Review Article: Scandinavian Parties in the Internal and External Arena

Party research lived a relatively quiet life during the 1970s and 1980s in the western world, and to some degree also in Scandinavia, although the central role of parties in the Scandinavian democracies made it impossible for political scientists to completely ignore political parties in their research. However, from the end of 1980s, political party research has been revitalized, and the number of publications has increased substantially. The three books reviewed here are part of the upswing during 1997, which, of course, includes other books and publications from that particular year. Why this renewed interest in studying political parties? For a long period after World War II, Scandinavian political parties were characterized as stable mass organizations. In 1973, the established Danish political system suffered an electoral backlash, and the shock waves gave fuel to speculations of party decline in electoral behavior studies. At the same time, similar trends were visible in Finland and Norway. Much later, interest focused on finding the same signs of decline in the internal party arena. The discussion is still alive, and during this process students of political science have gained new knowledge about parties and their organizations in Scandinavia.     

Changing Patterns of Party Competition in Austria: From Multipolar to Bipolar System

The Austrian party system has entered a new phase since the controversial ÖVP-FPÖ coalition came into office in February 2000. The party system literature offers two contradicting expectations about party system mechanics in multi-party systems without relevant extremist parties: competition structured by party alliances and strictly competitive relations between government and opposition parties (as suggested by <citeref rid="b30">Sartori 1976</citeref>) versus competition structured by individual parties and some mix of competition and co-operation and perhaps even power-sharing in extra-governmental arenas between government and opposition parties (as suggested by <citeref rid="b3">Dahl 1966</citeref>). Our empirical analysis of party system competitiveness in the electoral, parliamentary and other arenas (in particular, the corporatist arena) between 2000 and 2003 shows that the relations between the government and opposition parties were strictly competitive (i.e. of a zero-sum character) in the electoral arena. Likewise, there was no trading between government and opposition in the parliamentary arena. Finally, the government substantially increased its impact on the official sites (i.e. arenas controlled by the government) and used fire and hire methods more than any of its predecessors to build up its positions in public sector institutions. The opposition parties, in turn, perceived the government parties as a bloc and were united in their goal of undermining the government parties' majority. Yet, while relations between the government and opposition parties remained highly competitive throughout the entire period, relations between the parties on each side of the government-opposition divide became more fluid, partly for tactical considerations and partly for reasons of genuine preferences. In sum, the post-2000 Austrian party system is a weak version of a two-bloc system.     

Citizens,politicians, and party cartellization: Political representation and state failure in post-industrial democracies

Abstract. This paper critiques what can be interpreted as an application of the literature on state failure in current political economy and political science to the changing role of political parties in advanced post–industrial democracies, Katz and Mair's theory of cartel parties . It develops an alternative set of hypotheses about the dynamics of parties and party systems with the objective to clarify empirical terms according to which rival propositions can be tested. Specifically, the paper rejects three propositions in the theory of cartel parties and advances the following alternatives. First, party leaders are not divorced from their members and voting constituencies, but become ever more sensitive to their preferences. Second, inter–party cooperation generates a prisoner's dilemma in the competitive arena that ultimately prevents the emergence of cartels. Ideological convergence of rival parties has causes external to the competitive arena, not internal to it. Third, conventional parties cannot marginalize or coopt new challengers, but must adjust to their demands and electoral appeals. The age of cartel parties, if it ever existed, is not at its beginning, but its end.     

Party Behaviour in the Finnish Parliament

This article focuses on party behaviour in the Finnish Parliament. We consider the political parties as vote-seekers, office-seekers, or policy-seekers in a multiparty system. We presume that the parliamentary position of a party affects its behaviour, and that the behaviour of a party differs from one arena to another in Parliament. The party activity is measured in terms of proposed motions, reservations to committee decisions, debates and statements at plenary sessions, and roll-calls at plenary sessions. The empirical findings indicate that political parties in opposition act first and foremost as vote-seekers. Only opposition parties make reservations to committee decisions and initiate roll-calls at plenary sessions. On the other hand, the governing parties seem mainly to focus on policy-seeking.     

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.     

Anti‐elite parties and political inequality: How challenges to the political mainstream reduce income gaps in internal efficacy

There is growing interest in political inequality across income groups. This article contributes to this debate with two arguments about political involvement: poverty depresses internal political efficacy by undermining cognitive and emotional resources; and dissent in the party system reduces the efficacy gap to higher incomes. Specifically, conflict is to be expected between anti‐elite and mainstream parties to simplify political decisions and stimulate political attention among poor voters. These arguments are supported with comparative and experimental analyses. Comparative survey data shows that the income gap in efficacy varies with a novel measure of the anti‐elite salience in the party system. The causal impact of anti‐elite rhetoric is established though a representative survey experiment. Finally, the article investigates how these mechanisms affect both electoral and other forms of political participation.     

Prospects for the Two-party System in a Pluralising Political World

Political commentators argue that the major political parties are in decline. This article sets out evidence for this view: minor parties and independents securing 20 percent of the vote at federal elections, declining strength of voters' party identification, and issue movements playing a large role in setting the political agenda. Possible causes for these trends range from the political, such as policy failure, undermining traditional constituencies, and ignoring public opinion, to sociological forces, such as postmaterialism, individualism and serious disaffection. However, the article argues Labor and the Coalition will be the dominant political players for the foreseeable future. In most lower houses, the electoral system favours the major parties which on balance is a good thing. The major parties have taken concerns of interest groups into account, while balancing these against majority opinion. They simplify choice for an electorate only moderately interested in politics, and can be held accountable in a way minor parties and independents cannot.     

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.     

Rejecting representation? Party systems and popular support for referendums in Europe

Under what conditions do citizens favor deciding political issues by popular vote? Models of support for popular vote processes usually consider the influence of individual attitudes such as political trust and interest in politics. But much less is known about the effect of institutional variables on support for popular vote processes. This article builds on research showing that disaffection with elected officials shapes support for referendums by considering the influence of the party system. First, an analysis of multilevel data from twenty-four European democracies indicates that individuals are more supportive of referendums in countries with fewer effective political parties. Second, a mediation analysis provides evidence that the number of parties influences referendum support through individual-level political trust and external efficacy. Where there are fewer viable parties, feelings that elected officials are unresponsive tend to increase popular support for referendums. These findings suggest a trade-off between available representation by political parties and support for direct influence over public policy.     

Responding to the left: the effect of far-left parties on mainstream party Euroskepticism

Do far-left political parties influence the level of Euroskepticism among mainstream political parties within that same party system? This study seeks to address this question by building on previous work that has examined the effect of both far-left and far-right Euroskeptic parties on mainstream party positions regarding the EU. We theorize that when far-left parties place an emphasis on state control over the economy, mainstream parties in the same party system are less supportive of the EU. To test our theoretical expectations, we use data from the Comparative Manifestos Project in 25 EU member states from 1958 through 2015. The analysis indicates support for the hypothesis that when far-left parties place greater emphasis on a need for state control of the economy, mainstream parties in that party system are more Euroskeptic. Our findings have important implications for understanding the nature of political party dynamics both generally, and more specifically in the European Union.     

Political Brand Equity Model: The Integration of Political Brands in Voter Choice

The voters’ choices about political parties have many similarities with how they make their choices about commercial brands. Therefore, political parties are now constantly applying the concept and strategies of brand management to make the political product attractive, appealable, trustable, differentiable, a source of long-term relationships, and a decision-making driver. Furthermore, the political parties have to play an active role in the community's political socialization processes, which rely heavily on branding strategies. Because, the party equity is largely based on the community's social gregariousness that has profound effect on the electorates' propensity to participate in the politics. This study has deeply explored and broadened the concept of party equity analogous to commercial brand equity typology by developing a politics-specific brand equity model. This model demonstrates the integration of political brands in voter choice. Empirically, this model has been validated by collecting 550 valid responses from the constituency of District Gujrat, Pakistan. A careful analysis of these responses through structural equation modeling methodology has revealed that political parties vary according to the outcomes of their role in the political socialization process of the communities, loyalty, and voters’ attitude. Parties that have favorable role in the socialization process have strong party knowledge and thus have high party equity as compared to competing political parties, which have a weak position of party knowledge. Similarly, this study provides the roadmap and guidelines for the political parties to manage their party equity. Similarly, the model would be able to facilitate political parties in comparing different constituencies on the basis of their diversified social dynamics and political knowledge and in the development of a constituency-based manifesto, also termed “localized manifesto,” to further enhance their vote bank.     

Challenges to established parties: The effects of party system features on the electoral fortunes of anti-political-establishment parties

Abstract. The rise of parties that challenge the political establishment has recently sparked the interest of political scientists. Scholars have identified several factors that lie behind the success of such anti-political-establishment parties. Most empirical studies, however, have concentrated their attention either on the importance of electoral system features or on the effects of socioeconomic conditions. This article focuses instead on the role that party system factors play in the electoral success of these parties. Using three data sets from studies conducted in three different time periods it tests two seemingly contradictory hypotheses. On the one hand, the claim that where the established parties have converged toward centrist positions and thus fail to present voters with an identity that is noticeably different from their established competitors, the electorate will be more susceptible to the markedly different policies put forward by anti-political-establishment parties. On the other hand, there is the argument that these parties profit more from increasing polarization and the subsequent enlargement of the political space than from a convergence toward the median. The results of the analyses show that anti-political-establishment parties generally profit from a close positioning of the establishment parties on the left-right scale. However, there is no consistent support for the notion that party system polarization by itself is associated with an increase in the support for parties that challenge the political establishment.     

The Growing Importance of Issue Competition: The Changing Nature of Party Competition in Western Europe

Changes in Western European political parties in general have attracted considerable scholarly interest, whereas changes in party competition have been almost overlooked in an otherwise extensive literature. Using the party manifesto data set, this article documents that party competition in Western Europe is increasingly characterised by issue competition, i.e. competition for the content of the party political agenda. What should be the most salient issues for voters: unemployment, the environment, refugees and immigrants, law and order, the welfare state or foreign policy? This change is crucial because it raises a question about the factors determining the outcome of issue competition. Is it the structure of party competition itself or more unpredictable factors, such as media attention, focusing events or skilful political communication? The two answers to this question have very different implications for the understanding of the role of political parties in today's Western European democracies.     

This time it was different? The salience of the Spitzenkandidaten system among European parties

The Lisbon Treaty (2009) introduced key institutional changes to increase the relevance of elections to the European Parliament (EP). Among others, major political groups nominated different lead candidates, the so-called Spitzenkandidaten, for the 2014 EP elections. The aim of this article is to investigate how national political parties react to this new institutional setting. Using data from the 2014 Euromanifesto study, the article examines if and under what conditions political parties put emphasis on the Spitzenkandidaten system in their party manifestos and whether they take positive or negative stances when talking about it. The findings reveal that parties put little emphasis on the issue. Moreover, the factors promoting the Spitzenkandidaten system suggest that parties decide strategically upon emphasising that topic or take a positive stance on it if they expect to benefit from this.     

Die Institutionalisierung Indischer Parteien

Party systems are considered as institutionalized, when they have strong roots in the society, when they are stable (= moderate electoral volatility, fragmentation and polarisation of the party system), are regarded as legitimate vehicles of political competition and organizationally strong. Compared to these criteria, the Indian party system fares better, than quite a few critical survey indicate. Indian parties have strong, but specific roots in the society, party polarization is moderate and high fragmentation is only a consequence of unsuccessful aggregation of different subnational party systems in the Lower House. On the other hand Indian parties reflect specific social cleavages, more exactly, they are themselves prime actors in the social construction of cleavages. They also suffer from lack of internal democracy and cohesion. These deficits are related to the patronage character of Indian democracy and decisions of rational voter groups and parties in an extremely plural, and politically increasingly mobilized society. On the other hand, institutional shortcomings of parties have some positive effects on the political participation and on social emancipation of underprivileged groups. This seems to indicate, that institutionalization criteria won by the observation of Western parties, might be only partly helpful in the Indian context.     

A mirror of the ethnic divide: Interest group pillarization and elite dominance in Bosnia and Herzegovina

To date, there is no comprehensive treatment of interests and interest groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This article seeks to fill that gap. It does so by explaining that interest groups reflect the country's complex political system with multiple levels of power sharing along societal cleavages. Political parties are the major power centers, and the link between ethnicity and party allegiance is most significant in defining the role of interest groups. The result is a pillarized (separate, intragroup) and bifurcated group system with 3 separate interest group subsystems with little interchange between them. This fragmentation has been challenged by international institutional organizations promoting multiethnic interests. Nevertheless, with the persistence of many informal interests, the group system is stymied in moving toward an integrated system, a development that is key to strengthening BiH's consociational democracy.     

Human Branding in Political Marketing: Applying Contemporary Branding Thought to Political Parties and Their Leaders

Political marketing advances by engaging with new and advanced concepts from both of its parent disciplines. One of the most recent fields of brand research—the study of the human brand—is taken into the political marketing arena in this essay. Human branding is an emergent topic in mainstream marketing. The value as a brand of a person who is well-known and subject to explicit marketing communications efforts is being investigated in many fields. The concept has clear prima facie value in political marketing, where the role of a political leader as part of the political marketing offer has been recognized extensively. Politics is also a unique context given the relationship between leaders and parties, each of which has some unique brand associations. The process of exploring the application of human branding in politics also provides a context in which some of the interactions among party and leader, human brand, and organizational brand can be explored and further developed. Among the conclusions are that political party leaders require brand authenticity as an advocate of the party policy platform and brand authority to command the organization and deliver on the policies being advocated. Implications for party and campaign management are outlined.     

A touchstone of dissent: Euroscepticism in contemporary Western European party systems

Abstract. With the recent acceleration of the integration process of the European Union there has been a rise in political parties expressing either scepticism or outright criticism of the nature of the integration process. Using a four–fold differentiation between single issue, protest, established parties and factions within parties, the first part of the article presents an overview of Euroscepticism within EU member states and Norway. This reveals the diversity of sources of Euroscepticism both in ideology and in the types of parties that are Eurosceptical but with a preponderance of protest parties taking Eurosceptical positions. The second part of the article is an attempt to map Euroscepticism in West European party systems through a consideration of ideology and party position in the party system. The conclusions are that Euroscepticism is mainly limited to parties on the periphery of their party system and is often there used as an issue that differentiates those parties from the more established parties which are only likely to express Euroscepticism through factions. Party based Euroscepticism is therefore both largely dependent on domestic contextual factors and a useful issue to map emergent domestic political constellations.     

Voters' party preferences in multiparty systems and their coalitional and spatial implications: Germany after unification

How should party preferences of voters in a multiparty system be measured, compared and aggregated? We use city block metric of distances between the pairwise comparisons of the five German parties (1995 survey data for West and East Germany). Neither in West nor in East Germany, a party gains the absolute majority of voters' preferences. We derive coalition preferences from the party rankings; the governing coalition of CDU/CSU and FDP is not the winner, compared with other feasible coalitions of the German party system. But the party rankings of the CDU/CSU-FDP coalition leaners are more homogeneous than other groups of coalition leaners. In the second part of the article, we analyze the common structure of all consistent party rankings. Do voters apply the same criteria to evaluate the political parties? Although only a slight majority of individual rankings fit the often used ideological left-right scale, there does not exist a competing one-dimensional order of the parties that would capture more voters. The joint scale of individual party rankings is interpreted as the collective order which facilitates political orientation of voters. This collective order is more pronounced in West than in East Germany where individuals are almost as consistent in their party rankings but where the rankings fit the collective order less well than in West Germany.

     

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.