When politics prevails: Parties,elections and loyalty in the European Parliament

In many political systems, legislators serve multiple principals who compete for their loyalty in legislative votes. This article explores the political conditions under which legislators choose between their competing principals in multilevel systems, with a focus on how election proximity shapes legislative behaviour across democratic arenas. Empirically, the effect of electoral cycles on national party delegations’ ‘collective disloyalty’ with their political groups in the European Parliament (EP) is analysed. It is argued that election proximity changes the time horizons, political incentives and risk perceptions of both delegations and their principals, ‘punctuating’ cost‐benefit calculations around defection as well as around controlling, sanctioning and accommodating. Under the shadow of elections, national delegations’ collective disloyalty with their transnational groups should, therefore, increase. Using a new dataset with roll‐call votes cast under legislative codecision by delegations between July 1999 and July 2014, the article shows that the proximity of planned national and European elections drives up disloyalty in the EP, particularly by delegations from member states with party‐centred electoral rules. The results also support a ‘politicisation’ effect: overall, delegations become more loyal over time, but the impact of election proximity as a driver of disloyalty is strongest in the latest parliament analysed (i.e., 2009–2014). Furthermore, disloyalty is more likely in votes on contested and salient legislation, and under conditions of Euroscepticism; by contrast, disloyalty is less likely in votes on codification files, when a delegation holds the rapporteurship and when the national party participates in government. The analysis sheds new light on electoral politics as a determinant of legislative choice under competing principals, and on the conditions under which politics ‘travels’ across democratic arenas in the European Union's multilevel polity.     

Explaining Gender Parity Representation in Spain: The Internal Dynamics of Parties

This paper sheds light on the reasons for the sudden rise of women in party politics and political representation in Spain. Structural explanations and the conditioning influence of the electoral system are reviewed before focusing on institutional and party-political explanations. It argues that the key factor in explaining this rise is not just the adoption of rules on the gender parity representation, but the intra-party politics that allows for effective implementation of such rules. Using insights into the internal dynamics of the PSOE gained from extensive field observations and interviews, it argues that high levels of female representation were secured via internal party procedures, coupled with political backing from the party leadership. The paper therefore takes the discussion on women’ participation in representative politics beyond the question of adopting quota rules into the terrain of how, instead of remaining a dead letter, it is successfully implemented in practice.     

Whatever happened to Italian communism? Explaining the dissolution of the largest communist party in the West

This article attempts to explain why the largest and most successful communist party in the West (the Italian Communist Party) has been the first to dissolve itself under the apparent impact of the revolutions in Eastern Europe. It does so by utilising and comparing four possible approaches to the study of West European Communist parties: ideological, electoral, strategic and ‘internal‐external’ approaches. The first three approaches are outlined and their limitations indicated before a more detailed exposition and application of the fourth approach is made as offering the most adequate framework to explain of one the most significant developments in Italian politics and West European communism.     

Do Politics in Europe Benefit from Politicising Corruption?

In this article, two unexplored trends in European electoral politics are highlighted. Using newly collected data the article tracks the politicisation of corruption in electoral campaigns from 1981 to 2011, an electoral strategy that has been increasing over time in most European countries. It then empirically tests two aspects of this campaign strategy. First, what are the factors that are systematically associated with a party’s decision to politicise corruption? Second, what are the electoral effects in terms of relative vote share for parties that politicise corruption? Using an original data-set that employs multi-level data (parties nested in countries) the results demonstrate first that politicisation of corruption occurs systematically more often among established parties from the main opposition, new parties and parties on the political right, and occurs as a function of country-level corruption, district magnitude and public party financing. Second, it is found that the main opposition and new parties that use such a campaign strategy make significant electoral gains relative to the previous election compared to parties that do not politicise corruption. Yet gains are offset in low-corruption countries. The findings demonstrate salient implications for research on party systems, corruption studies and democratic legitimacy, among other areas of investigation.     

Some Lessons of the SDP for Labour's Present Predicament

Jeremy Corbyn's election and re‐election as Labour leader, together with the emergence of a new Conservative Prime Minister committed to Brexit, has led to renewed speculation about the possibility of a new party appealing to the ‘politically homeless’ in the centre and centre‐left of British politics. This article draws lessons from the SDP experience in the early 1980s. Are the structural conditions more favourable to the progressive centre‐left now than they were then? Is there the sociological, electoral and ideological space for a new party? Does first past the post remain an insuperable barrier to an electoral breakthrough? From whom and in what circumstances might the leadership for a new party come? For all the depth of Labour's current problems, a new party seems an unlikely immediate prospect. In 1981, the SDP made a major miscalculation about the irreversibility of Labour's decline. However, the process of fragmentation in British politics seems set to continue.     

Where to go from here? Revamping electoral politics in the Netherlands

The transformation from mass parties into catch‐all parties may not only have electoral consequences, but may also have an impact inside political parties, particularly in so far as the position of ordinary party members is concerned. On the basis of Dutch research data, the role of the ordinary party member in intra‐party decision‐making is assessed in this article. The data show that Dutch party members do feel marginalised where their influence on intra‐party policy‐making is concerned. However, this is not because they feel they do not have sufficient opportunities to participate in internal decision‐making, but rather because they do not actually use the opportunities which are available: party members appear to marginalise themselves.     

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.     

Raising a big tent: Internal party composition and leadership selectorate expansion

The trend amongst many parties toward the inclusion of rank-and-file members in the leadership selection process has often been attributed to opposition status and electoral defeat. However, these explanations are typical events for parties and hardly seem sufficient for party elites to willingly cede their authority over the selection of party leaders. This paper proposes that the electoral regionalization of the party contributes to the decision to expand the leadership selectorate. In the event a party is defeated to an extent in which their support is reduced to its regional base, this situation necessitates the bringing in of new voices to avoid further marginalization. This paper finds that regionalization plays a significant role in the decision of parties to expand leadership selectorates and that the role of opposition status and electoral setbacks have been overstated.     

The effects of membership decline on party organisations in Europe

On election day, voters’ commitment is crucial for political parties, but between elections members are an important resource for party organisations. However, membership figures have been dropping across parties and countries in the last decades. How does this trend affect parties’ organisation? Following classics in party politics research as well as contemporary organisational theory literature, this study tests some of the most longstanding hypotheses in political science regarding the effects of membership size change. According to organisational learning theory, membership decline should induce an expansion of the party organisation. However, threat‐rigidity theory and the work of Robert Michels suggest that parties are downsizing their organisation to match the decline in membership size. To test the hypotheses, 47 parties in six European countries (Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) are followed annually between 1960 and 2010 on key organisational characteristics such as finances, professionalism and complexity. A total of 1,922 party‐year observations are analysed. The results of multilevel modelling show that party membership decline triggers mixed effects. Declining membership size induces the employment of more staff, higher spending and a higher reliance on state subsidies. At the same time, it also triggers lower staff salaries and a reduction in the party's local presence. The findings indicate that today's parties are targeting an organisational structure that is custom‐made for the electoral moment every four years. Faced with lasting membership decline, the party organisation retracts its organisational resources and focuses more on election day. Members matter to parties, but votes matter more.     

The Coalition and the Decline of Majoritarianism in the UK

The United Kingdom has traditionally featured many aspects of the majoritarian model of democracy: its first‐past‐the‐post electoral system tends towards producing single‐party majorities, while its legislative decision rules concentrate policy‐making power in the hands of the resulting single‐party governments. However, in an unprecedented break with the UK's postwar conventions, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed a coalition following the general election of 2010. In this article, we examine some of the Coalition's impacts on governing and constitutional conventions, placing them in a comparative European context. We conclude that the Coalition reflects a shift towards the less majoritarian forms of politics prevalent in continental Europe, and that some of these changes are likely to persist even after the end of the current government.     

Personal vote‐seeking in flexible list systems: How electoral incentives shape Belgian MPs' bill initiation behaviour

It is well known that different types of electoral systems create different incentives to cultivate a personal vote and that there may be variation in intra‐party competition within an electoral system. This article demonstrates that flexible list systems – where voters can choose to cast a vote for the list as ordered by the party or express preference votes for candidates – create another type of variation in personal vote‐seeking incentives within the system. This variation arises because the flexibility of party‐in‐a‐district lists results from voters' actual inclination to use preference votes and the formal weight of preference votes in changing the original list order. Hypotheses are tested which are linked to this logic for the case of Belgium, where party‐in‐a‐district constituencies vary in their use of preference votes and the electoral reform of 2001 adds interesting institutional variation in the formal impact of preference votes on intra‐party seat allocation. Since formal rules grant Belgian MPs considerable leeway in terms of bill initiation, personal vote‐seeking strategies are inferred by examining the use of legislative activity as signalling tool in the period between 1999 and 2007. The results establish that personal vote‐seeking incentives vary with the extent to which voters use preference votes and that this variable interacts with the weight of preference votes as defined by institutional rules. In addition, the article confirms the effect of intra‐party competition on personal vote‐seeking incentives and illustrates that such incentives can underlie the initiation of private members bills in a European parliamentary system.     

Third party decline in the UK: The SNP and SDP in comparative perspective

The failure of ‘third’ parties to displace their larger rivals is a consistent (although not universal) feature of competitive democracies which have simple majority electoral systems. It is argued that there are structural features intrinsic to most third parties which tend to accelerate the process of decline once it has set in. Because of their reliance on individual members, these parties put great stress on individual participation and provide the opportunities for it. As a result, they are particularly subject to the effects of internal competition which electoral decline is likely to intensify. The study tests this hypothesis by looking at two cases of third party decline, and concludes that the mass branch party format is ill‐able to cope with electoral failure.     

Dynamics of protest and electoral politics in the Great Recession

This article links the consequences of the Great Recession on protest and electoral politics. It innovates by combining the literature on economic voting with social movement research and by presenting the first integrated, large-scale empirical analysis of protest mobilisation and electoral outcomes in Europe. The economic voting literature offers important insights on how and under what conditions economic crises play out in the short-run. However, it tends to ignore the closely connected dynamics of opposition in the two arenas and the role of protests in politicising economic grievances. More specifically, it is argued that economic protests act as a ‘signalling mechanism’ by attributing blame to decision makers and by highlighting the political dimension of deteriorating economic conditions. Ultimately, massive protest mobilisation should, thus, amplify the impact of economic hardship on the electoral losses of incumbents and mainstream parties more generally. The empirical analysis to study this relationship relies on an original semi-automated protest event dataset combined with an updated dataset of electoral outcomes in 30 European countries from 2000 to 2015. The results indicate that the dynamics of economic protests and electoral punishment are closely related and point to a destabilisation of European party systems during the Great Recession.     

How Unusual is the United Kingdom Coalition (and What are the Chances of It Happening Again)?

This article draws upon insights from theoretical and empirical studies of coalition behaviour in multiparty politics to examine the formation of the United Kingdom coalition following the general election of 6 May 2010. It argues that the formation of the Conservative‐Liberal Democrat coalition is not unusual in historical terms or in the context of contemporary European politics; and that although it is a break from the more recent pattern of postwar British politics it nevertheless does conform to expectations in the light of the coalition literature. The article also provides a comparative analysis of the impact of Britain's ‘First‐Past‐The‐Post’ (FPTP) electoral system on party competition and an examination of the performance of the Alternative Vote (AV) system and argues that if the United Kingdom retains FPTP then a return to single‐party government in 2015 is highly likely; and it is not inevitable that the introduction of AV would significantly advantage the Liberal Democrats.     

Consideration and Choice: Analyzing Party Choice in the Swedish European Election 2014

For a long time the question of to what extent party choice in the European Parliament (EP) elections is primarily dependent on voters’ orientations towards the European Union (EU) or just a mere reflection of orientations towards issues and actors in national politics has been debated. By combining insights from individual‐level models of party choice in second‐order elections with theories of sequential decision making this article investigates if, how and at what stages in the decision process attitudes to European integration matters for party choice. In line with previous work on first and second decision rule criteria in EP elections, this article develops and tests hypotheses about how voters’ orientations work at different stages of the voter decision process. The findings, based on Swedish data from a probability‐based three‐wave Internet campaign panel, indicate that many voters are in fact considering more than one party to vote for in the beginning of the election campaign. As expected, left‐right orientations function as a main decision rule with respect to which parties voters even consider voting for, while proximity on the European integration dimension mainly matters as a second decision rule in the final stage of the decision process. Using a sequential model with consideration and choice stages, the article reveals a much larger complimentary effect of EU proximity on party choice than has generally been found in previous research. This serves as a distinct contribution to the emerging research field of individual party choice in second‐order elections.     

Modeling ideological polarization in democratic party systems

There are mounting claims that increasing ideological polarization is reshaping democratic party systems with important effects on the functioning of electoral politics, the correlates of voting choice, turnout, and even the representativeness of government. Yet, our knowledge of what causes party system polarization is still developing. The primary research goal is to systematically combine and test existing theories predicting levels of party system polarization across 21 established democracies. Polarization levels have generally risen since the mid-1990s. A pooled model finds that characteristics of the electoral system and the party system largely determine the continuity of party system polarization. Polarization levels also appear linked to short-term factors such as citizens’ declining confidence in the economy and increasing concerns about immigration. The conclusion discusses the implications for party systems and politics in affluent democracies.     

Ethnic outbidding and nested competition: Explaining the extremism of ethnonational minority parties in Europe

The classical outbidding model of ethnic politics argues that democratic competition involving ethnic parties inevitably leads to ethnic outbidding where parties adopt ever more extreme positions. However, recent small‐N studies show that ethnic outbidding is only one of a range of strategies available to ethnic parties. This article seeks to explain why some ethnic parties are extremist, whereas others adopt moderate positions. Drawing on the ethnic outbidding and the nested competition model of ethnic party competition, it is hypothesised that the ethnic segmentation of the electoral market, and the relative salience of an ethnically cross‐cutting economic dimension of party competition, account for the varying degrees of extremism. Hypotheses are tested drawing on a novel, expert‐survey‐based dataset that provides indicators for the positions of 83 ethnonational minority parties in 22 European democracies in 2011. Results of ordinary least squares and two‐level linear regressions show that as the economic dimension gains importance, parties become more moderate relative to the party system mean. The electorate's ethnic segmentation has a positive effect on extremism, but this effect is not significant in all models. Contrary to expectations, higher ethnic segmentation of the party system is associated with more moderate positions in the majority of the estimated models.     

Parties under pressure: Challenges to ‘established’ French parties

This article seeks to analyse recent trends in party politics in France that point to two complementary phenomena, electoral demobilisation and volatility. Four indicators are presented that demonstrate the extent of them in contemporary France; (1) the rise of ‘new politics’ organisations, (2) the emergence of small parties and protest movements, (3) the haemorrhage of party members, and (4) the growth of electoral dissidence. Various institutional and environmental explanations are proposed. The article concludes that established parties in France today are experiencing a major challenge to their hegemony.     

Partisan responses to Europe: Comparing Finnish and Swedish political parties

Abstract. This article analyzes party responses to European integration in Finland andSweden.We argue that such responses are shaped by seven explanatory factors: basic ideology, public opinion, factionalism, leadership influence, party competition, transnational links, and the development of integration. Each factor can lead to a positive or a negative evaluation of the European Union. In the empirical analysis, the sample includes all parties represented in the respective national parliaments, and the research material consists of party documents, parliamentary votes, statements by leading party figures, public opinion surveys, direct observation and interviews. Party competition and leadership influence are the strongest factors in the Finnish case, while public opinion and factionalism are the strongest factors in Sweden. Issue avoidance combined with the secondary importance of the EU in party politics explain why parties have been relatively successful in containing internal factionalism and discord, especially in Finland.     

Everything to Everyone: The Electoral Consequences of the Broad‐Appeal Strategy in Europe

Parties often tailor their campaign message differently to different groups of voters with the goal of appealing to a broader electorate with diverse preferences and thereby winning their votes. I argue that the strategy helps a party win votes if it can convince diverse groups of voters that the party is ideologically closer to their preferred positions. Using election data from nine Western European democracies, I first show that parties gain votes when they appeal broadly. Analysis of individual‐level survey data suggests that voters perceive broadly appealing parties as ideologically closer to their own positions, a finding that identifies a plausible mechanism behind the aggregate positive effect of this strategy on party election performance. These findings not only help explain the behavior of some European parties, but they may also offer a potential recipe for electoral success in multiparty democracies.