AbstractWhile party splits are a relatively frequent phenomenon in many new and established democracies, the systematic empirical research on electoral competition after schisms is limited. The analysis of more than 200 splits across 25 European countries in the post-war period addresses this gap in the research. The study shows that the vote shares of rump and splinter parties in the first election after fission are related to their membership strength and the share of splinter legislators. This relationship is present in both Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe. Additionally, economic growth affects the support of rump parties that hold government office while party system fragmentation and party funding regulations correlate with the electoral performance of splinter parties.
The inability of Europarties to provide the electoral linkage between citizens and policymakers is a key challenge for the European Union. However, relatively young and unstable parties and party systems in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) present greater opportunities for the Europarties to impact electoral politics in this region. This research examines the influence of the most established Europarties on electoral coalitions and mergers among CEE parties. A cross-national comparative analysis of 11 CEE countries in the first two decades after their democratic transitions suggests a moderately strong effect of the Europarties. Europarties facilitate mergers of their member or potential member parties and prevent electoral coalitions between their member and potential member parties and radical left and right parties.
While pre-electoral coalitions have important effects on the functioning of democracy, their formation has only been systematically examined in the context of established democracies. This study examines the patterns and factors of electoral alliance formation in eleven democracies in Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on joint candidate lists. It finds that electoral coalitions are more frequent in newer democracies than in established democracies. The formation of alliances is systematically related to their potential costs and benefits. On the one hand, coalitions can provide small parties with legislative representation and larger parties with important government coalition partners. On the other hand, parties face costs related to their electoral compatibility and the sharing of election candidacies and office positions.
The literature on post-communist Party Politics frequently suggests that membership organizations are not important for political parties in the region, as elections can be won with expensive media-based campaigns. The article tests this argument using the parliamentary elections in Lithuania in the 2000s held under a mixed electoral system. The results suggest that both party membership organization and campaign spending have roughly equal effects on the electoral persistence of political parties. New parties also benefit from both strong membership organizations and high campaign spending. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]
The literature on post-communist party politics frequently suggests that membership organizations are not important for political parties in the region, as elections can be won with expensive media-based campaigns. The article tests this argument using the parliamentary elections in Lithuania in the 2000s held under a mixed electoral system. The results suggest that both party membership organization and campaign spending have roughly equal effects on the electoral persistence of political parties. New parties also benefit from both strong membership organizations and high campaign spending.
This thesis investigates the following research question: what explains party splits and mergers? The thesis argues that splits and mergers necessitate a trade-off between political elites' office and policy or ideological goals. Parties split when political elites expect office gains or when expected office losses are lower than ideological gains. Similarly, parties merge when expected office gains are higher than ideological losses and when the merging parties are able to credibly commit to a merger agreement. These theoretical arguments are tested using statistical analyses of a new dataset recording splits and mergers of the parties with at least 1 percent of vote in 24 European democracies during the post-war period, as well as 11 qualitative case studies. In order to capture more precisely political elites' incentives to split and merge parties, these analyses distinguish between (1) major and minor splits and (2) major and takeover mergers. The size of the splinter faction relative to the parent party is larger in the case of major splits than in the case of minor splits. Major mergers occur when the label of the merged party is different from those of the merging parties, while in the case of takeover mergers the name of the merged party is the same as that of one of the merging parties. ; TARA (Trinity?s Access to Research Archive) has a robust takedown policy. Please contact us if you have any concerns: rssadmin@tcd.ie
Are political parties in young democracies responsive to the policy preferences of the public? Compared to extensive scholarship on party responsiveness in established democracies, research on party responsiveness in young democracies is limited. We argue that weaker programmatic party-voter linkages in post-communist democracies create incentives for parties to respond to their supporters rather than the more general electorate. Such responsiveness occurs in two ways. First, parties follow shifts in the mean position of their supporters. Second, drawing on the research on party-voter congruence, we argue that parties adjust their policy positions to eliminate previous incongruence between themselves and their supporters. Analyses based on a comprehensive dataset that uses expert surveys, parties' manifestoes and election surveys to measure parties' positions, and several cross-national and national surveys to measure voters' preferences provide strong support for this argument.
Recent research argues that European integration has led to an ideological convergence of member state party systems, which is purported to have significant consequences for democratic representation. We argue that convergence of party positions is less problematic if congruence between governed and governing is maintained. We therefore turn to test whether integration has had an effect on congruence between the public and their governing elites. Using five measures of integration, two sources of public opinion data, and expert surveys on political parties, we find little evidence that integration into the European Union reduces congruence between the public and the national party system, government or legislature either ideologically or across five issue areas. These results should assuage concerns about integration's effect on domestic political representation.
Are political parties in young democracies responsive to the policy preferences of the public? Compared to extensive scholarship on party responsiveness in established democracies, research on party responsiveness in young democracies is limited. We argue that weaker programmatic party–voter linkages in post-communist democracies create incentives for parties to respond to their supporters rather than the more general electorate. Such responsiveness occurs in two ways. First, parties follow shifts in the mean position of their supporters. Second, drawing on the research on party–voter congruence, we argue that parties adjust their policy positions to eliminate previous incongruence between themselves and their supporters. Analyses based on a comprehensive dataset that uses expert surveys, parties' manifestoes and election surveys to measure parties' positions, and several cross-national and national surveys to measure voters' preferences provide strong support for this argument.
AbstractWhat explains Members of European Parliament's (MEPs') decisions to recognize some interest groups as relevant policy actors? Addressing this question is fundamental for understanding the role of political elites in shaping patterns of interest representation and interest groups' role in legislative decision making. Building on theories of legislative behaviour and informational theories of legislative lobbying, we argue that MEPs give recognition to those organizations that are instrumental for achieving key political goals: re‐election, career‐progression and policy influence. The pursuit of these goals generates different patterns of MEP recognition of interest groups. We contribute to the literature in three ways. Conceptually, we propose interest group recognition as a key concept for understanding interactions and links between legislative and non‐legislative actors. We illustrate the high conceptual relevance of recognition for interest groups research while noting its conspicuous neglect in the literature. We address this gap and place the concept central stage in understanding legislators' attention to and behaviour towards interest organizations. Theoretically, we build on a classic framework explaining legislators' behaviour and refine it through the lenses of informational theories of legislative lobbying. We argue and show that legislators recognize organizations that enhance electoral prospects in their home Member States, and that legislator–group ideological proximity and an interest group's prominence in a specific policy field affect MEPs' decisions to recognize some organizations as relevant actors. Our argument acknowledges the importance of the broader context in which MEPs operate and pays attention to how they react to and interact with it. Empirically, we propose an original and innovative research design to identify and measure recognition with the help of social media data. Our measurement strategy constitutes a significant improvement insofar that it reduces the challenges of measurement bias usually associated with self‐reported data generated through interviews, surveys, or the textual analysis of newspaper articles and official documents. Our research design allows using fine‐grained measures of key dependent and explanatory variables and offers the very first analysis of MEP interest group recognition that holds across decision‐making events and policy areas. We test our argument on a new dataset with 4 million observations recording the recognition of more than 7,000 organizations by 80 per cent of MEPs serving in EP8. We find that MEPs are more likely to recognize organizations from their Member State, particularly under flexible‐ and open‐list electoral institutions. MEPs are also more likely to recognize organizations that share their ideological affinities and are prominent actors in policy areas legislators specialize in.
