The 2005 Danish general election: A phase of consolidation

On 18 January 2005, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called for a general election to be held on 8 February 2005, nine months before the deadline for the next election. Political themes are usually cited when calling Danish elections, but this time the calendar was used as an excuse: because of major reforms to the municipal structure, a significant amount of legislation had to be negotiated and settled in the spring, and it was unclear whether this could be done by June, thereby hindering an election in late spring; and an election in September could possibly overshadow the important elections to the new municipal councils (created as a result of the reform) in November. Nevertheless, favourable opinion polls undoubtedly also played a major role when the Prime Minister asked the Danes to renew and extend the mandate of his Liberal–Conservative (aka Venstre–Conservative) coalition government.     

The Portuguese 2005 legislative election: Return to the left

According to the ‘decline of parliaments’ thesis that dominates the literature, the executive branch has increased its powers vis-à-vis the legislature. However, at the same time most studies indicate that the parliaments in the Nordic region are on average stronger than their counterparts in central and southern European countries. This article examines the validity of the ‘decline of parliaments’ thesis in the context of Finland, a country where recent constitutional reforms have strengthened parliamentarism by reducing the powers of the president and empowering the government and the parliament. Analysing the constitutional balance of power between state organs, the interaction between the government and the opposition, and the ability of the parliament to hold the cabinet accountable, this article argues that despite its stronger constitutional position, the Eduskunta faces considerable difficulties in controlling the government.     

Choosing the least-worst government: The British general election of 2005

This article provides an overview of the British general election of 2005. It examines the major political issues that arose during the Blair government's second term in office and their impact on the governing Labour Party's electoral support. Despite voters' growing sense of weariness with Labour, the Conservative opposition failed to convince the electorate that it was a credible government-in-waiting. The result was that Labour was comfortably returned to office, though with a much-reduced majority. The Liberal Democrats profited from the unpopularity of the Iraq War, while minor parties won their highest ever tally of votes.     

Distant friends and nearby enemies: The politics of legislative coalition formation

It is usually thought that a coalition leader in a legislature will construct coalitions of legislators who are ‘close’ to each other in the policy space. However, if there is some ‘status quo’ or other reversion point that will hold if the coalition leader fails to construct a winning coalition, a counter-intuitive result about the nature of these coalitions emerges: the coalition leader may be forced to construct a coalition which includes legislators who are ‘distant’ from him and which excludes legislators who are ‘close’ to him.     

The undecided voters and the economy: Campaign heterogeneity in the 2005 British general election

Research and conventional wisdom suggest that undecided voters are especially prone to campaign persuasion. Little has been done, however, in the way of uncovering the decision pathways followed by these voters. In this paper we seek to assess the undecided voters’ alleged campaign susceptibility and, most importantly, to explore which campaign considerations inform their final voting decisions. Our central finding is that their behaviour is driven to a larger extent by economic performance and less by leadership or other valence evaluations. This finding has important implications for parties’ campaign strategies in an era where the ranks of undecided voters are steadily expanding from one election to the other.     

Politicians on TV news: Getting attention in Dutch and German election campaigns

Abstract. Different strategies apply in the Netherlands and in Germany when TV channels have to decide how often politicians are mentioned or shown in the news during national election campaigns. Extensive content analyses in the 1990s suggest that Dutch political and media traditions promote a more equally distributed attention to different political positions. In Germany, TV news focuses almost exclusively on the incumbent candidate for the top function of the national government (the office of Chancellor) and his challengers. The likely causes are not only the political system and the particular circumstances of the 1990s (with the pre–eminence of Helmut Kohl), but also recent developments in the way in which German journalists define their task.     

Junior coalition parties in the British context: Explaining the Liberal Democrat collapse at the 2015 general election

The Liberal Democrats’ performance in the 2015 general election provides an opportunity to examine the only case in the post-war period of a national junior coalition partner in British politics. Comparative research highlights competence, trust and leadership as three key challenges facing junior coalition parties. This article uses British Election Study data to show that the Liberal Democrats failed to convince the electorate on all three counts. The article also uses constituency-level data to examine the continued benefits of incumbency to the party and the impact of constituency campaigning. It finds that while the incumbency advantage remained for the Liberal Democrats, it was ultimately unable to mitigate the much larger national collapse.     

Partisan politics and stock market performance: The effect of expected government partisanship on stock returns in the 2002 German federal election

Rational partisan theory suggests that firms perform better under right- than left-leaning governments. In the pre-election time, investors should anticipate these effects of government partisanship. This is the first study to investigate such anticipated partisan effects in Germany. Applying conditional volatility models we analyze the impact of expected government partisanship on stock market performance in the 2002 German federal election. Our results show that small-firm stock returns were positively (negatively) linked to the probability of a right- (left-) leaning coalition winning the election. Moreover, we find that volatility increased as the electoral prospects of right-leaning parties improved, while greater electoral uncertainty had a volatility-reducing effect.