The diversity of issue interests and party options in multiparty systems makes individual electoral decisions increasingly complex. Voters are challenged to find a political party that represents their own political views in this more complex political space. This research offers a new methodological approach to studying voting choice in a multidimensional party space. We integrate the issue preferences of European voters and the issue preferences of party elites in a two-dimensional model of electoral choice. A common space of political competition for citizens and party elites is defined by the economic and cultural cleavages using data from the 2009 European Elections Studies (EES). Our innovation is to employ multilevel structural equation modeling to address the unique statistical challenges of a multi-dimensional party space, mass-elite comparisons, and cross-national analysis. This new approach generates results that are distinctly different from previous studies—even those using the same dataset. By factoring in the measurement of issue dimensions, economic issues have a stronger impact than recognized using previous methodologies, with more modest cultural influences on voting. Moreover, there are significant cross-over effects of the two cleavages in voters' choices. The results reveal the complexity of realignment between voters and political parties in Western Europe.
Two puzzling features characterize African party systems: low fragmentation and high volatility. We present systematic data describing these features and provide a theoretically grounded explanation of them. The explanation emphasizes the role of strategic choice structured by the institutional legacies of authoritarian regimes in the formation and development of political parties. Political restrictions under authoritarian regimes produced severe information deficit concerning electoral mobilization, strategic coordination and the collective action problems that typically attend party formation and coalition-building. Under these constraints, political actors in Africa's emerging democracies established political parties to preserve their fragmented power bases and relied on presidential elections and ethno-political cleavages as alternative sources of strategic coordination over votes and seats and electoral coalition-building. The result is the entry of large numbers of short-lived political parties, producing high volatility, and the electoral and legislative dominance of a small number of large parties producing low party system fragmentation.
This analysis of one-party systems in three different settings — the American South, the Eastern Bloc, and the Third World - ponders the circumstance that both interparty competition and intraparty competition among subparty components (organization, office, and electorate) are on the rise in all three settings. This bodes well for the chances of democracy in each setting, regardless of whether one expects to find democracy in between the parties, as Schattschneider did, or expects that democracy should order the parties internally, as classical democratic theorists do. The analysis also commends Southern leadership succession institutions (competitive primaries and run-offs) as devices for attaining democracy while still in the one-party mode, and credits broader, pervasive structural and politocultural features of the American polity for the workability of those institutions.
This dissertation is mainly concerned with political parties that usually cluster inside the area of right-wing radicalism. Major changes concerning Western European party systems represent the background of analysis. The study is underpinned on the recognition that, after the emergence of ecology and left-libertarian parties, the rise of right-wing parties is the most relevant and debated transformation in the configuration of party systems. Fourteen EU-member states are included in the set of inquiry and life-span analysis ranges from1990 to 2009. Firstly, the examination focuses on the identification of parties at stakes with the purpose of elaborating a suitable label. By exploring the right deviancy on value and cultural topics through expert survey datasets, the final label for those actors is Exclusionist Right Parties (ERPs). Secondly, the research takes into account factors that potentially affected the electoral performances of ERPs. The related framework is two-fold, composed of demand and supply sides. On the one hand, for the demand side, individual-level data are inspected; on the other hand, for the supply side, expert judgments have been employed to plot party positions along a couple of domains, i.e. economy and immigration. In conclusion, the aim of the final chapter is to shed light on the different ERPs' electoral fortunes by pinpointing patterns of multiple combinations of conditions and constructing a weighted additive index.
This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/populist-parties-in-europe-stijn-van-kessel/?K=9781137414106 ; Populism is a concept that is currently in vogue among political commentators and is, more often than not, used pejoratively. The phenomenon of populism is typically seen as something adverse and, in the European context, routinely related to xenophobic politics. What populism exactly is and who its representatives across Europe are, however, often remains unclear. This text has two main aims: to identify populist parties in 21st-century Europe and to explain their electoral performance. It argues that populist parties should not be dismissed as dangerous pariahs out of hand but, rather, that their rise tells us something about the state of representative democracy. The study also shows that the performance of populist parties is to a large extend dependent on their own ability to present themselves as credible alternatives to the established parties. The study has a broad scope, including populist parties of various ideological kinds – thus moving beyond examples of the 'right' – and covering long-established Western European countries as well as post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. It presents the results of an innovative mixed-methods research project, combining a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) of 31 European countries with three in-depth case studies of the Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom.
This dissertation conceptualizes a new type of clientelistic party, which despite being widespread has not been properly theorized. I refer to it as modular. Since clientelism — the exchange of goods for votes — requires substantial organization, scholars often assume that only dominant parties or solid political machines can engage in clientelistic mobilization. I show that is not the case. Rather, modular parties are makeshift organizations whose integrity from one election to the next is uncertain, but whose politicians are nevertheless able to mobilize voters through patron-client relationships.Modular parties do not own, but "hire" or outsource the networks of clients they use. Well before the advent of elections, community chiefs, community organization leaders, ethnic leaders, landowners, local officials, and other types of local notables already established considerable political capital through their private and relatively small clienteles. Instead of ignoring or dismantling these networks, politicians running elections above the local level created modular parties to connect these networks. In this sense, modular par- ties are made up of two tiers: one on top, responsible for acquiring state resources and acting at the level of subnational or national politics; and one at the bottom composed of multiple modules, each with a local notable running local politics and acting as broker in favor of the upper stratum. Throughout time, these local leaders may take new roles, such as union leaders, bureaucrats, and local politicians, but they remain responsible for the construction and maintenance of patron–client networks. Today in Brazil, this local no- table is usually a mayoral candidate diligently brokering votes for the party offering most state resources or direct payments.Such outsourcing of the organization of patron-client linkages to local authorities may facilitate the rapid mobilization of voters for politicians in modular parties, but it also prevents these politicians from building a reliable support base. Brokers in modular parties act as free–agents, and switch parties as they see appropriate. As long as there are other parties outsourcing clientelistic mobilization, brokers may switch whenever they receive a more lucrative proposal.Using a research design that detects when parties receive resources they can use to hire brokers as-if randomly, I am able to show that variations in resources cause parties to expand or contract the number of modules working for them. Moreover, taking advantage of an unexpected institutional reform that made party switching potentially costly, and employing regression discontinuities to separate the brokers who were subject to this new ruling, I was able to evaluate how party switching drastically damages the electoral prospects of modular parties.Substantively, the fluidity of modules sheds light on why clientelism can be resilient and widespread on many parts of the developing world, at the same time that strong clientelistic machines are relatively rare. It is durable because brokers offer their services to the highest bidding party, thus maximizing their ability to nurture their networks. However, by relying on these autonomous brokers parties will not create direct linkages of their own, frustrating any hope of making parties organizationally strong.
Starting from controversial findings about the relationship between party systems and the prospects of democratic consolidation, this article argues that problems can only be properly addressed on the basis of a differentiated typology of party systems. Contradictory research results do not pose an 'African puzzle' but can be explained by different and inadequate approaches. We argue that a modified version of Sartori's typology of party systems provides an appropriate method for classifying African party systems. Based on Sartori's framework, a preponderance of predominant and dominant party systems is identified. This can partly be explained by the prevailing authoritarian nature of many multiparty regimes in Africa as well as by the ethnic plurality of African societies. High ethnic fragmentation is not transformed into highly fragmented party systems. This phenomenon can be attributed to the most frequent 'ethnic congress party' which is based on an ethnic elite coalition. ; Die Parteienforschung zu Afrika hat bisher widersprüchliche Befunde zum Zusammenhang von Parteiensystem und zu den Aussichten für eine demokratische Konsolidierung hervorgebracht. Die widersprüchlichen Ergebnisse lassen sich zunächst mit unterschiedlichen und unangemessenen Ansätzen erklären. Zur Lösung des Problems ist jedoch eine differenzierte Parteiensystemtypologie notwendig. Zu einer sinnvollen Klassifizierung afrikanischer Parteiensysteme kann auf die Typologie von Giovanni Sartori zurückgegriffen werden, die allerdings modifiziert werden muss. Auf dieser Grundlage kann dann das Vorherrschen dominanter und prädominanter Parteiensysteme in Afrika identifiziert werden. Diese können im Wesentlichen mit zwei Faktoren erklärt werden: 1. mit dem autoritären Charakter vieler Mehrparteienregime und 2. mit der ethnischen Pluralität afrikanischer Gesellschaften. Entgegen mancher Erwartungen äußert sich die hohe ethnische Fragmentierung nicht in hoch fragmentierten Parteiensystemen. Dieses Phänomen beruht wiederum darauf, dass es sich bei den weitaus meisten Parteien in Afrika um 'ethnische Kongressparteien' handelt, die auf einer Koalition verschiedener ethnischer Eliten fußen.
Starting from controversial findings about the relationship between party systems and the prospects of democratic consolidation, this article argues that problems can only be properly addressed on the basis of a differentiated typology of party systems. Contradictory research results do not pose an 'African puzzle' but can be explained by different and inadequate approaches. We argue that a modified version of Sartori's typology of party systems provides an appropriate method for classifying African party systems. Based on Sartori's framework, a preponderance of predominant and dominant party systems is identified. This can partly be explained by the prevailing authoritarian nature of many multiparty regimes in Africa as well as by the ethnic plurality of African societies. High ethnic fragmentation is not transformed into highly fragmented party systems. This phenomenon can be attributed to the most frequent 'ethnic congress party' which is based on an ethnic elite coalition. ; Die Parteienforschung zu Afrika hat bisher widersprüchliche Befunde zum Zusammenhang von Parteiensystem und zu den Aussichten für eine demokratische Konsolidierung hervorgebracht. Die widersprüchlichen Ergebnisse lassen sich zunächst mit unterschiedlichen und unangemessenen Ansätzen erklären. Zur Lösung des Problems ist jedoch eine differenzierte Parteiensystemtypologie notwendig. Zu einer sinnvollen Klassifizierung afrikanischer Parteiensysteme kann auf die Typologie von Giovanni Sartori zurückgegriffen werden, die allerdings modifiziert werden muss. Auf dieser Grundlage kann dann das Vorherrschen dominanter und prädominanter Parteiensysteme in Afrika identifiziert werden. Diese können im Wesentlichen mit zwei Faktoren erklärt werden: 1. mit dem autoritären Charakter vieler Mehrparteienregime und 2. mit der ethnischen Pluralität afrikanischer Gesellschaften. Entgegen mancher Erwartungen äußert sich die hohe ethnische Fragmentierung nicht in hoch fragmentierten Parteiensystemen. Dieses Phänomen beruht wiederum darauf, dass es sich bei den weitaus meisten Parteien in Afrika um "ethnische Kongressparteien" handelt, die auf einer Koalition verschiedener ethnischer Eliten fußen.
The view of clientelism as an abuse of state power casts doubt on the democratic credentials of highly clientelistic political systems. The question is particularly relevant for the classification of dominant party systems that heavily rely on clientelism to elicit popular support and retain a relatively open structure of participation. Knowing that clientelism is a widespread practice in modern democracies too, how do we evaluate the impact of clientelism on political competitiveness in order to sort out the position of these regimes along the lines of democracy and authoritarianism? This task requires identifying the conditions under which clientelism becomes an essentially authoritarian practice and qualifies these regimes as such. The article puts forward two propositions about the circumstances under which clientelism infringes basic democratic standards under a thin and a thick definition of democracy. Clientelism under one-party monopoly engenders authoritarianism when it thwarts and punishes the contesting voice of citizens by effectively blocking exit from its incentives and sanctions.
The recent global financial crisis has been a serious stress test for representative democracies. Voter support has supposedly become more volatile, fragmented, and polarized, leaving elites with an intricate mix of economic and political challenges. However, a closer look at a new data set of European party systems during three major crises (1929, 1973, and 2008) reveals that the reality is less dramatic than the popular impression suggests. We propose a novel theory of party-system change that explains both the impact of economic crises as well as the robustness of party systems to more serious destabilization. Since voters and elites are risk averse, economic crises tend to disturb party systems that are generally "restrained" but, at the same time, help consolidate more complex systems. This explains why party systems rarely fall apart, nor do they reach ultimate stability. We provide quantitative evidence and qualitative illustrations of "restrained change" in various party-system dimensions.
This essay reviews the following works:The Fates of Political Parties: Institutional Crisis, Continuity, and Change in Latin America. By Jennifer Cyr. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. v + 269. $99.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107189799. Los sistemas de partidos en América Latina, 1978–2015. Tomo 1: México, América Central, y República Dominicana; Tomo 2: Cono Sur y países andinos. Edited by Flavia Freidenberg. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Instituto Nacional Electoral, 2016. Pp. vii + 465 and vii + 543. Collection ISBN: 9786078510078. Party Brands in Crisis: Partisanship, Brand Dilution, and the Breakdown of Political Parties in Latin America. By Noam Lupu. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 247. $32.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781107423206. Changing Course in Latin America: Party Systems in the Neoliberal Era. By Kenneth M. Roberts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 330. $35.99 paper. ISBN: 9780521673266.
Are men and women legislators equally loyal to their parties? We theorize that parties select candidates based on gendered criteria, leading to the (s)election of more disciplined women. Moreover, we argue that gendered expectations about proper behavior limit women legislators' ability to act independently from their parties. Using surveys from over 800 parliamentarians across 17 African legislatures, we find that women report significantly higher levels of party discipline than do their men copartisans. From this survey data and new legislative speech data, we also find support for our proposed causal mechanisms. Further, we find that among women parliamentarians, party discipline is negatively correlated with the prioritization of womens rights. A qualitative case study of the Namibian Parliament illustrates our findings. We discuss the implications of our results for women's legislative effectiveness, for the substantive representation of women's interests in policy making, and for the continued democratization of emerging party systems.
The wide-ranging literature on political development shares a common focus on analyzing changes through time and using continuity as one of its key concepts.1 It is filled with terms like institutionalization, consolidation, or path dependency, which all denote continuity through time. The literature on political development also differentiates levels of continuity using nominal categories like high, medium, or low. These nominal categories are vague and limit the precision with which political development can be analyzed. This paper therefore introduces age as an indicator that allows measuring spatial and temporal variations of continuity in a precise and quantitative fashion. Specifically, it presents the notion of effective party system age (EPSA) to measure the organizational and electoral continuity of party systems. The paper has three parts. First, it describes the basic intuition behind the measure and discusses its operationalization. Second, it illustrates the measure's utility by presenting a few of the prototypical developmental trajectories that we found in the analysis of 27 post-war party systems. Third, it contrasts EPSA with other widely used party system indicators and demonstrates the distinct ways in which it captures temporal dynamics as well as explicates the distinct ontological assumptions on which it rests.
Despite earlier assumptions that ethnicity is a central feature of African party systems, there is little substantial evidence for this claim. The few studies with an empirical foundation rarely rely on individual data and are biased in favor of Anglophone Africa. This paper looks at four Francophone countries, drawing on four representative survey polls in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Multivariate regression models and bivariate control tools reveal that ethnicity matters as a determinant of party preference, but that its impact is generally rather weak and differs with regard to party systems and individual parties. 'Ethnic parties' in the strict sense are almost completely absent, and only the Beninese party system is substantially 'ethnicized'. In particular, regional ties between voters and leaders - rather than ethnic affiliation alone - deserve attention in the future study of voting behavior in Africa. ; Die verbreitete Annahme, dass Ethnizität ein zentrales Charakteristikum afrikanischer Parteiensysteme sei, konnte bisher nicht überzeugend belegt werden. Die wenigen verfügbaren Studien mit empirischer Grundlage können nur selten Individualdaten nutzen. Zudem wird das frankophone Afrika kaum berücksichtigt. Der vorliegende Beitrag antwortet auf beide Defizite mit einer vergleichenden Analyse repräsentativer Meinungsumfragen aus den vier frankophonen Ländern Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali und Niger. Multivariate Regressionsmodelle und bivariate Kontrollinstrumente zeigen, dass Ethnizität die Wahlabsicht im Allgemeinen nur schwach und nach Untersuchungsfällen variabel beeinflusst. 'Ethnische Parteien' in einem engeren Sinne kommen fast gar nicht vor und nur das beninische Parteiensystem ist beträchtlich ethnisiert. Künftige Forschung ist aufgefordert, insbesondere regionalen Wählerbindungen mehr Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken, statt vorwiegend nach ethnischem Wahlverhalten zu suchen.
Many have attributed the recent unprecedented wave of redistribution in Brazil to national economic and political factors such as the commodities boom, changes in minimum wages or premiums to skilled labor, the rise of the Partido dos Trabalhadores and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and a commodities-driven economic boom. Yet much less attention has been devoted to the study of inequality at the subnational level, where trajectories of inequality across states remain incredibly varied. This article argues that Brazil's most recent democratic transition enhanced political competition in many Brazilian states, which in turn has contributed to the amelioration of inequality. Using an original time-series cross-sectional dataset covering the highly redistributive period of 1998–2015, this article finds that Brazilian states with higher political and party competition have lower levels of inequality than those with less competitive party systems. ResumoMuitos atribuíram a onda recente de renda redistribuição no Brasil por fatores econômicos e politicais nacionais como o 'boom de commodities,' câmbios no salários-mínimos, prêmios mais baixos para mão de obra qualificada, e a ascensão do Partido dos Trabalhadores e o Presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Embora, muito menos atenção foi dedicada para a pesquisa de desigualdade no nível subnacional, onde niveles relativos de desigualdade através os estados permanecem incrivelmente variados. Esse artigo faz o argumento que a transição democrática mais recente no Brasil aumentada competição em os sistemas de partidos de alguns estados, que por sua vez contribuiu para a melhoria de desigualdade. Utilizando dados do período 1998–2015, assim como análise qualitativa um par de estados, Pará e Rio Grande do Sul, esse artigo encontra os estados brasileiros com sistemas partidos mais competitivo são mais prováveis para avançar politicais de sociais e ter niveles mais baixos de desigualdade que outros com sistemas partidos menos competitivos.
