The selection of party leaders has received considerable attention in recent years. However, much of this literature suffers from what has been called the 'national bias', as political parties competing at other levels (i.e., provincially) are excluded from the analysis. This issue is addressed by exploring leadership selection patterns both federally and provincially and includes 30 parties represented in national and provincial legislatures across the country. Specifically, three hypotheses are examined: (1) There is a convergence upon a universal selection method as is the case with candidate selection; (2) There is greater congruence among federal and provincial parties that are organizationally integrated and the least among those that are organizationally truncated; and (3) Consistent with the second order election thesis, lower levels of participation are found in leadership elections at the provincial level. The analysis reveals that Canadian parties have adopted a variety of different methods and unlike candidate selection there is no universal method for selecting leaders. Nor are there clear patterns with regards to the multi-level structure of the party. The integrated nature of the New Democrats, for example, does not produce more uniformity than the other parties. Finally, contrary to the second order election thesis rates of participation in federal and provincial leadership elections are rather comparable. Rather than treating them as 'second order', members and supporters turnout to participate at relatively similar rates.

David Stewart is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary, where he served six years as Head of the Political Science Department and a year as an Associate Dean in the Faculty of Arts. His research interests focus on Canadian politics and relate mainly to political parties, leadership selection processes, provincial party systems, parliamentary government, and political realignment. His research has appeared in journals such as the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Party Politics, Canadian Political Science Review and Publius: The Journal of Federalism. He is the author of numerous book chapters and research reports and is the co-author of "Conventional Choices: Parties and Leadership Selection in the Maritimes (nominated for the Smiley Prize) and Quasi-Democracy?: Parties and Leadership Selection in Alberta." He continues to work on political leadership focusing on the provinces and provincial party systems, leadership exits as well as gender and party leadership. He has an extensive teaching record in Canadian politics at both the undergraduate and graduate level and has frequently served as a media commentator on Canadian politics.