Class, territory and party: political change in Britain, 1945–1974

Abstract. Two theoretical traditions in the study of European voter alignments emphasize alternatively class and territorial structuring of mass politics. Until the 1970's the developmental paradigm resting on the class-based, stable polity model of the 1945–1970 period ruled the research agenda. The weakening of party alignments in the 1970's and the introduction of the competing territorial paradigm challenged the dominant model. This research tests both models in Britain against the supposed stability of the 1945–1970 period. The results demonstrate that while the developmental model fits Britain as a whole quite well, the introduction of regional polity analysis exposes considerable instability of voter and party alignments, uneven class development and the mobilization of cultural cleavages, dynamics which undergird the politics of cultural defence and find expression in the nationalist parties in the 1970's. In questioning the assumed stability of the 1945–1970 period the findings challenge the foundations of the current debates on realignment in Britain.     

The transformation of Western European party systems revisited

Otto Kirchheimer has argued that a transformation of Western European party systems is under way. If Kirchheimer's assertions about the emergence and success of catch‐all parties are correct, we should discover decreased fragmentation in Western European party systems. However, there is little evidence for this. In recent years many party systems have become more, rather than less, fragmented. Catch‐all parties have succeeded only in countries which experienced crises and disruptions in development. Elsewhere the strength of partisan attachments prevent the success of catch‐all parties. Increased fragmentation in the 1970s reflects the weakening of partisan attachments, the emergence of new concerns, and growing reactions against goverment policies and practices. Minor parties have gained support because they were better able to mobilise discontent and fulfil the expressive functions of political parties.     

The electoral consequences of the financial and economic crisis in Europe

The electoral consequences of the Great Recession are analysed in this article by combining insights from economic voting theories and the literature on party system change. Taking cues from these two theoretical perspectives, the impact of the Great Recession on the stability and change of Western, Central and Eastern European party systems is assessed. The article starts from the premise that, in order to fully assess the impact of the contemporary crisis, classic economic voting hypotheses focused on incumbent parties need to be combined with accounts of long‐term party system change provided by realignment and dealignment theories. The empirical analysis draws on an original dataset of election results and economic and political indicators in 30 European democracies. The results indicate that during the Great Recession economic strain was associated with sizable losses for incumbent parties and an increasing destabilisation of Western European party systems, while its impact was significantly weaker in Central and Eastern European countries, where political rather than economic failures appeared to be more relevant. In line with the realignment perspective, the results also reveal that in Western Europe populist radical right, radical left and non‐mainstream parties benefited the most from the economic hardship, while support for mainstream parties decreased further.     

“The Immigration Problem” and Norwegian Right-Wing Politicians

In this article, we explore Norwegian Progress Party politicians’ change of their rhetoric of immigration after the party for the first time became part of a coalition government in 2013. Equal to other right-wing populist parties in Europe, immigration has been the main reason for voters to support the Progress Party. How then does their immigration rhetoric change after entering office? This is important, as an intolerant immigration rhetoric has far-reaching consequences for the political climate in Europe. Right-wing populist parties can achieve much regarding migration policies merely because there is broad consensus on a strict migration policy today. However, to succeed remaining in office, they must remain being acceptable to other parties in the parliament and their coalition partner and therefore they need to moderate the way they go about communicating their message. Too much moderation however might lead to a split within the party, or losing core voters.     

Foreign Policy as Battlefield: A Study of National Interest and Party Motives

In no other policy arena are party unity and national unity considered as critical as in security and foreign policy. Party unity on foreign policy is viewed as a national security strategy of particular importance in times of international crisis and uncertainty, or as an expression of party strategy and ideological considerations. Through an empirical study of programs, congresses, voters and ideology of the Swedish parties 1945–1993, we show that the presence or absence of tension in the international system does not affect the inclination of parties to take issue on matters of foreign policy. We also show that parties argue just as much about issues that are central to Swedish security policy as they do about issues that do not directly affect national interest. The main sources of party disagreement over foreign policy seem to be ideologically motivated.     

Research Note: On the inverse relationship between votes and proximity for niche parties

Abstract.  Do niche parties occupying left-right policy positions that diverge sharply from the centre of the voter distribution gain more popular support than those moderately positioned along the left-right continuum? Cross-sectional analyses, based on observations from twelve Western European countries from 1984–1998, are presented that suggest the answer is 'yes'. By contrast, these analyses strongly suggest that for mainstream parties, policy radicalism depresses popular support. The implication of these findings is that for niche parties, it is the distinctiveness of their left-right positions that enhances their competitiveness in democratic elections. While this finding runs counter to the intuition of standard spatial theory, it is consistent with recent dynamic accounts of niche party responsiveness to shifts in public opinion and electoral support for niche parties. These findings have implications for party strategies, spatial theories and the understanding of political representation.     

Immigration as a political issue in Denmark and Sweden

Abstract.  Studies of party politics and party competition in West European democracies all point to diversification. Non-economic issues such as the environment, refugees and immigrants or law and order have become increasingly central to party politics. However, there has been surprisingly little interest in explaining variation across time and countries concerning which issues actually become central to party competition. From the sparse literature, two general answers can be discerned. One is societal, focusing on mass media coverage, public opinion and the development of the policy problems related to the issue. The other focuses on the structure of party competition itself – more precisely on the incentives for different parties in drawing attention to different issues. This study stresses the importance of the latter based on a study of the immigration issue in Denmark and Sweden. Party political attention to this issue in the 1990s has been considerably stronger in Denmark than in Sweden. This can be explained by the different strategic situation of the main stream right-wing parties in the two countries. Focusing on the immigrant issue easily leads to a conflict with the centre-right, especially social liberal parties. In Sweden, such a conflict would undermine mainstream right-wing attempts at winning government power. In Denmark, the Social Liberals governed with the Social Democrats in the 1990s, which made it attractive for the main stream right-wing parties to focus on the issue in order to win government power based on the support of radical right-wing parties.     

Is extreme right-wing populism contagious? Explaining the emergence of a new party family

Abstract.  This article presents a new model for explaining the emergence of the party family of extreme right-wing populist parties in Western Europe. As the old master frame of the extreme right was rendered impotent by the outcome of the Second World War, it took the innovation of a new, potent master frame before the extreme right was able to break electoral marginalization. Such a master frame – combining ethnonationalist xenophobia, based on the doctrine of ethnopluralism, with anti-political-establishment populism – evolved in the 1970s, and was made known as a successful frame in connection with the electoral breakthrough of the French Front National in 1984. This event started a process of cross-national diffusion, where embryonic extreme right-wing groups and networks elsewhere adopted the new frame. Hence, the emergence of similar parties, clustered in time (i.e., the birth of a new party family) had less to do with structural factors influencing different political systems in similar ways as with cross-national diffusion of frames. The innovation and diffusion of the new master frame was a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the emergence of extreme right-wing populist parties. In order to complete the model, a short list of different political opportunity structures is added.     

Economics, environmentalism and party alignments: A note on partisan change in advanced industrial democracies

'We are neither Left nor Right, we are out in front' was the mantra of the environmental movement in the 1970s and early 1980s. This research examines the relationship between the traditional left/right economic cleavage and the environmental cleavage in structuring party competition in advanced industrial democracies. It begins by discussing the theoretical rationale for the separation of environmentalism from the traditional economic cleavage, and utilises new expert data to describe the evolution of party positions between 1989 and 2002–2003. An initially strong relationship between party positions on both dimensions in 1989 has strengthened over time. The convergence occurs largely because of changes by Green parties and by the addition of new parties that define themselves on both dimensions. This points to the ability of democratic party systems to integrate a new political cleavage, and the process of integration. However, leftist parties still continue to diverge with respect to how they respond to the environmental cleavage.     

Do voters learn? Evidence that voters respond accurately to changes in political parties’ policy positions

A premise of the mass–elite linkage at the heart of representative democracy is that voters notice changes in political parties’ policy positions and update their party perceptions accordingly. However, recent studies question the ability of voters accurately to perceive changes in parties’ positions. The study advances this literature with a two-wave panel survey design that measured voters’ perception of party positions before and after a major policy shift by parties in the government coalition in Denmark 2011–2013. Two key findings extend previous work. First, voters do indeed pay attention to parties when they visibly change policy position. Second, voters update their perceptions of the party positions much more accurately than would have been expected if they merely relied on a ‘coalition heuristic’ as a rule-of-thumb. These findings imply that under some conditions voters are better able to make meaningful political choices than previous work suggests.     

Campaign shocks and party support: evidence from Brazil’s 2014 presidential election

This article investigates the effect of exogenous shocks during an election cycle on electoral outcomes. Specifically, we examine the impact of the unexpected death of a prominent candidate, Eduardo Campos, in the 2014 Brazilian presidential election on support levels for the three main parties. Did the effects die out relatively quickly, providing only a temporary “bounce” or dip in support levels? Or did they alter the fundamentals of the campaign environment and produce a lasting change or “bump” in support levels that lasted until the election? Our results show that while the shock did have short-term effects on all parties’ support, it was only the party that lost its leading candidate where any longer lasting shift in support is detected; we estimate that the party received around 11 percentage points more support than they would otherwise have garnered, had Campos not died. While this was not enough to secure victory, it shows that individual candidates should be understood as a “fundamental” feature of the campaign environment, any change in which is likely to have a lasting effect on voter behavior.     

Dead Man Walking: The Affective Roots of Issue Proximity Between Voters and Parties

Do voters like the party they already agree with or do they agree with the party they already like? Previous studies have suggested a link from preferences to perceptions. However, such a causal link has not been convincingly demonstrated. Most issue voting studies have adopted the basic premise of spatial models of voting—that voters compare parties’ positions with their own ideal points and apply a rule to choose among these parties. Drawing on a natural experiment, this study shows that perceptual agreement between parties and voters is endogenous to voters’ party affect. We use the murder of a Dutch politician amidst the data collection period of the 2002 Dutch election study. The death increases respondents’ feelings for his party without providing information about its issue stances. This upward shift in feelings translates into a significant increase in the perceived level of proximity with the party. The design also allows us to explore the mechanism bringing parties and voters closer. Rather than taking up the party’s stances, voters move a party’s positions closer to their own views when their feelings for that party increase. The findings challenge established assumptions about the theoretical underpinnings of spatial models of voting. They support classic notions of voter projection and lend credence to recent theories of attitudinal change, which are based on coarse thinking and uninformative updating.     

How iron is the iron law of oligarchy?

Abstract. Probably the most famous dictum about parties' internal structures is Robert Michels' 'iron law of oligarchy'. Over the past two decades, however, the societal context within which parties are embedded has begun to change which may alter the psychological premise upon which Michels' law is based. More specifically, we hypothesize that New Politics proponents within established parties are disproportionately likely to rely on cues from local party branches, instead of leadership cues, in forming issue positions on intra-party controversies. Accordingly, this paper analyzes the influence of New Politics issues on the leadership-constituency views of party delegates within fifty-two West European parties. In addition, we analyze the relative contribution of party ideology and party structures to the evolution of mean party support for NP policies and constituency orientations. The data base for this paper is a unique study of convention delegates conducted in all major West European parties, and a study of party characteristics. We find that New Politics supporters, especially within socialist parties, are predisposed to emphasize the representation of their local party constituency, in case the views of local party branches and a party's national leadership clash. We assess the implications of this research for parties and party theories, especially Michels' law.     

Weakening partisanship and the higher educated in Britain

Abstract. The decline in support for traditional political parties in a number of Western democracies is often attributed to the effects of recent educational expansion and a consequent rise in cognitive mobilisation in the electorate. The thesis that support for the two major parties in Britain is lowest among the young educated is tested here, using survey data for the period 1964–1983. The analysis indicates that for only a short time in the early 1970s was there evidence of such a relationship, and that differences in major-party support which are related to age and to educational achievement have all but disappeared by the 1980s. Moreover, the findings cast serious doubt upon the validity of current operationalisations of 'cognitive mobilisation'.     

How unstable? Volatility and the genuinely new parties in Eastern Europe

Abstract.  Measuring of party system stability in Eastern Europe during the first decade of democratic elections presents problems. The traditional quantitative measure – volatility – does not distinguish between the dynamics among incumbent parties and the rise of genuinely new ones. I propose a new additional measure – success of genuinely new parties – and compare it to volatility. The subsequent performance of initially successful genuinely new parties is analysed. While volatility has been remarkably high in East European countries, the genuinely new parties have, in general, not been very successful. Instability of party systems in the region stems rather from the inner dynamics of incumbent actors than from the rise of new contenders.     

Opposition party policy shifts in response to no‐confidence motions

No‐confidence motions (NCMs) are attempts by opposition parties to publicise the government's failings in a salient policy arena, and previous research has shown that they often negatively affect citizens' evaluations of governing parties' competence and damage their electoral prospects. Yet currently there is a lack of understanding of how opposition parties respond ideologically to these NCMs. It is argued in this article that opposition parties should distance themselves from the government challenged by NCMs to show that they are different from the incompetent government and to compete for the votes that the government is likely to lose. Using a sample of 19 advanced democracies from 1970–2007, empirical evidence is presented that NCMs encourage political parties to move their positions away from the government's position, especially in the presence of reinforcing negative signals about government performance. These results have important implications for our understanding of opposition party policy change, for the economic voting literature, and for the spatial and valence models of party competition.     

Angry White Men: Individual and Contextual Predictors of Support for the British National Party

The British National party (BNP) is the most successful extreme right party in Britain's electoral history and is the fastest growing political party in twenty-first century Britain. This article presents the first ever individual-level analysis of BNP supporters, utilising a survey data set uniquely compiled for this purpose. We find that support for the BNP is concentrated among older, less educated working-class men living in the declining industrial towns of the North and Midlands regions. This pattern of support is quite distinct from that which underpinned the last electorally relevant extreme right party in Britain – the National Front (NF) – whose base was young working-class men in Greater London and the West Midlands. Extreme right voters in contemporary Britain express exceptionally high levels of anxiety about immigration and disaffection with the mainstream political parties. Multi-level analysis of BNP support shows that the party prospers in areas with low education levels and large Muslim minority populations of Pakistani or African origin. The BNP has succeeded in mobilising a clearly defined support base: middle-aged working-class white men anxious about immigration, threatened by local Muslim communities and hostile to the existing political establishment. We conclude by noting that all the factors underpinning the BNP's emergence – high immigration levels, rising perceptions of identity conflict and the declining strength of the cultural and institutional ties binding voters to the main parties – are likely to persist in the coming years. The BNP therefore looks likely to consolidate itself as a persistent feature of the British political landscape.     

Adapting to party lines: the effect of party affiliation on attitudes to immigration

Public opinion on immigration is increasingly relevant for political behaviour. However, little is known about the way in which citizens’ political allegiances in turn shape their attitudes to immigration. Abundant existing evidence suggests that voters often take cues from the parties they support. Using panel data from the Netherlands and Sweden, this article investigates the dynamic relation between attitudes to immigration and party preferences. The longitudinal nature of the data allows for making stronger claims about causal mechanisms than previous cross-sectional studies. The analysis shows that voters who change their preference to the Radical Right become stricter on immigration, whereas voters changing to the Greens become less strict on immigration over time. This confirms that citizens’ support for anti- and pro-immigration parties results in a ‘radicalisation’ of their views on immigration along party lines. A similar ‘spiral’ of radicalisation can be found around the issue of European integration.     

Change and Permanence in Political Parties

Incessant changes alter political parties in their organization, structure, recruitment and all other characteristics. Nevertheless, they are usually credited with stable features by which they are identified, and which enable them to be classified. If we consider French political parties, it is possible to demonstrate that both change and apparent stability arise from interaction within each party as well as between them and between the social organizations to which they are linked. These interactions and their effects must be related to general processes, such as social and cultural transformation; they cannot be solely explained by specifically political competition.     

Income inequality and party (de)polarisation

Scholars of US politics report a strong connection between income inequality and party polarisation. This study evaluates this relationship comparatively, and finds that the opposite association holds outside the United States, namely, that increasing inequality depolarises political parties’ economic positions. High levels of inequality change the composition of the core constituencies on the left and depress the participation of low-income voters, leaving left-wing parties with less support when they adopt distinct leftward positions. At the same time, inequality does not create strong incentives for right-wing parties to move further rightward. Therefore, income inequality leads to party systems that are depolarised on economic issues. The results have implications for our understanding of political representation, economic inequality, and political polarisation.