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.     

Electoral entry and success of ethnic minority parties in central and eastern Europe: A hierarchical selection model

The paper examines determinants of electoral entry and success of ethnic minority parties in central and eastern Europe. The application of a hierarchical selection model shows that the strategic entry of minority parties depends on their expected electoral success due both to observed and unobserved factors. Drawing on formal models of electoral entry, the electoral success of new (or niche) parties is expected to be influenced by the costs of entry (determined by electoral thresholds) and the potential for electoral support. The latter depends on the reactions of political competitors and electoral demand, measured here as the size of ethnic groups and the saliency of ethnic issues. In line with these expectations, parties only run if they can expect electoral support sufficient to pass the electoral threshold. This finding would have been overlooked by a naïve model of electoral success which does not take self-selection into account.     

It's not always the campaign – Explaining inter-election switching in Germany, 2009–2013

Inter-election volatility is essential for the functioning of democracy. In accounting for the underlying processes prior research focused on campaign volatility, while neglecting between-campaign volatility. This neglect is not warranted however. Between-campaign periods may include multiple events that set the stage for electoral competition and shape citizens' political cognitions, attitudes and party preference until the next election. Depending on the flow of political communication, between-campaign periods may considerably contribute to inter-election volatility. Drawing on a data set from an intra- and inter-election panel survey conducted in the 2009 and 2013 German federal elections, the evidence suggests that between-campaign changes in party preferences and political attitudes were at least as important as within-campaign changes in contributing to inter-election switching. Moreover, political involvement is less powerful in conditioning electoral volatility than suggested by conventional wisdom. The analysis thus provides a first step toward a general account of inter-election volatility.     

Economic Conditions Affect Support for Prime Minister Parties in Scandinavia

Previous research has not been able to identify a relationship between objective economic indicators and support for governing parties in the Scandinavian countries. This is potentially problematic, as it suggests that political leaders are not held electorally accountable for the economic conditions they provide for their electorates. In this article, it is suggested that this null‐finding is a result of the particularities of the Scandinavian electoral context, which makes it difficult to identify the effects of the economy on electoral support. To bolster this argument, the relationship between unemployment, economic growth and support for prime minister parties is re‐examined in two datasets. The first is a dataset of Scandinavian elections, and the second is a yearly Danish vote function, which was constructed using election polls. Across both datasets, it is found that if one simply correlates support for the prime minister's party with economic conditions, there is no relationship; however, if one specifies a statistical model, which takes the Scandinavian context into account, it is possible to identify a statistically significant effect of economic conditions on electoral support. Based on this finding, the article concludes that economic conditions do shape electoral support for prime minister parties in Scandinavia.     

Can wedge strategies by mainstream parties cross-cut the anti-immigration far right vote?

Anti-immigration campaigns have helped far right parties to establish themselves in party systems around the world. We examine whether mainstream parties can employ wedge issue campaigns that divide the far right anti-immigration vote to win back electoral support. Wedge issues that cross-cut the anti-immigration vote may enhance the electoral support of mainstream parties, as long as they do not simultaneously alienate pro-immigration voters. We evaluate this expectation using a panel survey experiment conducted during the 2021 German federal election. The first wave allows us to identify wedge issues that the mainstream CDU/CSU can stress to cross-cut the anti-immigration vote. The second wave raises the salience of these issues by manipulating the perceived issue agenda of the CDU/CSU using hypothetical campaign posters. While our results show that wedge issue strategies are not effective on average, exploratory analyses reveal the potential of strategically targeted messaging in winning back support of some anti-immigration voters.     

Demonisation and electoral support for populist radical right parties: A temporary effect

Since the 1980s, Western Europe has experienced the surge of populist radical right parties. In an attempt to ward off these electoral newcomers, established parties have pursued strategies of disengagement, such as exclusion and de-legitimisation. This study examines the electoral effects of an excessive form of de-legitimisation, which we label ‘demonisation’. We estimate the effects of demonisation on electoral support for the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) and its predecessor Groep Wilders. Time series analyses show that demonisation has a negative effect on electoral support, but only for Groep Wilders. Once the populist radical right party has made a successful entry into the party system, demonisation does not have its intended consequences.     

Trading party preferences: the Australian experience of preferential voting

Political parties respond to electoral rules in ways which gain them partisan advantage and enable them to make strategic choices about the use of their electoral support. The alternative vote (AV) and proportional representation by the single transferable vote (STV) provide considerable opportunity for this kind of partisan activity. The ability of the voter under such electoral systems to rank candidates in order of the voter's preference creates a kind of property which can be used by parties, especially minor parties, to influence the behaviour of both candidates and other parties. The paper investigates this aspect of preferential voting systems and the extent to which the context of electoral rules can encourage or discourage a trade in partisan preferences. Elections for the Australian House of Representatives and Senate are used to show how political actors can respond to electoral rules which permit the control and trading of preferences to be developed into a series of sophisticated transactions.     

Political trust and the vote in multiparty elections: The Canadian case

Abstract.  While the causes of declining political trust have been investigated extensively in the literature, much less empirical effort has been devoted to the study of its behavioural implications. This article focuses on the decline of trust in Canada during the period 1984 to 1993, and on its effect on Canadian voting behaviour. We build upon M.J. Hetherington's ('The effect of political trust on the presidential vote, 1968–1996', American Political Science Review 93 (1999): 311–326) work to explore the impact of political trust on the vote and on abstention in a multiparty electoral context. Multinomial logit estimations are performed using individual-level survey data from three Canadian federal elections. While distrust is shown to significantly affect electoral participation, thus acting as an alienating factor, the results indicate that decreasing trust acts more as a motivation to support third-party alternatives. The study further demonstrates that, in a multiple party setting, 'old-line' major parties electorally suffer from declining political trust, but some third parties benefit more from this phenomenon than others. Contrary to what was the case in the previous two elections, distrustful individuals in 1993 were more likely to vote for the Reform Party or the Bloc Québécois than support the New Democratic Party.     

Opinion Polls,Coalition Signals and Strategic Voting: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Recent studies find that defection from one's most preferred party to some other party is as common under proportional representation (PR) as it is in plurality systems. It is less elaborated how election‐specific contextual factors affect strategic vote choice under PR. This study looks at the impact of two potentially important contextual factors: parties’ coalition signals about cooperation with other parties (referred to as ‘pre‐electoral coalitions’) and polling information, which vary from one election to the next. The focus is strategic voting for smaller parties at risk of falling below an electoral threshold. The hypothesis is that parties that are included in well‐defined coalitions will benefit from strategic ‘insurance’ votes if the polls show that they have support slightly below the threshold. However, smaller parties that do not belong to a coalition would be less likely to benefit from insurance votes. Extensive survey experiments with randomized coalition signals and polls give support to the idea that a voter's tendency to cast an insurance vote depends on whether the polls show support below or above the threshold and whether the party is included in a coalition or not.     

Right‐wing populist parties in Austria and Switzerland: A comparative analysis of electoral support and conditions of success

This article analyses the electoral support and parliamentary representation of right‐wing populist parties in Austria (FPO) and Switzerland (SD, AP/FPS, Lega dei Ticinesi). Contrary to the empirical evidence in many other fields of the political systems in these two Alpine republics, the analysis reveals strong differences rather than similiarities in the electoral support of right‐wing populist parties in both countries. This is explained by the differences in political culture and historic circumstances, performance of the established (governing) parties, party political penetration of social institutions, structure of the party system and the contrasting importance of direct‐democratic structures in the two countries. The exceptional skill of the right‐wing populist leader in Austria can also be seen as a significant factor. In contrast, neither social and economic variables, such as the economic situation, the unemployment rate and the overall number of asylum‐seekers, nor the strength and performance of green‐alternative parties seem to be important factors in explaining the differing success of right‐wing populist parties in Austria and Switzerland.     

Conservative Mobilization and Fiscal Policies

The two conservative parties in Norway, the old Conservative Party and the younger Progressive Party increased their electoral support from 23 percent in 1975 to 34 percent in the election of 1987. The electoral mobilization by these conservative parties was mainly based on an ideologically inspired rhetoric of reduced government spending and corresponding tax reductions. With the benefit of hindsight, it may be argued that these were policies to which the two parties did not live up. Whatever their political strength in the local arena, they were unable to reduce local government income taxes. But when analysing other fiscal strategies available to local governments we do find differences related to political strength, even if the findings are not always as expected. Municipalities dominated by the conservatives are run on the principle of families paying the actual costs of having children in public day-care institutions. But so are socialist-dominated municipalities. Conservative and socialist municipalities tend to subsidize fees for home-help services for the elderly. The main fiscal source of the conservatives is fees and charges on technical services used by every household and paid according to costs. The watershed between socialist and conservative parties appears as we analyse the use of property tax - a tax used much more frequently by socialist than by conservative and centrist parties.     

Demassified Mass Parties or Overloaded Cadre Parties? The Impact of Parties on Electoral Outcome in Finland*

This article examines the frequently cited hypothesis of the changes in modern party organizations towards the catch-all model, and of the attempt of political parties to counter threats of electoral failure by intensifying membership support. The results indicate that in Finland former mass parties have been demassified and cadre parties have been overloaded. However, there are differences in party alignments and in the internal organizational structure of the parties that make a strict application of the catch-all concept problematic The findings also give evidence of a threat of declining electoral success that has implications for the membership support in the parties in very special situations. The threat from other parties seems to have only little or no effect on the membership figures. But when this threat is combined with a steady erosion in the traditional social bases of the parties, then the party response can be strong for the purpose of widening the electoral market by personal influence, as was the case with the rural Center party in Finland.     

Mind the gap: How party–voter incongruence fuels the entry and support of new parties

This article examines to what extent ideological incongruence (i.e., mismatch between policy positions of voters and parties) increases the entry of new parties in national parliamentary elections and their individual-level electoral support. Current empirical research on party entry and new party support either neglects the role of party–voter incongruence, or it only examines its effect on the entry and support of specific new parties or party families. This article fills this lacuna. Based on spatial theory, we hypothesise that parties are more likely to enter when ideological incongruence between voters and parties is higher (Study 1) and that voters are more likely to vote for new parties if these stand closer to them than established parties (Study 2). Together our two studies span 17 countries between 1996 and 2016. Time-series analyses support both hypotheses. This has important implications for spatial models of elections and empirical research on party entry and new party support.     

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.     

Is government good for Greens? Comparing the electoral effects of government participation in Western and East-Central Europe

Abstract.  Examining the record of Green parties that have been involved in government at national level, two distinct pictures emerge. While the electoral fortunes of Green parties in East-Central Europe sharply declined after their stint in government, Green parties in Western Europe on the whole have not fared badly, with most experiencing gains in support. This article seeks to address the variety of factors that could account for different Green electoral fortunes. Among the approaches considered are economic voting, environmental issue salience, portfolio allocation, policy impact and strategic voting. While economic and environmental background factors clearly were important in the East-Central European cases, they are less useful in explaining variation between the West European experiences. The ability of Greens to improve their perceived policy competence and the profile of their leading politicians has helped them benefit from a period in office. Most crucially, Greens can benefit from strategic voting where a Green vote comes to represent support for the government as a whole. The main conclusion is that there are two paths to post-incumbency success: either Greens try to remain distant from taking full government responsibility, thus deflecting any electoral costs of incumbency, or they embrace government and the chance of demonstrating their competence fully to survive or fall with the government as a whole.     

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.     

Voting for the Radical Right in Swedish Municipalities: Social Marginality and Ethnic Competition?

Sweden is no longer a negative, exceptional case regarding the presence of radical right‐wing populist parties. The Sweden Democrats has continually grown stronger, and in 2010 they won seats in the Swedish parliament. However, their electoral support varies considerably across Sweden. This study analyses their electoral support in 290 Swedish municipalities in order to explain this variance. Support is found for the social marginality hypothesis: electoral support for the Sweden Democrats tends to be negatively correlated with the average level of education and with the Gross Regional Product per capita, and positively correlated with the unemployment rate. The ethnic competition hypothesis, that there is a positive correlation between the proportion of immigrants and electoral support of the Sweden Democrats, is also supported.     

Are higher-magnitude electoral districts always better for small parties?

High-magnitude electoral districts are widely believed to lead to greater representation for smaller parties. This article refines the conventional wisdom by taking electoral geography into account. When small political parties have geographically concentrated support bases, then no systematic relationship exists between district magnitude and legislative representation. High-magnitude districts do not advantage small parties whose supporters are geographically concentrated. Evidence in support of this claim comes from India and Israel. The article shows what counterfactual Indian and Israeli legislatures would look like if seats were allocated using electoral districts of varying magnitudes and highlights how parties with geographically concentrated support bases win similar seat totals, irrespective of district magnitude.     

Origins of party formation and new party success in advanced democracies

Which new parties entered national parliaments in advanced democracies over the last four decades and how did they perform after their national breakthrough? This article argues that distinguishing two types of party formation (that facilitate or complicate party institutionalisation) helps to explain why some entries flourish, while others vanish quickly from the national stage. New parties formed by individual entrepreneurs that cannot rely on ties to already organised groups are less likely to get reelected to parliament after breakthrough than rooted newcomers. This hypothesis is tested on a newly compiled dataset of new parties that entered parliaments in 17 advanced democracies from 1968 onwards. Applying multilevel analyses, the factors that shape newcomers' capacity to reenter parliament after breakthrough are assessed. Five factors have significant effects, yet affect party performance only in particular phases: both a party's electoral support at breakthrough and its operation in a system with a strong regional tier increase the likelihood of initial reelection. In contrast, a distinct programmatic profile, the permissiveness of the electoral system and easy access to free broadcasting increase a party's chance of repeated reelection. Only formation type significantly affects both phases and does so most strongly, substantiating the theoretical approach used in this article.     

Anti-immigrant parties in Europe: Ideological or protest vote?

Abstract. In this article we address the question whether or not the votes for anti–immigrant parties can be considered as protest votes. We define protest votes by the motives underlying electoral choices, building on earlier research done by Tillie (1995) and Van der Eijk & Franklin (1996). That research showed that ideological proximity and party size are the best predictors of party preference. On this basis we designed a typology of motives for party choice and how these motives would manifest themselves empirically. Analyzing the 1994 elections for the European Parliament for seven political systems we show that anti–immigrant parties attract no more protest votes than other parties do, with only one exception: the Dutch Centrumdemocraten. Voting for anti–immigrant parties is largely motivated by ideological and pragmatic considerations, just like voting for other parties. In addition, (negative) attitudes towards immigrants have a stronger effect on preferences for anti–immigrant parties than on preference for other parties. Social cleavages and attitudes towards European unification are of minor importance as determinants of preferences for anti–immigrant parties. The overall conclusion is that a rational choice model of electoral behavior has strong explanatory power for party preferences in general, but also for the support for anti–immigrant parties in particular.