent in multicountry comparative courses. Because of the pressure to deal with at least three political systems within the confines of a single course, relatively little time is devoted to each country. Moreover the bibliographical material varies wildly from country to country in its quantity, quality, methodology, and content. It can only be a rare instructor who is really competent, let alone expert, in the politics of all the fields he is expected to treat in his course.

The notion that a relationship exists between social stratification and politics is axiomatic in political sociology. In Canada, as in other western industrial nations, we know that such elements of the stratification system as economic class, race, and religion are associated with political party choice (Reid, 1967; Meisel, 1967).

In traditional societies there tends to be a high correlation among the various dimensions of the stratification system. That is, a person who is of high status on one dimension will tend to be of high status on others, and vice versa. Since traditional societies also tend to be characterized by ascriptive stratification systems, individuals pass their relative advantages or disadvantages on to their children, and the class structure remains more or less stationary.

With the rationalization of economic systems through the process of developing industrial organization, achievement-oriented bases of social status become differentiated from traditional ascriptive bases, and assume increased importance. Thus, capable people from low status backgrounds may through education or skill enter high status occupations; that is, social mobility occurs.

Such social mobility confounds the relationship between stratification and politics, because the correlation between dimensions of social stratification becomes more imperfect. Some members of society who have little claim to status on the basis of ascriptive criteria find themselves in high status positions through their own achievements. At the same time, others from high status backgrounds find themselves earning through their own achievements lower status positions than their parents’ occupied.

The foreign area specialist who goes into the field frequently finds it very difficult to acquire all the documentary materials he needs in the time available. Rare books, documents, and newspapers may be in libraries or in archival collections, but unless the writing is to be done in the field, it is difficult to use these sources. Furthermore, collections of papers, letters, clippings, pamphlets, and manuscripts are frequently available from private sources, political parities, and organizations, if one attempts to locate such collections, but they can rarely be borrowed, and certainly not for the length of time needed for thorough research. Similar difficulties may face the scholar engaged in domestic research. My answer to this problem has been to develop techniques for microfilming documents on location under adverse conditions using a minimum of equipment, which can be carried easily in a brief case. With a camera and a few other small items, it is quite easy and economical to microfilm materials and, if necessary, to process the films either at home or under very primitive field conditions.