Why is there no Radical Right Party in Ireland?

The rise of the radical or extreme right parties in Europe – parties usually noted for strong, sometimes racist anti-immigrant ideologies – has attracted a great deal of attention in political science. Ireland, despite having some conditions favourable to the growth of such a party has no radical right party. This paper argues that that this is because the ‘space’ usually occupied by such parties – for young, poor people disaffected by economic change – is taken up by Sinn Féin, which though it has similarities to radical right parties, differs markedly in its attitudes to immigrants. It goes on to explain the special circumstances that prevent nationalist parties in Ireland from presenting overtly anti-immigrant platforms. The focus on anti-immigration and liberal economic policies for such parties may mean that other parties with strong resemblances are excluded from studies they might usefully be included.     

Voter polarisation and party responsiveness: Why parties emphasise divided issues,but remain silent on unified issues

How does voter polarisation affect party responsiveness? Previous research has shown that political parties emphasise political issues that are important to their voters. However, it is posited in this article that political parties are not equally responsive to citizen demands across all issue areas. The hypothesis is that party responsiveness varies considerably with the preference configuration of the electorate. More specifically, it is argued that party responsiveness increases with the polarisation of issues among voters. To test these theoretical expectations, party responsiveness is analysed across nine West European countries from 1982 until 2013. Data on voter attention and voter preferences with regard to specific policy issues from a variety of national election studies is combined with Comparative Manifestos Project data on parties' emphasis of these issues in their election manifestos. The findings have major implications for understanding party competition and political representation in Europe.     

When Voters and Parties Agree: Valence Issues and Party Competition

There has been much talk of valence, consensus or competence politics but little theoretical explanation or empirical investigation of how this has arisen. In this article I argue that British political competition has become competence-based because the major parties and the electorate have converged on the dominant left–right dimension of British voting behaviour. As a result, commonly cited core vote explanations for party polarisation have only limited application. The electorate has converged on left–right issues, narrowing the policy space and the available positional strategies of political parties. A different pattern is found for the issue of Europe, and this is interpreted in light of possible causal mechanisms. The article offers a formal model for a rise in valence politics as parties and voters converge, and the implications are discussed for theories of party competition. I argue in favour of competence and salience-based theories of party strategy in place of a reliance on traditional spatial models.     

The single‐issue party thesis: Extreme right parties and the immigration issue

This article examines the single‐issue party thesis for the specific case of contemporary extreme right parties (ERPs) and the immigration issue. I define the single‐issue party as (1) having an electorate with no particular social structure; (2) being supported predominantly on the basis of one single issue; (3) lacking an ideological programme; and (4) addressing only one all‐encompassing issue. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of electoral studies and party literature the single‐issue party thesis is rejected on all counts. At best, immigration has been a catalyst for most ERPs in certain periods of time. Their ideology and broader programe will keep ERPs in the political arena for some time to come, even in the unlikely event that immigration would cease to be an important political issue.     

When do parties emphasise extreme positions? How strategic incentives for policy differentiation influence issue importance

Parties have an incentive to take up extreme positions in order to achieve policy differentiation and issue ownership, and it would make sense for a party to stress these positions as well. These incentives are not the same for all issues and all parties but may be modified by other strategic conditions: party size, party system size, positional distinctiveness and systemic salience. Using manifesto‐based measures of salience and expert assessments of party positions, the findings in this article are that parties emphasise extreme positions if, first, they are relatively small in terms of vote share; second, the extreme position is distinctive from those of other parties; and third, other parties fail to emphasise the issue. These findings have consequences for our understanding of party strategies, party competition and the radicalisation of political debates.     

The Electoral Effectiveness of Party Organization: Norway, 1945–1977*

Latent Variable Partial Least Squares analysis has been used to model the impact of political party organization on stable and changing patterns of party vote in Norway from 1945 to 1977. For the Norwegian Labor Party, the elaboration of a strategy of organizational encapsulation is at least as important as the economic base for maintaining the stability of the party's electoral support; it also depresses support for the opposition parties. Short-run fluctuations around the long-run stability, however, are more influence by economic changes than party organizational strategies, with the exception of the divisive 1973 election, when party organization was important for maintaining the party vote. For the non-Labor parties, party organization is less important than economic variables.     

Do barriers to candidacy reduce political competition? Evidence from a bachelor’s degree requirement for legislators in Pakistan

In the 2002 election, candidates for Pakistan’s federal legislature had to possess at least a bachelor’s degree. This policy disqualified 60 out of the 207 incumbent legislators from running for election again. Using a difference-in-differences approach with panel data on all electoral constituencies in Pakistan, I find that this ballot access restriction does not affect political competition across all constituencies with disqualified incumbents equally. Stronger political competition is defined as a larger number of candidates contesting election, a smaller vote share and vote margin for the winning candidate, and a less concentrated candidate field, as measured by a Herfindahl–Hirschman index (HHI) of vote shares. Competition declined significantly in constituencies where the disqualified incumbent belonged to a small party and where literacy levels were lower (signifying a smaller pool of substitute candidates). However, political competition increased in areas where the disqualified incumbent was stronger in terms of his winning vote margin.     

Economic Integration,Party Polarisation and Electoral Turnout

Recent research provides evidence that economic integration has a negative effect on electoral turnout. Taking up these recent findings, this article explores the causal chain in more detail. Specifically, it argues that one way by which economic integration affects the calculus of voting is through the positioning of political parties. The expectation is that the polarisation between parties on an economic left–right scale is lower the more integrated an economy is. Consequently, electoral turnout should be lower with less polarisation in the party system. The article employs aggregate-level data from legislative elections in 24 developed democracies. Using data from the Comparative Manifestos Project, evidence is found not only that economic integration has a negative effect on party polarisation as measured on an economic left–right dimension, but also that this in turn exerts a negative effect on electoral turnout.     

Party policy equilibrium for alternative spatial voting models: An application to the Norwegian storting

In recent years a lively debate has emerged concerning the empirical status of the traditional proximity spatial model versus a directional model of voter choice. The central reason for this scholarly interest concerns these models' contrasting implications for parties' policy positioning, with the directional model motivating parties to present extreme policies, but the proximity model promoting centrist positions. To this point, however, there exist no studies that compute parties' optimal strategies in historical elections, for these competing models. This article addresses this issue, by examining party policy strategies in a multiparty electorate for three different vote models: (a) the proximity model, (b) a directional model (c) a mixed model which combines proximity and directional components. Each model incorporates past voting history and the random effects of unmeasured variables. Using parameter estimates derived from analyses of survey data from the 1989 Norwegian Election Study we compute — for each of these vote models — the configuration of party policy positions that maximize each party's vote share in relation to those of the other parties. We find that for each model, such a vote–maximizing configuration exists, but — for the proximity model — represents an unrealistic, tightly clustered array. A mixed proximity–directional model, however, provides by far the most convincing account of parties' actual policy strategies with regard to dispersion and vote share.     

Party policy equilibrium for alternative spatial voting models: An application to the Norwegian Storting

Abstract In recent years a lively debate has emerged concerning the empirical status of the traditional proximity spatial model versus a directional model of voter choice. The central reason for this scholarly interest concerns these models' contrasting implications for parties' policy positioning, with the directional model motivating parties to present extreme policies, but the proximity model promoting centrist positions. To this point, however, there exist no studies that compute parties' optimal strategies in historical elections, for these competing models. This article addresses this issue, by examining party policy strategies in a multiparty electorate for three different vote models: (a) the proximity model, (b) a directional model (c) a mixed model which combines proximity and directional components. Each model incorporates past voting history and the random effects of unmeasured variables. Using parameter estimates derived from analyses of survey data from the 1989 Norwegian Election Study we compute — for each of these vote models — the configuration of party policy positions that maximize each party's vote share in relation to those of the other parties. We find that for each model, such a vote–maximizing configuration exists, but — for the proximity model — represents an unrealistic, tightly clustered array. A mixed proximity–directional model, however, provides by far the most convincing account of parties' actual policy strategies with regard to dispersion and vote share.     

The ‘Hows’, not the ‘Whys’ or the ‘Wherefores’: The Role of Intra‐party Competition in the 2011 Breakthrough of the True Finns

From minor party status, the True Finn Party (PS) claimed nearly one‐fifth of the vote and almost the same proportion of parliamentary seats at the April 2011 Finnish general election. It registered the largest gains made by any party in postwar Finnish history, thus writing – in the eyes of foreign journalists at least – yet another chapter in the surge of populist radical right parties across contemporary Europe. This article, however, is concerned more with how the substantial PS vote was mobilised than with how much was mobilised. The idea is not to identify the primary causes of the PS's national breakthrough, but to explore the internal dynamics of party's explosive growth and the process of translating a large prospective vote into ‘hard votes’ through the ballot boxes. The focus is on district‐level nomination strategies, the range of candidate types, the mechanics of vote optimisation and the distribution of the personal vote. With regard to the latter, the article seeks to measure and analyse the role of intra‐party competition in the anatomy of party transformation and to do so by the novel means of adapting the Laakso‐Taagepera index to measure the ‘effective number of co‐partisans’. Significantly, at the 2011 Eduskunta election the PS exhibited the highest level of intra‐party competition of any of the eight parliamentary parties.     

Electoral competition in Europe's new tripolar political space: Class voting for the left,centre‐right and radical right

The rise of the radical right fundamentally changes the face of electoral competition in Western Europe. Bipolar competition is becoming tripolar, as the two dominant party poles of the twentieth century – the left and the centre‐right – are challenged by a third pole of the radical right. Between 2000 and 2015, the radical right has secured more than 12 per cent of the vote in over ten Western European countries. This article shows how electoral competition between the three party poles plays out at the micro level of social classes. It presents a model of class voting that distinguishes between classes that are a party's preserve, classes that are contested strongholds of two parties and classes over which there is an open competition. Using seven rounds of the European Social Survey, it shows that sociocultural professionals form the party preserve of the left, and large employers and managers the preserve of the centre‐right. However, the radical right competes with the centre‐right for the votes of small business owners, and it challenges the left over its working‐class stronghold. These two contested strongholds attest to the co‐existence of old and new patterns of class voting. Old patterns are structured by an economic conflict: Production workers vote for the left and small business owners for the centre‐right based on their economic attitudes. In contrast, new patterns are linked to the rise of the radical right and structured by a cultural conflict.     

Local labour market competition and radical right voting: Evidence from France

How do the economic effects of immigration affect radical right support? The evidence in support of the labour market competition theory — which posits that the economic threat posed by immigration to jobs and wages leads to radical right voting — has been mixed. On the one hand, individual-level surveys underreport economic drivers because of social desirability bias. On the other hand, contextual studies show contradictory findings due to an over-reliance on units of analysis that are too aggregated to meaningfully capture the competitive threat posed by immigrants. This paper identifies the influence of labour market competition on radical right voting at a local level in contexts where native workers are directly affected by the arrival of immigrants who have similar or higher skillsets. Using an original longitudinal dataset of fine-grained municipal electoral, demographic and economic data from France over the 2002–2017 period, the paper provides empirical evidence of local contextual influences of economic competition between natives and immigrants of any skillset. Under local conditions of material deprivation, measured by the local unemployment rate, the effect of labour market competition on municipalities’ radical right vote share is amplified. Moreover, higher radical right support is observed in municipalities with a higher share of any one of the following groups: low-skilled natives, medium-skilled immigrants or high-skilled immigrants. This supports the hypothesis that immigrants with higher qualifications are compelled to accept lower-skilled jobs, and are thus perceived as a competitive threat to low-skilled natives. By reconciling radical right contextual studies and research on the political economy of immigration policies, this paper highlights the importance of a local analysis in detecting the effect of labour market competition on radical right support. This paper also explains why some local areas are more prone to radical right support than others over time.     

The VP-function: A survey of the literature on vote and popularity functions after 25 years

VP-functions explain the support for the government at votes and polls by economic and political variables. Most studies analyze macro time series. We also cover studies of individual voters, socio-economic groups and regional cross-sections. The theory starts from the Responsibility Hypothesis: voters hold the government responsible for economic conditions. It works in two party/block systems, but not else. Voters in most countries are found to be sociotropic. Egotropic voting also occurs. Voters' myopia is well established. Voting is retrospective as expectations are static. It costs the average government almost 2% of the vote to rule.     

The dynamics of issue competence and vote for parties in and out of power: An analysis of valence in Britain, 1979–1997

This article develops the reward‐punishment issue model of voting using a newly collated aggregate measure of issue competence in Britain between 1971 and 1997, revealing systematic differences between governing and opposition parties in the way citizens' evaluations of party competence are related to vote intention. Using monthly Gallup ‘best party to handle the most important problem’ and vote intention data, time series Granger‐causation tests give support to a classic issue reward‐punishment model for incumbents. However, for opposition parties this reward‐punishment model does not hold: macro‐issue competence evaluations are Granger‐caused by changes in vote choice or governing party competence. An explanation is offered based upon the differentiating role of policy performance and informational asymmetries, and the implications are considered for comparative studies of voting, public opinion and for political party competition.     

Political opportunity structures and right-wing extremist party success

West European right-wing extremist parties have received a great deal of attention over the past two decades due to their electoral success. What has received less coverage, however, is the fact that these parties have not enjoyed a consistent level of electoral support across Western Europe during this period. This article puts forward an explanation of the variation in the right-wing extremist party vote across Western Europe that incorporates a wider range of factors than have been considered previously. It begins by examining the impact of socio-demographic variables on the right-wing extremist party vote. Then, it turns its attention to a whole host of structural factors that may potentially affect the extreme right party vote, including institutional, party-system and conjunctural variables. The article concludes with an assessment of which variables have the most power in explaining the uneven electoral success of right-wing extremist parties across Western Europe. The findings go some way towards challenging the conventional wisdom as to how the advance of the parties of the extreme right may be halted.     

Measuring “Correct Voting” Using Comparative Manifestos Project Data

The extent to which citizens vote in accordance with their own principles and priorities has been proposed as an important measure of a democracy's health. This article introduces a new method of evaluating the ability of individuals to vote for the political party with policy positions closest to their own – to vote “correctly”. Following Lau and Redlawsk (1997), a “correct vote” is defined as the vote choice individuals would make under conditions of perfect information. In other words, a vote is “correct” if it is cast for the party that a voter should vote for, based upon a fully informed comparison of his or her policy positions with those of the parties contesting an election. Voters' policy preferences are estimated here using election study data, and the positions of parties are derived through data from the Comparative Manifestos Project. For illustrative purposes, this new method is applied to the 2004 Canadian federal election. Correct voting rates are calculated by comparing voter and party positions in seven dimensions of political competition, accounting for the relative importance of each dimension. While this study's data are exclusively Canadian, the approach introduced is applicable to other settings.     

Reconsidering Nordic Party Space1

The erosion of the social and economic bases underlying traditional party systems has led analysts to search for new cleavage structures undergirding the present party systems. Meanwhile, analysts have identified a range of issue dimensions that also bear on voters’ party preferences. This article studies the degree to which grid-group theory's four political biases of hierarchy, egalitarianism, individualism, and fatalism can make inroads into the left–right dimension's stronghold in accounting for voters’ party preference. The analysis draws on a 1999 survey in the five Nordic countries (N= 4,832). The method combines voters’ party preferences with their scores on issue dimensions, or political dimensions. Analyses show that conventional party families, with one exception, are not identified along any of the five political orientations. Only the five conservative parties are exclusively identified as a party family on the left–right dimension. Party preference is more closely associated with the left–right dimension than the political biases. Sweden has the purest and simplest party cleavage, whereas Denmark has the most composite one. Across the Nordic countries, the green party family is most dissimilar, whereas the progress siblings are most alike. The left–right dimension accounts well for differences between parties within polities, whereas political biases, and egalitarianism in particular, account well for differences between parties of similar origin across polities.     

High turnout in the Low Countries: Partisan effects of the abolition of compulsory voting in the Netherlands

We use a quasi-experimental framework to test the conventional wisdom that left-of-center parties benefit from higher turnout by analyzing the partisan effects of the abolition of compulsory voting in the Netherlands. Fixed effects, multilevel, and matching models of party family vote shares in the Netherlands before and after the reform–and in reference to a control group of Belgian party families–show consistent evidence the voting reform led to an increase in the vote share of Dutch social democratic parties and a decrease in the vote share won by minor and extreme parties. We find some evidence that Christian democratic and liberal parties also benefited from the voting reform, but argue this finding is not causally related to the reform itself.     

Old right or new right? The ideological positioning of parties of the far right

Abstract.  Since the 1980s, parties of the far right have increased their share of votes in many Western European nations, and some have even participated in governing coalitions. The ascendancy of far right parties has been met with various hypotheses attempting to rationalize their role in the politics of these nations: Are far right parties a manifestation of protest politics, brought about by hard economic times (old right model), or are they representative of the continued political development of Western industrialized nations (new right model)? Most analyses have focused on the voters for these parties; this work focuses on the election manifestos of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), National Front of France (FN), Italian National Alliance (MSI-AN), Lega Nord (LN) and the Germany Republikaner (Reps) in order to reconstruct the dimensions of party competition in each nation and determine where each of these parties fall within the dimensions of party competition. Support is shown for a new right axis of party competition, suggesting that parties of the far right may in fact be part of the political development of Western European nations.