Congratulations to Laura Conrad!

John D Petrie QC Memorial Graduate Scholarship. A quiet, yet significant supporter of the University of Calgary, Mary Petrie passed away on Friday, October 19, 2001. During her long and generous relationship with the university, Mary Petrie endowed many bursaries and scholarships—most in tribute to her late husband, John D. Petrie QC. Mary Petrie was interested in breaking the chain of poverty that can afflict families from one generation to another. In her opinion, education was the solution. The bursaries and scholarships she supported were renewable awards as she felt this provided incentive for students to do well once they were at the university, and to recognize them when they did. Each year, as a direct result of her philanthropy, at least 10 University of Calgary students have received awards instigated by Mary Petrie. This will continue in perpetuity.

 

Laura Conrad is working under the supervision of Dr. Jack Lucas. Dr. Lucas, tell us a bit about what makes Laura’s work stand out!

Congratulations to Laura on this well-deserved scholarship! Laura is doing great research on candidate recruitment in non-partisan municipal elections. Her work originated in an intriguing puzzle: Why, despite very different institutional contexts and policy responsibilities, are women’s rates of municipal representation so similar to their rates of provincial and federal representation? Laura’s MA research is based on a very impressive set of more than 80 original interviews with municipal election candidates, which she is using to explore how candidates are recruited in non-partisan elections. It’s an exciting and original contribution to our understanding of candidate recruitment in Canada.

Laura, your own broad research interests include the recruit individuals to run for elected office in the non-partisan environment of municipal politics. How did you come to focus on these areas?

Municipal elections across the country routinely see very low voter turnout and, generally, few people are aware of what’s happening within their municipality at any given time. This is problematic given that the issues being dealt with at this level have such a massive impact on everyone’s day to day lives. My hope is that more research on municipal politics can help bring more attention to this level of government. In my thesis, I want to better understand why people run for local office. Given that in the partisan context, recruitment is thought to be a crucial step in the candidate emergence process, I want to see how or if this effect translates to the non-partisan environment in Alberta.

Can you tell us a bit about your specific proposed thesis research?

In my thesis I ask three central research questions: who recruits candidates into municipal politics, what effect does this recruitment have on an individual’s decision to seek elected office, and what are the gendered implications of this recruitment? To answer these questions I use data from the annual Canadian Municipal Barometer survey as well as interviews with candidates running In Alberta’s municipal elections last year. I find that candidates’ personal connections as well as current and former politicians are largely responsible for recruiting candidates at the local level. This recruitment is especially important for serious candidates in making their decision to run for office. I also find that there are notable differences between women and men candidates and their experiences with recruitment which helps to explain women’s under representation at the municipal level.

It’s still early days for your research, but what are your next steps in your program?

Currently I’m working on some edits to my thesis and then will start preparing for my defence which is set to happen late March! After that, I will be moving to Ottawa to start a job as a policy analyst with Natural Resources Canada.

 

Congratulations to Laura Conrad on your 2021 John D. Petrie, QC Memorial Graduate Scholarship!

To find out more about our paper prizes and past prize winners, please visit the Political Science website.