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Toward a Two-Party System or Two Party Systems? Patterns of Competition in Japan's Single-Member Districts, 1996-2005

Jou, W. — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:20:05 PST

This article examines whether electoral reform in Japan replacing a single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system with a parallel mixed system has led to two-party competition in single-member districts (SMDs) in House of Representative elections from 1996 to 2005. While nationwide figures suggest declining numbers of effective candidates and losers, distinguishing SMDs by levels of urbanization reveals that this trend is largely limited to urban areas. Instead of converging toward a two-party system as many proponents of electoral reforms had anticipated, elections under the SMD portion of the new system have witnessed the emergence and continuation of two distinct patterns of competition: urban constituencies featuring contests between two major parties, and rural constituencies dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The persistence of the latter pattern diminishes the prospect of power alternation.

Experts' Political Preferences and Their Impact on Ideological Bias: An Unfolding Analysis Based on a Benoit-Laver Expert Survey

Curini, L. — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:55:07 PST

Expert surveys have become increasingly popular among political scientists. One of the problems of using surveys (of any sort) to estimate party positions is that respondents can be influenced by their subjective political views. As a consequence, experts may give biased responses, and such (ideological) bias may affect certain parties more than others. In this paper, we use the latest expert survey of Benoit and Laver (2006) to unfold the ideal points of the respondents to the survey. By employing the estimated ideal points, we show that in almost 16 percent of the cases analyzed, there is evidence of an ideological bias in the experts’ placements of parties along the left–right dimension, especially among right-wing parties (but not necessarily extreme-right parties). We examine two methods designed to generate less biased estimates. The first one is directly based on a regression technique, while the second is based on the negligibility of ideological bias in experts’ answers to more specific policy questions. The paper concludes by examining the consequences of these findings for empirical research.

Bringing Parties Into Parliament: The Development of Parliamentary Activities in Western Europe

Green-Pedersen, C. — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:55:06 PST

The literature on Western European parliaments has long pointed to an increase in non-legislative activities, including questions to the minister and interpellations; however, it has struggled to explain this development. This paper argues that the explanation ought to be sought in the increased importance of issue competition among political parties in Western Europe. Political parties are increasingly competing over which issues should dominate politics. In issue competition, non-legislative activities are attractive for opposition parties, because governments must respond to the issues the opposition wants to focus on. The paper thus argues that the key to understanding the development of activities in Western European parliaments is to bring parties and theories of party competition into the study of these activities. The argument is tested and supported by showing that the growth in non-legislative activities in Western Europe is universal as well as by demonstrating how the content of questions to the minister in Denmark reveals a clear issue competition pattern.

Methodological Issues in the Study of New Parties' Entry and Electoral Success

Selb, P., Pituctin, S. — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:09:56 PST

Studies of the emergence and electoral success of new parties frequently suffer from conceptual and methodological flaws: effects of electoral institutions that primarily operate at the level of the constituencies are specified at the national level; central explanatory variables such as electoral demands and competitors’ responses are measured with crude proxies; the interplay of formation and success is overlooked; and empirical models neglect the point that the underlying data may exhibit dependencies both in space and time. In this article, we highlight these problems and offer some potential solutions using the Swiss Green Party (GPS) as an empirical case.

Electoral Reform and Political Pluralism in Local Government

Evans, M. — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:09:56 PST

Electoral reform to a system of direct election of mayors has recently been promoted in a number of countries. It has been advocated as a way of strengthening local government, improving governance, and increasing accountability. However, studies supporting such a change have been detached from research on electoral systems and electoral reform. This article examines the consequences of a shift to a two-ballot system through Israel’s 30-year experience following reform of the system for local government elections. The move to direct election of mayors led to a major decline in the main national parties and a rise in smaller parties representing a variety of sectoral interests. This resulted in greater political pluralism and increased representation for a variety of groups, while at the same time widening the gap between national and local elected leaders. The results of this electoral reform raise important considerations for local government reforms that have been proposed in other countries.

Parsimonious Model for Predicting Mean Cabinet Duration on the Basis of Electoral System

Taagepera, R., Sikk, A. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:05:06 PDT

This study joins two existing logical models and tests the resulting predictions of mean cabinet duration (C). One of these models predicts C based on effective number of parties (N): C = k/N², where k is found to be around 42 years. The other predicts N on the basis of number of seats in the assembly (S) and district magnitude (M). The new combined model leads to a prediction for the mean cabinet duration in terms of these two institutional factors: C = 42 years/(MS)^1/3. Three-quarters of the actual mean durations agree with the prediction within a factor of 2. For the purposes of institutional engineering, the model predicts that doubling the district magnitude would reduce the mean cabinet duration by 21 percent ceteris paribus.

Fear of the Political Consultant: Campaign Professionals and New Technology in Norwegian Electoral Politics

Karlsen, R. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:05:05 PDT

In the digital age it is claimed that political parties do not have the capacity to deliver the advanced technical services that modern campaigning demands, and that much of the campaign work is better handled by political consultants. Based on the ‘hybridization’ view of campaign change, the article explores to what extent ICTs increase the need for campaign professionals, and what type of professional the technology creates a demand for. A typology of four types of campaign professionals is developed and applied to the Norwegian case. The article finds that in-house professionals are involved concerning both technical and strategy assistance, while external campaign professionals are mostly involved concerning technical assistance. The external campaign professional is a generalist specializing in his or her field, not in political communication. The in-house campaign professional seems more of a political specialist, trusted to play a role in developing campaign strategy. Parties approach the increasing prominence of ICTs in campaigning based on these existing practices: expertise is integrated in the party organization while at the same time external professionals are used for technical assistance.

Effect of Local Ties on Electoral Success and Parliamentary Behavior: The Case of Estonia

Tavits, M. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:08:36 PDT

The growing literature on personal vote assumes that candidates with strong local ties should be more successful electorally and more likely to break party unity in parliament. Using unique data from Estonia on candidates’ personal vote-earning attributes, such as local birthplace and local-level political experience, this research note offers the first direct test of both of these assumptions. I find that candidates with local-level political experience tend to be electorally more successful, and, once in parliament, they are more likely to behave independently and break party unity. Local birthplace has no effect on either personal vote or party unity. These findings have clear policy implications for the electoral and legislative strategies of political parties.

The Effective Number of Parties: A New Approach

Golosov, G. V. — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:10:34 PDT

The Laakso–Taagepera index of the effective number of parties, while satisfying most of the requirements of this aggregate quantity, tends to produce unrealistically high scores for party constellations in which the shares of the largest parties exceed 50 percent, and can produce misleading results in several other situations. After reviewing the structural properties of the Laakso–Taagepera index and supplements or alternatives to it proposed in the literature, this article proposes a new index that eliminates several problems inherent in the mathematical form of indices using the Herfindahl–Hirschman measure of concentration as computational core. The proposed index is tested on a set of party constellations from recent elections in new democracies and non-democratic electoral regimes. The results confirm that the new index works better than earlier proposed alternatives in measuring the effective number of components in highly fragmented and highly concentrated party systems.

Explaining Participation in Intra-Party Elections: Evidence From Belgian Political Parties

Wauters, B. — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:10:33 PDT

This article focuses on the participation of party members in intra-party elections and on explanations for this behaviour. The number of intra-party elections is increasing, but their study remains an under-researched phenomenon in contemporary party politics. I test whether participation theories applicable to participation in society also obtain in intra-party elections. The theories tested are: instrumental motivation theory, mobilization theory, resource theory and participation as habit. My analysis on the individual level focuses on two particular internal elections in Belgian parties (VLD and VU) that differ in type and in the membership and ideology of the parties organizing these elections. The results largely confirm the instrumental motivation theory and participation as habit. Neither the mobilization theory nor the resource theory are supported.

Get the Party Started: Development of Political Party Legislative Dynamics in the Irish Free State Seanad (1922-36)

Sircar, I., Hoyland, B. — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:36:06 PDT

In this article, we investigate the effect of political parties on legislative behaviour. We compile and analyse a unique dataset of all roll-call votes for all the sessions of the Irish Free State Seanad (the Upper Chamber in the legislature, 1922–36). The development of legislative parties inside the Irish Seanad led to the formation of cohesive voting blocs after 1928. This caused dramatic shifts in the rank-ordering of members and changed the coalition pattern. The establishment of disciplined parties also sealed the fate of the legislature when the Fianna Fáil party, hostile to the Free State Seanad, became an organized force inside the institution.

Coalition-Formation as a Result of Policy and Office Motivations in the German Federal States: An Empirical Estimate of the Weighting Parameters of Both Motivations

Shikano, S., Linhart, E. — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:36:07 PDT

In this article, we analyze the policy and office motivations of parties in coalition-formation processes at the German federal-state level. We utilize a model developed by Sened that considers both motivations simultaneously and introduces a method by which to estimate its key parameters using data of German state-level coalition-formations.

Parties' Responses to Economic Globalization: What is Left for the Left and Right for the Right?

Haupt, A. B. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:54:55 PDT

Do parties adjust their economic policy positions in response to the international economy? I explore how international economic conditions affect Western Europe’s welfare states by quantitatively analysing parties’ ideological dynamics over time. Considering the convergence–divergence argument of the globalization literature, I evaluate the hypothesis that economic openness motivates parties to adjust their economic policies. My empirical analyses reveal that both left-wing and right-wing parties do indeed systematically adjust their positions in response to economic changes associated with globalization. However, the results contradict the neoliberal convergence argument, as parties shift in varying directions in response to different indicators of openness. Importantly, the differences between left-wing and right-wing parties’ responses are not statistically significant, pointing to the importance of including right-wing parties in the globalization literature.

Where are the Disgruntled Voters? Voter-Party Relations Under Cartelizing Conditions

Birnir, J. K. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:04:27 PDT

Katz and Mair’s provocative Cartel Party argument continues to create fertile ground for debate. This article contributes to under-explored areas of this debate by enhancing the theoretical and empirical understanding of the change in the relationship between parties and voters resulting from the introduction of the cartelizing condition of public funding. To this end, the article examines vote stability empirically, changes in turnout and individual public opinion data, before and after public funding was instituted. By disconfirming the hypothesized expectations of deteriorating voter–party relationships as a result of funding, the empirical analysis pinpoints a number of contradictions in current understanding of party system change. The article concludes by suggesting that still bound financially to voters at large, parties provide a good that is valued by constituents. If, however, these last ties are severed, rather than being at the cusp of a post-cartel system, the future of party systems is more akin to the elite systems of old.

The Moderation Theory Revisited: The Case of Islamic Political Actors

Tezcur, G. M. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:04:26 PDT

An influential political science literature argues that integration of radical political parties within the political system leads to their moderation. These parties trade off their ideological platforms for electoral viability and political legality. Radicals become moderates through strategic interests. In this article, I revisit this thesis and apply it to the Islamic political actors in Iran and Turkey by employing the comparative method of agreement. Three conclusions are reached. First, moderation helps explain the evolution of Islamists into Muslim reformers. Second, moderation is a double-edged sword, especially in regimes with strong undemocratic characteristics. Moderation of radicals may result in their domestication – a situation that does not contribute to democratic transition or consolidation. Finally, change in the ideologies of political elites is central in our understanding behavioural change. The data sources include ethnography, primary language sources and historical narratives.

Party Direction: The Italian Case in Comparative Perspective

Pelizzo, R. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:04:26 PDT

The purpose of this article is to further our understanding of the directional nature of left–right scores. I suggest that a party's ability to modify its perceived position is conditional on whether parties adopt their manifestos to alter their perceived position and on whether voters are persuaded by parties' attempts to relocate in political space. As voters' knowledge of political parties is a major determinant of where parties are perceived to be located, new parties or parties with weak identities are more likely than old parties to modify their perceived positions, and for two reasons: they are neither willing nor able to adopt an identity-based platform and their freedom to move in political space is not constrained by what voters know about them. The results of statistical analyses show that while Italian voters modified their perception of party positions in the light of party manifestos, this was not the case in the other countries under study, where parties had longer histories than their Italian counterparts.