Peter Loewen Receives SSHRC Grant

June 22, 2015

Congrats to Professor Peter Loewen, who has been awarded a prestigious Insight Grant by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Valued at nearly $300,000 over five years, Professor Loewen, along with colleagues Daniel Rubenson (Ryerson) and Royce Koop (Manitoba), will be conducting a research project entitled “The Local Parliament: Voter Preferences, Local Campaigns and Parliamentary Representation.”

The grant will fund three sequential and related studies to answer three questions. First, to what extent are national elections determined by local factors? Second, how do MPs attend to and act on information about their constituents’ preferences? Third, do constituents reward them for this action? These study will combine the largest ever public opinion study in Canada, field experiments, and several qualitative case studies.

In addition to this work, Professor Loewen will continue to act as the Director for the Centre for the Study of the United States.