Suchergebnisse

AbstractGovernment formation in multi‐party systems often requires coalition negotiations and finding common ground among coalition partners. Supporters of parties involved in the government formation process face a trade‐off when evaluating such bargaining processes: on the one hand, voters usually prefer seeing their party being in government rather than in opposition; on the other hand, negotiations require coalition compromises that they might dislike. In this paper, we study voters' willingness to accept policy compromises during government formation processes. We argue that voters' acceptance of policy compromises depends on both the strength of their party attachment and the importance they assign to the issue at stake during the coalition negotiations. Not giving in on important issues is key, especially for supporters of challenger parties, who hold strong policy preferences on a selected number of issues. To test these expectations, we collected original survey data immediately after the Spanish general election in November 2019. The results show support for the hypothesized effects, shed light on the pressure potential coalition partners face during government formation and help explain the failures of government formation attempts in increasingly polarized societies.

This paper examines the effects of party control (Republican or Democrat) on state welfare policies after congressional passage of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in 1996. Interviews and surveys of legislative actors suggest that the adoption process in many states was highly partisan, but there was no relationship between party measures and welfare policy content for all states. Policy makers reported that welfare policy choices were influenced by the re-election context in a state. States that adopted more generous TANF policies had: competitive party systems, liberal ideologies, or previously high rankings on AFDC expenditures. Party positions redefined the welfare policy problem and set the parameters for welfare reform choices, but those choices were modified by contextual variables in some states. A few Republican governors accomplished comprehensive welfare policy reform.

Parties have strong incentives to present a relatively cohesive policy position to the voters across different levels of a political system. However, the adoption of inclusive forms of candidate selection methods like primaries could result in the selection of top candidates for elections on the subnational sphere who are not favoured by the party leadership. This is often seen as a threat to high levels of intra-party programmatic cohesion. Because subnational party organizations depend to a significant degree on the support from their national party, we argue that regional party branches that selected their top candidates by means of a primary adopt a policy position that deviates less strongly from the one of their national party. However, candidates selected by primaries might need to be responsive to the preferences of their regional selectorate, so that the incentives for parties at a regional level to deviate substantially from the position of their national party organization could increase. By analysing the content of 150 regional election manifestos of Spanish parties, we find that if a party's top candidate for a regional election is selected in a primary, then the policy distance between the respective regional and national party decreases. However, this effect is not observable for recently founded parties.

The dilemma of whether or not to deploy cruise missiles in the Netherlands led to widespread protest; at one stage, it threatened a breakdown of civic order. In June 1984, the Dutch government came up with a complex decision, which aimed at eventual deployment while disarming the potent peace movement. This article discusses the decision both from the wider perspective of the alleged decline of party systems in Western democracies and their potential impotence in the face of the many extraparliamentary action and protest groups and from the aspect of postindustrial agenda issues. It concludes that the history and tradition of Dutch pluralist democracy not only inspired the successful strategy of the Dutch government in its cruise missile quandary, but it also offers wider lessons for viable party politics in postindustrial societies.

Contrary to longstanding arguments that equate parties with durable, information-rich brand names, the relabeling of parties is not rare, and in many countries it is not even very unusual. This paper provides the first effort to document this neglected phenomenon. It finds that across European democracies roughly a third of all parties have relabeled themselves at least once since 1945, and a similar proportion of elections include at least one party running under a new name. It then presents analyses of why parties change names more frequently in some circumstances, finding support for three explanations derived from the existing literature: parties with longer-standing brands are less likely to shed them, but relabeling is more likely for parties that suffer electoral setbacks and for parties in weaker party systems. Finally, it presents evidence that the end of Soviet communism made left parties more likely to rename themselves.

Bedeutung der Parteiidentifikation.

Themen: Politikinteresse; Parteineigung; Parteiidentifikation;
Parteipräferenz; Gründe für die Parteineigung (Skala); Parteiinteresse
des sozialen Umfelds; Parteipräferenz der meisten Bekannten; Häufigkeit
politischer Gespräche; persönliche Einstellungen zum Leben und
Wertorientierung (Skala: Orientierung an Vorbildern, Verpflichtung
gegenüber der Allgemeinheit; Sinn des Lebens; Selbstbewusstsein und
Neigung zur Unterordnung); Identifikation mit der präferierten Partei;
Parteien, die als politischer Gegner betrachtet werden;
Gemeinschaftsgefühl mit den Anhängern der präferierten Partei;
Selbsteinschätzung als typischer Anhänger der präferierten Partei;
Empfindung bei Kritik sowie bei Lob für die präferierte Partei;
Empfindung bei einem negativen Öffentlichkeitsbild der präferierten
Partei; Freude bei Erfolgen der Partei.

Demographie: Bundesland; Geschlecht; Alter; Beruf; berufliche
Position; Schulabschluss; Haushaltsnettoeinkommen.

This edited collection, in honour of the late political scientist Peter Mair, contains original chapters that are directly linked to his theoretical and/or methodological ideas and approaches. Peter Mair demonstrated that political parties have traditionally been central actors in European politics and an essential focus of comparative European political science. Though the nature of political parties and the manner in which they operate has been subject to significant change in recent decades, parties remain a crucial factor in the working of European liberal democracies. This volume analyses recent developments and current challenges that European parties, party systems and democracy face. The volume will be of key interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, democracy studies, political parties, and European politics and European Union studies.--