Search results

Building on scholarship that seeks to explain sincere voting in electoral context, this paper investigates whether system openness, defined by the complex of electoral institutions which shape party system dynamics like district magnitude, proportional seat allocation and legal thresholds, has consequences for voters' decisions to remain loyal to their preferences. I begin by asking under what circumstances we should expect voters to be loyal to their preferences, identifying three baseline correlates of sincerity. I then investigate the extent to which such conditions hold when placed in the proper electoral context. The study makes use of matched vote choice and party preference data from respondents across 18 advanced democracies compiled by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). I find that small party supporters are more likely to cast sincere ballots when they have strongly positive feelings for their party and when their affect toward the top two parties differs little. By contrast, when voters are less positive about their party and especially when they perceive a large difference between the top alternatives, they are much more likely to stray. Finally, institutional characteristics alter these relationships, with more open electoral systems strengthening the relationship between affect and sincerity, and weakening the pressure to cast strategic ballots when the top alternatives seem very different. These results provide generalized support for previous work linking sincerity levels to permissive electoral arrangements, while providing a contextualized understanding of how electoral institutions can impact voter rationale.

An ongoing debate in political science research focuses on the degree to which democratic party systems are stable. One camp of authors argues that political cleavages in party systems endure, and thus party systems themselves show few significant signs of increased instability. Another group of authors argues that since the 1970s, political cleavages have weakened, and accordingly, system stability has decreased. My research continues this debate. I suggest that part of the uncertainty surrounding the direction and magnitude of stability trends results from the contrasting methodologies researchers have employed. I solve this difficulty by replicating the data and methods that Rose and Urwin employed in their 1970 study. By using identical measures of electoral change, I can ensure that any trends I find are not due to measurement artifacts. I compare their results from the period 1945-1970 with a new set of results for the 1970-1995 period for the same countries, extending the analysis far beyond other recent studies of partisan stability.

When voters place parties in their system along the left-right dimension, they often pull their preferred party closer towards them (assimilation) and push the opposition further away (contrast). This article asks a simple question: are such assimilation and contrast effects similarly powerful across different types of electoral system? I hypothesize that systems employing single-member districts will tend to strengthen assimilation and contrast because they mechanically reduce the number of parties, while shifting the focus of electoral competition away from the party and towards the candidate. Using data from 18 advanced democracies compiled by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and hierarchical modelling I find that contrast effects are indeed stronger in majoritarian systems, while assimilation effects appear similarly strong regardless of the institutional setting. These findings suggest that institutional design holds lasting consequences for how we perceive politics and, perhaps also, for our ability to effectuate democracy. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

When voters place parties in their system along the left-right dimension, they often pull their preferred party closer towards them (assimilation) and push the opposition further away (contrast). This article asks a simple question: are such assimilation and contrast effects similarly powerful across different types of electoral system? I hypothesize that systems employing single-member districts will tend to strengthen assimilation and contrast because they mechanically reduce the number of parties, while shifting the focus of electoral competition away from the party and towards the candidate. Using data from 18 advanced democracies compiled by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and hierarchical modelling I find that contrast effects are indeed stronger in majoritarian systems, while assimilation effects appear similarly strong regardless of the institutional setting. These findings suggest that institutional design holds lasting consequences for how we perceive politics and, perhaps also, for our ability to effectuate democracy.

In 1970, Richard Rose and Derek Urwin published a seminal piece on the stability of party support in Western democracies, 'Persistence and Change in Western Party Systems Since 1945'. Everywhere they looked, established parties seemed to reflect stability rather than change, lending credence to the notion that party systems were 'frozen'. Numerous subsequent studies, however, have produced mixed results. Part of what seems to be fueling this debate lies in the disparate measures researchers use to gauge stability. In this update of Rose and Urwin's study, I address the issue of comparable results by maintaining the same data source and methods they used to gauge the stability of party support, extending the study to the present. The results indicate that party system instability is on the rise throughout much of the West since 1970, with statistically significant increases seen in Scandinavia and across all regions combined. Furthermore, the parties which seem to be experiencing the most change are not only the newest parties – as the frozen cleavages thesis might predict – but also those parties formed during the interwar period, the large majority of which showed much greater stability in 1970.