Suchergebnisse

In the public debate and amongst scientists anxiety prevails concerning the situation of modern parliamentary democracy regarding nearly all established of nearly democracies. The concern focuses on the electoral loss of middle parties and heavily fluctuating election results, and the rise of radical Left and Right, where words such as pallet democracy, crisis and Weimar republic are used. The author sketches the outlines of different research directions he studied regarding European politics: voter behavior; decreasing importance of the Left-Right antagonism; decreasing political faith; increasing numbers of extreme Right parties. This to study more closely the different aspects of the alleged crisis of European party democracies (do citizens have unrealistically high expectations of government; the evolution from cartel parties to campaign parties, including the growing importance of the media; lack of party representation for large groups of citizens). Foremost, the author mentions that neo-liberal economic policies of the European Union do not parallel public opinion of EU member states. Figures. O. van Zijl

This study presents an empirical test of the extent to which the 'issue ownership' model explains the electoral decisions of individual voters. The model has been tested mainly by its ability to predict aggregate election results by issue salience (eg, Budge & Farlie, 1983 & Petrocik, 1996). Applications of the theory for explaining individual voting behavior were restricted to two-party systems. This study makes use of innovative survey questions contained in the Dutch Parliamentary Elections Study 1998, which allow for appropriate tests of the model in the context of multiparty systems. The results show that issue voting -- indicated by the direct effect of issues salience on party preferences -- occurs only to a very limited extent. However, evidence is found for an indirect effect of issue priorities on party preferences, which is mediated by ideology. By selectively emphasizing issues, a party may alter its ideological position. Since ideological proximity is the main determinant of party choice, changes in ideological positions make a party more attractive to some voters & less attractive to others. In the conclusions, it is thus argued that the issue ownership model -- which is mainly a model of party behavior -- is compatible with ideological voting as conceptualized by Downs (1957) & which provides a good explanation of the behavior of voters. 2 Tables, 1 Figure, 62 References. Adapted from the source document.

In this contribution, I respond to Arie van der Zwan's (2004) critique of my study (van der Brug, 2003). I clarify the theoretical underpinning of my study & how it relates to my previous co-authored work. Then I evaluate the empirical evidence presented by van der Zwan. I conclude that van der Zwan's critique is unfounded because it misrepresents the disputed article, as well as much of my previous work. 3 Tables, 20 References. Adapted from the source document.

Due to the multidimensional character of the Belgian party system, the Left/Right dimension has never been as dominant in Flanders as it is in other European countries. Consequently, electoral researchers in Flanders pay relatively little attention to the role of Left/Right distances in party choice, & questionnaires for Belgian election studies do not include items that measure Left/Right positions. This article argues that there are theoretical reasons to expect that the Left/Right dimension has become more important in Flanders, & it therefore takes a fresh look at the importance of Left/Right. It uses European Elections Studies of 1989, 1994, & 1999. The results are somewhat enigmatic. Unfolding analyses provide no support for the hypothesis that Left/Right has become more important, yet a causal model demonstrated that Left/Right did become a much stronger determinant of party preference in 1999 than it was in the preceding years. The implications of the results are discussed against the background of recent developments in Belgian politics. Given the strong effect of Left/Right distances on party choice, more research is needed to investigate the role of Left/Right in electoral behaviors & to pin down the substantive meaning of the Left/Right dimension. Therefore, the article recommends including direct measures of respondents' & parties' Left/Right positions in questionnaires for Belgian election studies. 3 Tables, 2 Figures, 44 References. Adapted from the source document.

Subjective agreement between voters and the party they voted for can be produced by three separate processes: rational selection of parties, persuasion by parties, and distortion of perceptions. Rational choice theory, balance theory and social judgment theory make different predictions about the strength of each of these processes. In this article the strength of the three processes are estimated by modeling continuous longitudinal change in attitudes and perceptions of positions on nuclear energy in a period in 1986 during which the accident at Chernobyl occurred. The study uses a short-term panel study of Dutch respondents covering this period. The analyses demonstrate that changes in attitudes and perceptions conform largely to the Downsian model of democracy. Evidence is found for a weak persuasion effect, but hardly any distortion of perceptions occurred. These findings challenge the applicability of concepts from balance theory to the field of electoral research. It is argued that voters have little psychological motivation to distort their perceptions of party positions because they are normally not strongly involved with politics or political parties.