Antecedents of political market orientation in Britain and Sweden: analysis and future research propositions

• During the last 20 years, political marketing has become a widespread phenomenon around the world. However, most of the research concerning political marketing has been carried out in countries such as the United States and Britain. Thus, in order to understand the antecedents of political marketing, as well as its effectiveness as an electoral strategy, there is a need for comparative research including countries that differ significantly from the U.S. and Britain.
• One such country is Sweden. Thus, the purpose of this article is to compare and analyze Sweden and Britain with regard to two analytical research questions: (1) What differences are there between Britain and Sweden that might be relevant in understanding why parties choose to be sales‐ or market‐oriented? (2) What are the implications with regards to differences between countries and between parties within countries that might help to explain why some parties in some countries are more likely than others to be market‐oriented?

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interethnic tolerance,education, and political orientation: Evidence from Denmark

Focusing on the relationship between education and tolerance toward ethnic out-groups in the Danish public, this analysis presents evidence in support of the argument that an important mechanism behind the positive impact of education on tolerance is cognitive constraint: Academic education promotes the ability to connect ideas, and minds equipped with this ability will tend to generalize the norms of the prevailing democratic culture to include ethnic relations. This tendency is particularly apparent when political orientations of the liberal left are added to common democratic norms. The constrained mind that holds left-leaning political beliefs is compelled to express ethnic tolerance. On the other hand, constrained minds permit themselves to be intolerant only when subscribing to right-wing political ideas explicitly at variance with liberal democratic ideals. Interestingly, cognitive constraint is high also in the minority among people lacking in academic education that scores high on tolerance. Compared to their less tolerant peers, the members of this minority are much more likely to be involved in political organizations, for the most part at the ideological left. This indicates that in Denmark such organizations serve a function that in terms of fostering ability to connect ideas is equivalent to the function of academic institutions.     

Stakeholders in the political marketing context

Stakeholders influence the ability of organisations to achieve their aims, but little work has been carried out into understanding the stakeholder concept as applied to political actors. This paper first discusses the contextual nature of stakeholders using normative and strategic, and broad and narrow dimensions, integrating these 2 dimensions with power asymmetries and reciprocity. This paper then argues that a broad stakeholder concept for the political marketing context reconciles strategic and normative issues, as whilst successful interactions with specific stakeholders are necessary to achieve completed political exchanges of value, all stakeholders that exist in democratic societies have some form of moral claim to representation. As each political exchange of value consists of 3 consecutive interactions, the direct stakeholders in 1 interaction become indirect stakeholders in subsequent interactions. As each interaction occurs within a “marketplace” context, interactions in previous marketplace(s) together with expectations of the impact on future marketplace(s) influence current decision‐making. Finally, it is proposed that in the political marketing context, the stakeholder concept can be defined as “context‐specific agents that directly or indirectly influence or are influenced by the political actor.”     

Sexual orientation,political trust,and same-sex relationship recognition policies: evidence from Europe

Public Choice - This study uses data from the European Social Survey to analyze the impact of same-sex relationship recognition policies on the political trust of sexual minorities. We exploit...     

The internal‐external marketing orientation of a political party: social implications of political party marketing orientation

This paper attempts to examine and define marketing's role and significance in the political arena and understand the social implications of political marketing more appropriately. A case study was undertaken to examine a major Australian political party's marketing orientation using key facets of the Kotler and Andreasen (1991) typology of internal versus external orientation and the Kohli and Jaworski (1990) market orientation perspective. An examination of this nature has previously not been undertaken in the area of political marketing to explore the social marketing issues from the marketer's perspective. The findings indicate significant issues for parties and marketing researchers to consider in relation to marketing and market orientation of political parties. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

The political context and Duverger's theory: Evidence at the district level

A central tenet of electoral systems' research is that more parties should get votes in districts with large magnitudes than in districts with smaller magnitudes. This proposition is largely untested at the district level, even though that is the level at which relevant pressures are expected to work. At the aggregate level, research has found that there are systematic deviations from Duverger's law related to incentives from ethnolinguistic fragmentation, institutions, and strategic voting. This analysis confirms that many of these results hold at the district level, which is the most appropriate level for testing Duverger's law. District level party-system fragmentation patterns in 44 countries support Duverger's basic hypotheses. The effect of electoral institutions is contingent, however, upon the presence of social cleavages that generate pressures for additional parties, the establishment of patterns of party-system competition that help voters evaluate contenders' viability, and the absence of competing incentives generated by districts of varying magnitudes. These effects are robust to different specifications of social heterogeneity. However, we find no evidence that institutional features like federalism or presidentialism reduce the strategic effects of district level factors.     

Vanuatu: The evolution of the administrative and political context of decentralization

Local government came late to Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) and even then was more a response to external events than a reflection of community interests. The first local council experiment, from 1957 to 1958, failed because of rivalry between the colonial powers, Britain and France. Subsequently national political developments set up additional obstacles to the successful functioning of local government. Political conflicts at the national level, reflecting the divisions created by the Anglo-French condominium, delayed implementation and undermined the administrative viability and democratic quality of local councils. Popular support for and trust in local government has not developed. A system created in haste and altered to serve the interests of competing national elites has not been able to adapt to the needs of local communities. A viable system of decentralization requires a degree of national consensus to be combined with local involvement in planning and implementation.     

Corporate social responsibility commitment of small‐to‐medium enterprises and organizational competitive differentiation: Stakeholder pressure,market orientation,and socioeconomic context effects

This paper aims to examine the role of stakeholder pressure and market orientation in explaining the corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments and the organizational competitive differentiation of small and medium enterprises. The socioeconomic context, that is, favorable versus unfavorable, was used as a moderator in above links. The results verify the strong influence of stakeholder's pressure on CSR commitments and the influence of stakeholder pressure and market orientation on organizational competitive differentiation. The socioeconomic context confirms to have a significant moderating role in the hypothesized links. In a favorable context, stakeholder pressure turns out to be relevant in explaining CSR commitments and the organizational competitive differentiation, and CSR commitments itself also have a significantly positive effect on organizational competitive differentiation. In an unfavorable context, market orientation provides a significantly positive support to CSR commitments and organizational competitive differentiation.     

Institutions,governmental performance and the rise of political newcomers

This article analyses the institutional and contextual factors that facilitate the election of political newcomers as heads of government in democratic regimes. Using data from 870 democratic elections between 1945 and 2015, it is found that political newcomers are more likely to be successful in presidential systems, in new democracies and when party systems are weakly institutionalised. The election of politically inexperienced candidates is also related to governmental performance. Political newcomers are more successful when the economic performance of the government is bad and when the government engages in high‐level corruption.     

Local racial context,campaign messaging,and public political behavior: A congressional campaign field experiment

Local racial contexts influence public opinion and voting behaviors. This paper argues that differences in community racial demographics also change public political behavior and influence the effectiveness of different campaign appeals to change public political behaviors of white Americans. Using data from an experiment run by a congressional primary campaign, I examine the responses of white Republicans to display a yard sign of a white Republican running against a Latino Republican. Consistent with theories of racial threat, whites in Latino neighborhoods were more likely to be willing to post yard signs. Moreover, the results also show that the effectiveness of different campaign appeals varies by neighborhood racial context. These findings show that racial diversity affects the public political behaviors of white Americans and, more importantly, changes the effectiveness of different campaign appeals.     

The role of the political context in voting indecision

A substantive portion of the electorate declares in pre-electoral surveys that they are undecided. However, little has been done in trying to understand who these voters are and how they finally decide their vote. In this article, we try to advance the literature by disentangling the circumstances under which voters are more likely to be undecided. While the traditional approach to the study of electoral indecision has been to characterize which individual traits make voters more likely to be undecided, this article provides consistent evidence showing that key elements of the political context may also affect electoral indecision. Using long-term harmonized data from Spanish pre-electoral surveys over 30 years, we find that voting indecision is influenced by two different types of contextual factors. First, there are some political contexts that reduce voters' cognitive costs when deciding their vote, i.e. the level of electoral competitiveness and the number of parties competing in the elections. Second, there are other political contexts that increase voters' social or expressive costs, i.e. the level of government popularity, since costs of expressing preference for the party in government increases when its public image is undermined.     

The social logic of political choice: Picking a political party in the context of immediate social circles

The Social Logic of Politics places social learning at the center of political choice. People develop their political preferences, knowledge, values, perceptions of ability, and decisions about political behavior in interactions with others, usually members of their social circles. Political attitudes and goals are not derivatives of exogenous economic preferences. They are not the results of careful calculations, in which optimization of personal needs guides the mode of reasoning. This theoretical stance draws sustenance from recent work across the social science, even as it harkens back to established, if neglected principles of political analysis. My thanks to Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck for his encouragement and for the critical comments of several anonymous referees and to Josip Dasović and Jennifer Fitzgerald, my co-authors of Partisan Families: the Social Logic of Bounded Partisanship in Germany and Britain (Zuckerman et al. 2007). Material from that book appears in this essay.     

Local political leaders and context awareness: identifying perceptions of autonomy and efficacy

Leadership theories fail to explain how leaders acquire and interpret context. This article claims that political leadership styles articulate a choice of action that results from the leader's discerned possibilities to act. In order to explore these interpreted contextual determinants of leadership styles and the degree to which “possibility” has an influence over them, our research used a multiple case study design, with extensive interviews. Focusing on context awareness as a way of unveiling style determinants, I claim that it will produce different effects on leadership styles as a consequence of the leader's sense of autonomy and of political efficacy.     

Triggers for protest: Modelling responses to the political context in Britain, 2000–2002

Abstract.  Failing to take into account the impact of the political context on protest has serious empirical and theoretical implications for our understanding of the phenomenon. First, it means that protest is conceptualised in rather general terms, and second, accounts of why people participate are therefore somewhat static, emphasising factors that predispose people to protest over more dynamic factors that stimulate protest. This undermines theoretical explanations of action based on rational choice and privileges more sociological accounts of behaviour. By adopting a novel methodological approach and analysing change over time, this article sheds light on the factors that 'trigger' protest. In doing so, it shows that the dynamics of protest can be expressed successfully within a rational choice framework.     

Economic voting: The effect of political context, volatility and turnout on voters' assignment of responsibility

Abstract.  This study analyses macroeconomic conditions and the electoral fortune of incumbents in 21 parliamentary Western countries between 1950 and 1997 in 266 national elections. Voters' assignment of responsibility for the state of the national economy is assumed to vary according to the context of the election. Building on previous research, the importance of the political context – clarity of responsibility and availability of alternatives – is analysed. The study also breaks new ground by introducing two new contexts of importance: volatility, seen from a systemic perspective, and the trend in turnout. The contextual hypothesis is confirmed. The universal economic effect as such is very weak indeed. However, given a favourable political and institutional environment (clear responsibility structure and availability of alternatives), an economic effect appears. Tests including the new contexts created on the basis of behavioural patterns in the electorate (system volatility and turnout trend) identify elections where the economic effects are even stronger.     

Labour market risks and political preferences: The case of temporary employment

The political economy literature has gathered compelling evidence that labour market risks shape political preferences. Accordingly, insecurity fuels support for redistribution and left parties. This article analyses this argument for temporary workers, a so far neglected risk category which has increased dramatically in the past two decades. Temporary workers also have been in the focus of recent insider‐outsider debates. Some authors in this line of research have argued that temporary work leads to political disenchantment – for example, non‐instrumental responses such as vote abstention or protest voting. This contradicts risk‐based explanations of political preferences. The article discusses both theoretical perspectives and derives conflicting hypotheses for the empirical analysis of temporary workers' policy and party preferences. The review reveals considerable ambiguity regarding the questions which parties temporary workers can be expected to support and what the underlying motives for party choice are. Synthesising arguments from both perspectives, the article proposes an alternative argument according to which temporary workers are expected to support the ‘new’ left – that is, green and other left‐libertarian parties. It is argued that this party family combines redistributive policies with outsider‐friendly policy design. Using individual‐level data from the European Social Survey for 15 European countries, the article supports this argument by showing that temporary, compared to permanent, workers exhibit higher demand for redistribution and stronger support for the new left. Neither the risk‐based nor the insider‐outsider explanations receive full support. In particular, no signs of political disenchantment of temporary workers can be found. Thus, the findings challenge central claims of the insider‐outsider literature.     

Interest in political campaigns: The influence of question order and electoral context

A split-ballot experiment shows that, when people are asked how interested they are in following political campaigns, their response depends not only on the order in which the question is asked, but also on the broader electoral context in which it is posed. When asked how interested they were in following the political campaigns immediatelyafter a question about whether or not they voted in the (1982) election, people were more likely to think they were interested in the campaign, especially if they claimed to have voted, than if they were asked about it immediatelybefore the question on whether or not they voted. This order effect, however, appears to depend onwhen the questions are asked. If asked within a few weeks after the election, there is little or no order effect. But later, as the memory of the campaign fades, the order of the questions makes a sizable difference in the results. This order effect also seems to be more pronounced among better-educated respondents, suggesting that they are more likely to feel pressured by a social norm to vote and to express an interest in political affairs, not only in real life, but in the survey interview as well. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications for the design of the interview schedule used in the American National Election Studies.The research reported in this paper was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES81-11404).     

Intergovernmental councils in Spain: Challenges and opportunities in a changing political context

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the most important characteristics and of the Spanish Intergovernmental Councils (IGCs) and theorizes about the effect of the increasing fragmentation of the party system on the nature and dynamics of multilateral bargaining in IGCs. The essential argument is that party system fragmentation may have an impact on IGCs through its effect on the formation of minority and coalition governments. These types of governments may put an end to the two-bloc confrontation, bring to the system higher levels of party congruence between levels of government and lower the costs of compromise, three factors that may help to grease the bargaining process and, in turn, enhance the achievement of intergovernmental cooperation agreements. The positive effect will be conditional on several factors, namely the ideological coherence of inter-party alliances, the predominant type of government in the system (coalition or single-party minority) and the duration of governments.