Exploring the Inner Life of the Party: A Framework for Analysing Elite Party Culture

This article presents a framework for analysing party‐organisational culture, with a special focus on the elite level. The framework is based on an interpretation of Mary Douglas’ Grid/Group model, and is empirically supported by an extensive study of the seven party groups in the Swedish parliament. The model identifies two fundamental cultural dimensions: the level of submission by individual group members to the group as a collectivity; and the principle that dictates the distribution of status and prestige within the party (a distribution here correlating with views on knowledge). The study shows that the parties distribute themselves on the cultural map in ways that do not coincide in any straightforward way with other well‐known variables of party politics, such as ideology, origin or size. The methodological innovations presented in this article pave the way for a new framework for analysing party politics in which hitherto neglected aspects of party organisation are highlighted.     

Challenging the Leadership: The Party Conference as a Platform for Dissenting Membership Voice in British and Danish Parties of the Left

According to A. O. Hirschman, party members who are dissatisfied with their party's policy have two options: they can either leave the party (exit) or try to change party policy (voice). Research has shown that leadership control over policy is extremely high, leaving membership influence virtually non-existent. On that basis, exit seems the only viable membership reaction to dissatisfaction with party policy. Nevertheless, research has also shown that voice is of great importance to members; hence it is voice that will be the main focus of this article, which examines the circumstances under which party members are likely to opt for voice over exit and what factors are likely to hamper voice. Using a study of the Danish Socialist Peoples Party, the Danish Social Democrats and the British Labour Party, the article shows that despite the odds stacked against them, some party members do make use of the opportunities for voice offered by the party conference, but also that they often face significant obstacles in exercising it.     

Crashing the Party? Elites,Outsiders, and Elections

We consider an election between two parties that nominate candidates for office. The parties are polarized along a traditional cleavage, but they are also internally divided along a second issue dimension. We introduce a threat of entry from Outsider candidates, who have the prominence and resources to bypass party elites. We consider when voters will turn to Outsiders, and identify the conditions under which Outsiders will enter the election through an established party's nomination process, as opposed to circumventing established parties via a third-party challenge. We further explore when the elites will fail to respond to the threat of Outsider candidates. Our framework highlights how established parties will be especially vulnerable to Outsider primary entry in periods of intense ideological polarization between the parties, and that this vulnerability is especially heightened for the majority party.     

Motivated Reasoning and Political Parties: Evidence for Increased Processing in the Face of Party Cues

Extant research in political science has demonstrated that citizens’ opinions on policies are influenced by their attachment to the party sponsoring them. At the same time, little evidence exists illuminating the psychological processes through which such party cues are filtered. From the psychological literature on source cues, we derive two possible hypotheses: (1) party cues activate heuristic processing aimed at minimizing the processing effort during opinion formation, and (2) party cues activate group motivational processes that compel citizens to support the position of their party. As part of the latter processes, the presence of party cues would make individuals engage in effortful motivated reasoning to produce arguments for the correctness of their party’s position. Following psychological research, we use response latency to measure processing effort and, in support of the motivated reasoning hypothesis, demonstrate that across student and nationally representative samples, the presence of party cues increases processing effort.     

新型政党制度所蕴含的中国智慧

中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度是从中国土壤中生长出来的新型政党制度,充分汲取了中国传统民本智慧、和合智慧、包容智慧,展现出了无与伦比的内在优越性,实现了群众根本利益与群体特殊利益的有机统一、实现了政党关系的非对称性和谐、实现了通过政党协商进行科学民主决策、实现了集中力量办大事,从而克服了垄断型一党制和竞争型两党制、多党制的固有弊端。作为和谐型多党制的新型政党制度充分展现了中国智慧,为世界政党制度发展与进步提供了新方向和新选择。     

Party ambiguity and individual preferences

Although the literature on party ambiguity does not lead to a consensus, recent findings suggest that party ambiguity is a good strategy for electoral success. However, the literature on decision processes shows that individuals generally dislike ambiguity. The aim of the present project is to test the effect of party ambiguity on party preferences at the individual level, to see if findings in decision processes still apply. Using election data from eight Western European democracies, I define a measure of party ambiguity at the individual level and find that ambiguity has a negative effect on party preferences. In addition, I find that individuals with a high interest in politics are less likely to like ambiguous parties.     

Norwegian Coalition Governments and the Management of Party Relations*

The aim of this article is to analyse the political leaders efforts to organize and manage relations between relevant party actors in a way that is suitable for the operation and preservation of coalition governments. Five coalition governments serve as illustrative cases showing how these relations have been managed in post-war Norway. The similarities between the different government coalitions arc obvious. There are, however, interesting variations concerning the priority given to coordination and unity versus party differences and profilation.     

The Coefficient of Party Influence

In a 2000 article in American Journal of Political Science,James Snyder and Tim Groseclose develop and apply an innovativemethod for detecting and estimating the frequency and magnitudeof party influence in congressional roll call voting. This paperpresents a framework for assessing the coefficient that theauthors interpret as "party influence." The analysis revealsthat, and shows why, the coefficient manifests two troublesomecharacteristics. The coefficient cannot discriminate betweendisparate types of party influence because the mapping betweentypes of partison influence and signs of the coefficient isnot one-to-one. Similarly, the coefficient has a responsivenessproblem because a marginal increase in one party's influencecan cause the estimate of the coefficient to increase, decrease,or remain constant. Because the literature on parties in Congressemphasizes majority-party strength, the inability of the coefficientto isolate party-specific effects is a serious drawback in theongoing hunt for genuine party discipline.     

Party planners – how political strategies are chosen

When and why do party strategists select one marketing strategy over another relevant one? In this research, we answer this question by outlining a new institutional strategy framework on the basis of social psychological assumptions. This framework links the cognition of party operatives to their task of selecting a marketing strategy. On this ground, we empirically test a number of hypotheses derived from this framework. The results suggest that party strategists are influenced by their cognitive framing of the environment, but this influence is mediated by context‐specific variables embedded in the political realm such as historical tensions, coalition partners, or the ideology, goal, and organizational structure of the party. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Party Elites' Perceptions of Voters and Public Opinion

Given the vast amounts of research on party competition, party strategy, political communication and electoral campaigning, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the study of national party elites' perceptions of voters and public opinion. This article argues that the mindset of leading party officials, and more specifically their perceptions of voter and public opinion rationality, driving forces and knowledge, is a much‐neglected explanation for why parties adopt the electoral strategies they do. Analysed here are unique internal party documents from two Swedish parties during the period 1964 to 1991: the Social Democratic Party and the Conservative Party. A simple analytic framework is proposed for the study of party elite perceptions of voters and public opinion. In contrast to the overwhelmingly pessimistic view of voter rationality that still prevails in contemporary research, the findings presented in this article suggest that national party elites in general have had a surprisingly positive view of voters and, in particular, public opinion. Perceptions of voters and public opinion were largely unaffected by the parties' electoral fortunes, and did not become gloomier over time.     

Mechanisms of Issue Congruence: The Democratic Party Mandate

Issue congruence between voters and parties can be achieved if voters and parties follow the party mandate model. A central requirement of this model is that parties fulfil their electoral mandate. This article studies collective party mandate fulfilment by comparing parties’ election manifestos with the parliamentary speeches of their politicians in two countries: a typical consensus democracy, the Netherlands, and a typical majoritarian democracy, the United Kingdom. The central question is whether a difference in collective mandate fulfilment exists between these two types of democracy. Contrary to previous findings, this study finds that such a difference does not exist, at least not with regard to the two countries analysed. This can be explained by the way in which the party mandate is conceptualised. The article also analyses the development of party mandate fulfilment over time and finds no evidence for the idea that collective mandate fulfilment is declining.     

Party brands and voting

Some scholars argue that Western societies have seen a decreasing impact of voting behavior based on cleavages and party identifications. Equally, issue ownership voting is seemingly not increasing its relevance by filling this gap. From this departure we seek out an alternative variable by posing the question: Do party brands influence voting behavior? Currently, we do not know because the two research fields of voting behavior and party brands are currently not explicitly linked. Traditionally, the study of voting behavior has gained powerful insights from concepts such as cleavage structure, party identification and issue ownership. On the other hand, the study of political brands has illuminated how people employ brands in their identity construction and how voters use party brands to differentiate between political parties. In this light, the article first distinguishes the brand concept from related heuristics and voting models. Next, the article measures the brand value of Danish parties by utilizing a representative association analysis. Finally, this measure is used to conduct the very first empirical analysis of a party brand's effect on voting behavior. Overall, the primary finding demonstrates that political brand value (PBV) has an effect on voting behavior—also when a number of other relevant explanatory variables are held constant.     

A Crisis of Party?*

The debate about the (future) role of political parties in modern democracies suffers from generally unacknowledged normative preconceptions as well as a tendency to reason in terms of ‘inevitable’ social processes, rather than precise theoretical reasoning or empirical analysis. At least four distinct bodies of thought affect the discussion about the assumed crisis of party: (1) the view that parties are a danger to the good society, leading to the denial of parties as legitimate actors; (2) the belief that some types of parties are ‘good’ and others ‘bad’, causing a selective rejection of parties; (3) the proposition that certain party systems are ‘good’ and others ‘bad’, resulting in a selective rejection of party systems; and (4) the affirmation that parties are becoming redundant. The latter suggestion is shown in a variety of approaches -e. g. the idea that parties are transient agents of democratization, the analysis of parties as mere market-forces, the assumption that parties do not matter in policies, and the view, as exemplified by neocorporatism, that parties inevitably lose their functions to other political actors. The pervasive presence of aprioristic views suggests the need for a conceptual house-cleaning, the importance of distinguishing normative from empirical arguments, and the need for more detailed empirical research, giving due weight to differences between countries, party systems, parties and periods instead of postulating inexorable trends.     

Unemployment and Party Choice in Norway

By the late 1980s, the absolute number of jobless in Norway had reached the same level as that during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment in the 1930s is known to have had an impact on party choice. Among those hit by unemployment in the 1980s, however, we no longer find a strong correlation between unemployment and party choice. This situation constitutes the point of departure for this article. The relationship between joblessness and party choice is investigated on the basis of four hypotheses: (i) The incumbency thesis , which suggests that the incumbent party receives support in accordance with fluctuations in economic conditions - i. e. it is punished in bad times and rewarded in prosperous times, (ii) The policy thesis , which predicts that voters concerned about unemployment prefer the Labour Party, (iii) The social composition thesis , which argues that the fluctuations between unemployment and party choice are simply due to changes in the social composition of the unemployed, (iv) The generation thesis , which underscores that the impact of unemployment on party choice varies according to historical generation. Confronted with empirical evidence, the social composition thesis is rejected. Likewise, support for the policy thesis has gradually vanished. Some empirical support is given to the incumbency thesis . In the end, however, the generation thesis appears to be the most relevant.     

Local government consolidations: The impact of political transaction costs

Local government in Norway comprises a large number of small municipalities. Cost efficiency can be improved by consolidating local authorities, and central government has designed a framework to stimulate voluntary mergers. Existing theories suggest that political transaction costs will impede consolidations. (1) Generous grants compensate diseconomies of scale. Central government has promised small municipalities that grant levels will be maintained, but policy promises may not be credible. (2) Property rights to local revenues are nullified when consolidations have been implemented. High-revenue municipalities will therefore go against merger with a poorer neighbor. (3) A consolidated local council may be composed of different political parties, and it may therefore pursue other policies than an existing council. Expected changes in party strength can lead municipalities to oppose a proposed consolidation. (4) Senior politicians are less likely to support mergers, particularly if they come from small polities. We offer an explicit test of these propositions based on data for Norwegian local government. Elected politicians and administrative leaders are more interested in consolidating when efficiency gains are large. Local revenue disparities and to some extent dissimilar party preferences are significant impediments to voluntary mergers. Additionally, smaller municipalities are often prepared to sacrifice some efficiency gain to remain independent polities.     

Mapping the Nordic Party Space

The left-right positions of the political parties in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland are compared from the late 1970s to the beginning of the 1990s. To locate the parties, survey data on the voters' self-placements along the left-right continuum are used. In order to study changes in the left-right polarity and the degree of consensus along the left-right continuum in each of the countries, we use the mean party positions to calculate three different measures of party distances. The wing party distance is that between the party farthest to the left and the party farthest to the right. The rival party distance is that between the Social Democratic Party and the traditional Conservative Party. Finally, the mean party distance is the average distance between all pairs of parties. One of the main conclusions is that in Sweden and Iceland the left-right continuum seems to contract, whereas in Norway and Denmark the left-right polarity and the distances between the parties are increasing. In today's Nordic party space, the distance between left and right is longest in Denmark and shortest in Norway. Eventually, 39 Nordic parties are brought together on the same left-right scale. The analysis reveals that there are some clearly distinguishable clusters of parties or party families in the Nordic countries, such as, for example, the socialist parties, the social democratic parties and the conservative parties. Other party groups differ greatly in left-right position, like the progressive parties, the liberal parties and the centre parties.     

European Commission merger control: Combining competition and the creation of larger European firms

The article examines the European Commission's use of its legal powers over mergers. It discusses and tests two views. One is that the ‘neoliberal’ Commission has ended previous industrial policies of aiding ‘national champion’ firms to grow through mergers and instead pursues a ‘merger‐constraining’ policy of vigorously using its legal powers to block mergers. The other is that the Commission follows an ‘integrationist policy’ of seeking the development of larger European firms to deepen economic integration. It examines Commission decisions under the 1989 EC Merger Regulation between 1990 and 2009. It selects three major sectors that are ‘likely’ for the ‘merger‐constraining’ view – banking, energy and telecommunications – and analyses a dataset of almost 600 Commission decisions and then individual merger cases. It finds that the Commission has approved almost all mergers, including by former ‘national champion’ firms. There have been only two prohibitions over 20 years in the three sectors and the outcome has been the creation of larger European firms through mergers. It explains how the Commission can pursue an integrationist policy through the application of competition processes and criteria. The wider implication is that the Commission can combine competition policy with achieving the ‘industrial policy’ aim of aiding the development of larger European firms.     

Inside the Cartel Party: Party Organisation in Government and Opposition

This article assesses the internal dynamics of the cartel party model. It argues that a party's endeavour to increase its societal reach by opening membership boundaries while keeping candidate selection local (two tendencies ascribed to this model), and the general need to maintain party unity, are difficult to reconcile. Therefore a fully fledged cartel party is organisationally vulnerable, which reinforces its resort to selective benefits (i.e. political appointments, patronage) whenever in government to satisfy organisational demands, a trigger intensifying party–state relations which is usually overlooked. Further, the dominant view of the ascendancy of parties' 'public face' needs to be qualified: the Irish Fianna Fáil, with its permeable boundaries and local candidate selection, reflects the cartel party model without a cartel at the party system level. Majoritarian dynamics have forced Fianna Fáil repeatedly into opposition which reveals the following: Fianna Fáil as a cartel party can afford to neglect its infrastructure on the ground as long as it is controlling government resources. In opposition its leadership initiates reforms to reinvigorate the party's infrastructure since it is pressed to generate organisational support through other means than distributing benefits.     

Equilibrium Party Government

In this article, I present an equilibrium model of party government within a two-party legislature. The theory is predicated upon members of the majority party having potentially conflicting individual and collective interests. In response to this potential conflict, the members of the majority party endogenously choose a degree of control to grant to their leadership. The equilibrium level of party strength is decreasing in the size of the majority party and increasing in the strength of opposition among members of the minority party. The theory implies that the average performance of W-Nominate estimates of majority party members' ideal points will be a decreasing function of the size of the majority party while the performance of these estimates for members of the minority party will not be affected by the size of the majority party. Using data from the U.S. House and Senate between 1866 and 2004, the theory's predictions are largely consistent with roll-call voting in both chambers.     

Reassessing the Influence of Party Groups on Individual Members of the European Parliament

This paper reassesses the way in which the voting behaviour of individual members of the European Parliament (EP) is influenced by their national and European party delegations. It does so within the previously used framework of one agent with two principals. First, it shows that the previous literature was unable to fully fathom the mechanisms through which the tripartite principal–agent relationship works. Second, it develops a model that looks solely at the votes contested between the European and the national group and the results of the test correct many of the findings of the previous literature. The paper also develops a new theoretical framework of vote cohesion in which the national and European groups are motivated by group norms and external incentives. Finally, the analysis of roll-call votes from the sixth EP finds that the new members from Central and Eastern Europe are more likely to stay with their European group than the members from Western Europe.