Introduction

Political scientists have long recognized the role of identities such as race, ethnicity and religion in shaping opinion formation and vote choice (Achen and Bartels, Reference Achen and Bartels2016; Campbell et al., Reference Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes1960; Dawson, Reference Dawson1995; Huddy et al., Reference Huddy, Mason and Aarøe2015; Lazarsfeld et al., Reference Lazarsfeld, Berelson and McPhee1966). However, it is only more recently that place has emerged in the literature as a key identity through which to understand contemporary political behaviour. In response to destabilizing political events such as Brexit in the United Kingdom, the election of Donald Trump in the United States, and the Gilets Jaunes protests in France, a burgeoning body of literature now seeks to understand how a particular form of politicized place-based identity among urban and especially rural residents, sometimes referred to as “place consciousness,” may be reshaping twenty-first-century politics (Arzheimer and Bernemann, Reference Arzheimer, Berning, De Lange, Dutozia, Evans, Gould, Harteveld, Hood, Ivaldi, Norman, Van Der Brug and Van Der Meer2024; Borwein and Lucas, Reference Borwein and Lucas2023a; Cramer, Reference Cramer2016; Hochschild, Reference Hochschild2016; Huijsmans, Reference Huijsmans2023; Lunz Trujillo & Crowley, Reference Lunz Trujillo and Crowley2023; Munis, Reference Munis2021).

Almost all of this research builds, to varying degrees, on Katherine Cramer’s (Reference Cramer2016) pathbreaking ethnographic study of place consciousness in rural Wisconsin. In her work, Cramer (Reference Cramer2016) articulates the idea of “rural consciousness,” a form of place-based identity among rural residents, encompassing both a sense of identity tied to a person’s rural location and a perception of deprivation relative to urban areas. Cramer argues that rural residents form strong in-group attachments to their places, and they perceive their places are disrespected and disregarded economically, culturally and politically by urban political elites, which breeds a politics of resentment toward urban out-groups.

Expanding on Cramer’s (Reference Cramer2016) foundational work, subsequent literature on place consciousness has developed along two primary lines. The first line of research focuses on rural and urban place-based identity as in-group identities, emphasizing how place attachment shapes political attitudes among people who identify with their place types (Bornschier et al., Reference Bornschier, Häusermann, Zollinger and Colombo2021; Lin and Lunz Trujillo, Reference Lin and Lunz Trujillo2023; Lunz Trujillo, Reference Lunz Trujillo2022; Lyons and Utych, Reference Lyons and Utych2023; Shea and Jacobs, Reference Shea and Jacobs2023; Zollinger, Reference Zollinger2024; Zumbrunn, Reference Zumbrunn2024).Footnote ¹ This research has primarily turned to public opinion surveys, using a range of measures to capture place identity, including questions that ask people about their perceived closeness or belonging to their place types (Bornschier et al., Reference Bornschier, Häusermann, Zollinger and Colombo2021; Zollinger, Reference Zollinger2024) and social identity batteries previously leveraged to measure other identities such as national and partisan identification (Lunz Trujillo, Reference Lunz Trujillo2022; Zumbrunn, Reference Zumbrunn2024). Research in this tradition shows that urban and rural identities are closely associated with economic disparities stemming from the new knowledge economy (Bornschier et al., Reference Bornschier, Häusermann, Zollinger and Colombo2021; Wuthnow, Reference Wuthnow2019; Zollinger, Reference Zollinger2024) and underpin urban–rural differences in policy attitudes (Diamond, Reference Diamond2023; Shea and Jacobs, Reference Shea and Jacobs2023), political trust (Zumbrunn, Reference Zumbrunn2024), radical right support (Bornschier et al., Reference Bornschier, Häusermann, Zollinger and Colombo2021; Zollinger, Reference Zollinger2024) and partisan animosity (Lin and Lunz Trujillo, Reference Lin and Lunz Trujillo2023).

A second line of research building on Cramer (Reference Cramer2016) has focused on place-based resentment, emphasizing how rural—and sometimes also urban—identities combine with grievances directed at place-based out-groups to shape political behaviour. Although this research has employed a variety of methodological approaches and measures, it has generally followed Cramer in conceptualizing place resentment as comprising three sets of grievances related to feeling one’s place is (1) economically under-resourced, (2) cultural disrespected and (3) politically under-represented. Research has now documented high levels of place-based resentment among people in rural places across US (Hochschild, Reference Hochschild2016; Lunz Trujillo and Crowley, Reference Lunz Trujillo and Crowley2023; Munis, Reference Munis2022), Canadian (Banack, Reference Banack2021; Borwein and Lucas, Reference Borwein and Lucas2023a) and European contexts (Auerbach et al., Reference Auerbach, Eidheim and Fimreite2024; Claassen et al., Reference Claassen, Gobel, Lang, Ackermann, Bankov, Brookes, Cappellina, Carman, Freitag, Del Horno, Hernández, Rico, Rossteutscher, Traunmüller, Webb, Zmerli and Zumbrunn2025; Hegewald, Reference Hegewald2024; Huijsmans, Reference Huijsmans2023; McKay et al., Reference McKay, Jennings and Stoker2021).

While recognizing that place identity and place resentment are deeply interconnected, in connecting place resentment to political behaviour, this research has empirically generally modelled place resentment as being downstream from place identity and has thus proceeded in analyses by examining how place resentment relates to political behaviour after accounting for place identity (that is, after controlling for place identity in models) (Hegewald, Reference Hegewald2024; Huijsmans, Reference Huijsmans2023; Jacobs and Munis, Reference Jacobs and Munis2023; Lunz Trujillo and Crowley, Reference Lunz Trujillo and Crowley2023). Studies on place resentment in rural places show it is connected to a range of political behaviours and attitudes, including lower satisfaction with democracy and representation, anti-immigrant attitudes and voting for populist and radical right politicians and parties (Borwein and Lucas, Reference Borwein and Lucas2023a; Huijsmans, Reference Huijsmans2023; Lunz Trujillo and Crowley, Reference Lunz Trujillo and Crowley2023; Munis, Reference Munis2022). A closely related strand of research has also instead conceptualized the twin dynamics of in-group place identity and out-group resentment in terms of place-based affective polarization—that is, emotional like of place-based rural (urban) in-groups relative to dislike of place-based urban (rural) out-groups—and has produced similar findings (Hegewald and Schraff, Reference Hegewald and Schraff2022). Finally, a third set of studies have tried to disentangle the relative contributions of the economic, cultural and political components of resentment to vote choice and other phenomena such as political trust, with mixed conclusions (Huijsmans, Reference Huijsmans2023; McKay et al., Reference McKay, Jennings and Stoker2021; Lunz Trujillo and Crowley, Reference Lunz Trujillo and Crowley2023).

Thus, building on Cramer’s (Reference Cramer2016) ethnographic work on rural consciousness, there has been a proliferation of research and measures capturing different aspects of urban and rural identity and resentment, but which has converged on the conclusion that people’s connections to their places are a driving force in contemporary political behaviour. In this research note, our contribution to this literature is primarily empirical: We seek to delineate how place consciousness relates to vote choice in Canada across rural, suburban and urban place types. In doing so, however, and for the purposes of our study’s focus on vote choice, we also argue for the use of a single, unified measure of place consciousness that, in line with Cramer’s (Reference Cramer2016) original conceptualization, captures the co-constitutive nature of in-group place attachment and the economic, cultural and political dimensions of out-group resentment.

In arguing for a unified measure, we do not contend that our approach is superior to the alternative measurement approaches outlined above; on the contrary, each of these approaches has merit, depending on the research question at hand. For example, a focus on in-group place identity is particularly useful for understanding how local attachment and community pride shape support for policies benefiting one’s own region—such as environmental protection or gun control—often independent of attitudes toward other places (Diamond, Reference Diamond2023; Shea and Jacobs, Reference Shea and Jacobs2023). In contrast, a focus on out-group place resentment is crucial for understanding how perceptions of unfair advantage and status competition vis-à-vis other places have driven affective polarization, partisan sorting and opposition to policies that, on the surface, appear to be in the interests of the in-place (Huijsmans, Reference Huijsmans2023; Jacobs and Munis, Reference Shea and Jacobs2023). Finally, analyses separating rural resentment into multiple dimensions, variously described as economic, political and cultural (Lunz Trujillo & Crowley, Reference Lunz Trujillo and Crowley2023; McKay et al., Reference McKay, Jennings and Stoker2021), or as resources, power and culture (Claassen et al., Reference Claassen, Gobel, Lang, Ackermann, Bankov, Brookes, Cappellina, Carman, Freitag, Del Horno, Hernández, Rico, Rossteutscher, Traunmüller, Webb, Zmerli and Zumbrunn2025), suggest that different components may play more or less central roles in different country contexts.

For our purposes, however, we see several reasons why combining place identity with economic, cultural and political resentment into a single measure of place consciousness is most appropriate. First, Cramer’s (Reference Cramer2016) original conceptualization is derived from earlier psychological research on group consciousness, which specifies three integrated conditions for groups developing a group consciousness: (1) a group must possess subjective group identification, (2) it must hold grievances or resentment pertaining to group-based disparities (3) and it must assign external blame to the system for those disparities (Huddy, Reference Huddy, Huddy, Sears and Levy2013; Miller et al., Reference Miller, Gurin, Gurin and Malanchuk1981). In our reading, this framework implies an interactive relationship: Strong group identity can generate or amplify resentment, while experiences of grievance or perceived injustice can, in turn, strengthen in-group attachment (Brewer, Reference Brewer1999; Huddy, Reference Huddy, Huddy, Sears and Levy2013; Jardina, Reference Jardina2019). Measuring place resentment separately from place identity, while controlling for the latter (or vice versa), is therefore sub-optimal, because neither is clearly pre-treatment to the other. By scaling the intertwined in- and out-group components of place consciousness into a single measure, we aim to mitigate this measurement challenge.

A similar point applies to efforts to estimate the independent effects of the three dimensions of place resentment on voting behaviour. In definitions of rural consciousness, these dimensions are not cleanly separable. Rather, rural consciousness is understood to fuse rural residents’ identification with their places, their perceptions that their places are denied their fair share, economically disadvantaged and culturally disregarded and their belief that this disadvantage is the fault of urban decision makers at the centre of power (Cramer, Reference Cramer2016). Such a conceptualization echoes arguments in the populism literature that economic dislocation and cultural change are mutually reinforcing drivers fueling political disaffection and populist support (Gidron and Hall, Reference Gidron and Hall2017). Critically, as Agnolin et al. (Reference Agnolin, Colantone and Stanig2025) argue, empirical evidence both that economic shocks shape cultural attitudes and that cultural concerns heighten the political significance of economic shocks makes it futile to try to measure both drivers in horse-race regressions that pit them against each other. In our view, then, the best way to capture the full effect of place consciousness on voting behaviour is to include all of these forces in a single measure and remain agnostic about the relative importance of economic, cultural and political components.

Our preference is thus to use a parsimonious unified measure of place consciousness. However, our primary interest in this research note is empirical: We examine how place consciousness relates to vote choice in the Canadian federal electoral context. Canada’s urban–rural electoral divide has widened substantially in the last three decades (Armstrong et al., Reference Armstrong, Lucas and Taylor2022), reflecting a pattern that has also been observed in other anglophone democracies with majoritarian systems, and to a lesser extent across continental Europe (Huijsmans and Rodden, Reference Huijsmans and Rodden2025). Despite these common trends, Canada’s cleavage has followed its own distinct development trajectory, and its specific manifestation at the party level reflects the country’s unusual two-and-a-half party system (Armstrong et al., Reference Armstrong, Lucas and Taylor2022; Huijsmans and Rodden, Reference Huijsmans and Rodden2025; Taylor et al., Reference Taylor, Lucas, Armstrong and Bakker2024). As Armstrong et al. (Reference Armstrong, Lucas and Taylor2022) document, the country’s urban–rural electoral divide has grown and receded at different points in history, but since the mid-1990s has become particularly germane to electoral outcomes, with the Liberal and Conservative parties dominating in urban and rural areas, respectively, and the New Democratic party (NDP) dominating in neither place type.

While a range of economic, social and political factors no doubt contribute to Canada’s potent urban–rural divide, accumulating evidence of the growing strength and intensity of the cleavage suggests it may also have identity-based or affective underpinnings. Yet, we know very little about whether—and if so, how—place-based identity and resentment (that is, place consciousness) contribute to the urban–rural divide in electoral outcomes in Canada. On the one hand, research examining the United States, whose cleavage is arguably most similar in size and scope to that of Canada, shows that rural identity and resentment are significant predictors of voting for the Republican party (Lunz Trujillo & Crowley, Reference Lunz Trujillo and Crowley2023; Jacobs and Munis, Reference Jacobs and Munis2023), raising the possibility that Canada’s urban–rural cleavage may also have affective foundations. On the other hand, the translation of place-based grievances into electoral politics in the United States has been driven, at least in part, by enterprising political elites in the Republican party, who have actively inflamed rural identity and grievances (Cramer, Reference Cramer2016; Jacobs and Munis, Reference Shea and Jacobs2023; Jadhav, Reference Jadhav2020; Shea and Jacobs, Reference Shea and Jacobs2023). In Canada, there is less evidence of elite-driven appeals to place-based grievances of the kind observed in the United States, although recent developments suggest this could be changing.Footnote ² Even so, the Canadian context remains distinct: Federalism and the greater fractionalization of its party system, with actors such as the New Democratic party and regionally concentrated parties such as the Bloc Québécois, complicate the relationship between place consciousness and vote choice by offering disaffected voters multiple partisan outlets across different regions of the country.

In examining how place consciousness shapes vote choice in Canada, our final contribution in this research note is to extend analyses beyond coarse rural–urban (or rural–suburban–urban) dichotomies by examining place consciousness across six distinct urban, suburban and rural place types. These place types, first articulated by Borwein and Lucas (Reference Borwein and Lucas2025), differentiate places on the basis of similarities on multiple dimensions including average sociodemographics, housing, employment, and commutes, and include low-income rural, higher-income rural, low-diversity suburban, high-diversity suburban, working-class urban and professional-class urban places. Importantly, while Borwein and Lucas (Reference Borwein and Lucas2025) show that this place typology is related to federal voting patterns at the aggregate level, we do not know how place consciousness varies across these place types, nor how it relates to voting in each place.

In sum, this research note contributes to research on the identity and affective bases of urban–rural electoral divides by examining place consciousness as a unified construct capturing place-based identity and resentment; by doing so in the context of Canadian federal electoral politics, one of contemporary politics’ largest urban–rural cleavages; and by using a more nuanced typology of urban, suburban and rural place types than has previously been used.

To examine how place consciousness shapes Canadian voting behaviour, we draw on data from the Cities in Canadian Political Development (CCPD) survey, a large, nationally representative survey of approximately 4,000 Canadians, which was fielded in Spring 2024. We ask respondents first about their identification with their own place types, using four questions designed to capture place identity as a social identity, and, second, about their sense of resentment toward place-based out-groups, using four questions that capture the cultural, economic and political dimensions of place-based grievances (Borwein and Lucas, Reference Borwein and Lucas2023a). In our analysis, we first show that all eight of these questions contribute information to a single latent measure of place consciousness. We then present analysis that disaggregates place types into our six types of rural, suburban and urban places to show which place types have the highest levels of place consciousness. Finally, we examine for which place types place consciousness does—and does not—predict voting behaviour. In short, we find that place consciousness is highest in both types of rural places (low- and higher-income rural areas) and in both places is a significant predictor of voting for the Conservative party, but it only predicts voting for the Liberal party in Canada’s most inner-urban places (professional-class urban place types). We conclude with a discussion of the significance of our findings for the study of place consciousness as a single composite of place identity and place resentment, in Canada and elsewhere.