The Life and Death of New Political Parties in the Low Countries

Numerous new parties have emerged since voters became less loyal to established political parties. A number of these survived and have been analysed intensely, especially green and radical right parties; many other new parties disappeared and have been neglected by party research. This article analyses the fate of all 30 political parties that entered parliament in the Netherlands or Belgium between 1950 and 2003. Qualitative comparative analysis is used to identify characteristics of both surviving and disappeared new parties. Conditions related to party origin (roots in civil society, organisational newness, initial programmatic profile) are scrutinised, as are conditions pertaining to the party’s developmental process (party organisational strength and the occurrence of defections or party splits). Surviving parties are characterised by strong, rooted organisations that have not suffered defections. Most disappeared parties lacked a strong organisation and roots and have experienced shocks that they could not absorb. Organisational newness makes new parties vulnerable.     

Intra-Party Politics and Public Opinion: How Candidate Selection Processes Affect Citizens’ Satisfaction with Democracy

Scholars often mention the centrality of parties for the democratic political system. Indeed political parties are indispensable institutions for the linkage between state and society, and should not remain absent in any comparative analysis of citizens’ political attitudes. Yet, only rarely do scholars study how parties shape people’s opinion about democracy. This article seeks to amend this lacuna and examine empirically how party level characteristics, specifically the nature of a party’s candidate selection procedure, relate to the level of satisfaction with democracy among citizens. The authors constructed a cross-national dataset with data on the selection procedures of 130 political parties in 28 country-sessions to examine whether citizens that vote for democratically organized parties are more satisfied with the way democracy works in their country. Additionally, this relationship is examined more closely in Israel and Belgium, two countries where candidate selection procedures show substantial variation and where politicians have made a strong claim for intraparty democratization. Both the cross-national as well as the country-specific analyses indicate that democratic candidate selection are indeed associated with greater satisfaction with democracy.     

Russian Politics in Transition: Political Parties and Organizations in Russia and the Murmansk Region

In this article the development of new political organizations in Russia is discussed. The authors acknowledge the fact that the new parties and organizations are still weak and not well organized. bur they nevertheless play a significant role in the preservation of democracy in Russia. Several stages in the party creation process can be discerned. Before the 1991 attempted coup d'état the Communist Party of the Soviet Union still played a dominant role, while a number of smaller political organizations emerged. After the dissolution of the CPSU. the centre groupings dominated the political scene. Gradually. the level of political polarization increased. as evidenced by the 1993 elections which spelled victory for the post-communists and ultra-nationalists. Using sartori's definitions, the authors analyse the party and organizations with the help of a left-right continuum, which portrays some differences in Russian politics without covering all cleavages. The important regional differences in party formation are illustrated with empirical data from the Murmansk region. During the Gorbachev period a number of informal organizations emerged which gradually developed into parties critical of the CPSU. Initially, social democratic organizations were strong on the Kola Peninsula, but they declined in importance due to internal disagreement. In the 1993 elections, the largest parties in this region were the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and the market-oriented Russia's Choice. In Russia as a whole, the post-election period manifested itself in increasing political polarization and successive retreat from the marker-reform policies. Clearly, the road to a well-functioning system of parties in Russia is still a long one.     

The illusion of state neutrality in a secularising Ireland

It is argued that although the importance of party identification and social cleavages is declining, the bipolarity of the Swedish party system is sustained by voters’ identification with political blocs rather than with parties. Using data from the Swedish election of 2010, the article shows that voters’ bloc identification structures their voting behaviour and stabilises the party system. Four hypotheses are tested and supported. H1: Declining party identification has been replaced by bloc identification. H2: Voters with a strong bloc identification are often detached from a strong party identification, while almost all of the few voters with a strong party identification are also attached to a strong bloc identification. H3: Bloc identification has an effect on voting for parties belonging to one of the political blocs, even when party identification is controlled for. H4: Bloc identification has a small effect on electoral support for anti-establishment parties (such as the Sweden Democrats).     

An exploratory case study focusing on the creation,and development of a new political brand: The case of Aam Aadmi Party

In the backdrop of India's rising prominence in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), understanding of its political environment, electoral competition, and constituent parties with their political ideologies contesting to form government attracts immense interest from the researchers in political science, political marketing, and public policy. Although literatures in political marketing are more than two decades mostly carried out in developed democratic systems like the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, India as a posttransition democracy received relatively less attention. The article has been conceptualized in the context of 2014 Indian general elections Lok Sabha 2014 as an attempt to study application of political marketing principles in a cross‐cultural democracy. The author has probed the emergence of new political party Aam Aadmi Party riding on the success of Janlokpal (civil society movement), the marketing approach used by Aam Aadmi Party, essentially positioning and branding strategies, during the national elections and party institutionalization. Research strategy followed secondary research of published data for examining the new party creation from a marketing perspective.     

Cleavages, parties and referendums: Relationships between representative and direct democracy in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract. In the Irish case, a combination of quite restrictive constitutional provisions for consulting the people and extensive social and political change has produced a variety of forms of initiation of referendums and a surprisingly large number of them (25 since the late 1960s). Referendums in Ireland have frequently been related to underlying political cleavages while only very infrequently evoking major inter–party conflict. This suggests that referendums may have insulated the party system against the impact of potentially contentious issues. However, analysis of voting behaviour in the 1992 general election and abortion referendums indicates some linkage between referendum voting and party choice at the aggregate level. Additionally, evidence from the Nice Treaty referendum of 1901 suggests that the lack of major party involvement in the campaign contributed to a demonstrable gap in people's understanding of the issues. The low level of understanding in turn certainly contributed to the massive level of abstention and to a NO vote that was contrary to the preferences of almost all the parties. Thus, there are limits to the extent to which the organs of representative democracy can, or can afford to, distance themselves from the process of direct democracy.     

Perceptions of policy choice in contemporary democracies

Though the concept of choice is essential to democracy, little is known about how citizens make sense of the diversity of policies offered by political elites. Research has found that institutional arrangements such as low electoral thresholds and multiple party competitors are associated with greater policy choice. Other work emphasises non‐institutional factors. No research, however, examines what the voters think. In this article these alternative explanations are assessed in terms of whether citizens believe parties to provide choice over policy. Evidence from 25 democracies reveals that electoral and party systems have no direct effect. Choice perceptions are instead affected by non‐policy factors: social heterogeneity and individual political dispositions. This result contrasts with analyses showing a strong connection between electoral rules and the diversity of messages communicated by parties during campaigns. The article also shows how choice perceptions matter for political behaviour. Overall, study findings imply that the promise of institutions for fostering representation is weaker than previously assumed.     

Why do only some people who support parties actually join them? Evidence from Britain

What makes people join a political party is one of the most commonly studied questions in research on party members. Nearly all this research, however, is based on talking to people who have actually joined parties. This article simultaneously analyses surveys of members of political parties in Britain and surveys of non-member supporters of those same parties. This uniquely enables us to model the decision to join parties. The results suggest that most of the elements that constitute the influential ‘General Incentives Model’ are significant. But it also reveals that, while party supporters imagine that selective benefits, social norms and opposing rival parties’ policies are key factors in members’ decisions to join a party, those who actually do so are more likely to say they are motivated by attachments to their party’s values, policies and leaders, as well as by an altruistic desire to support democracy more generally.     

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.     

Party brands and voting

Some scholars argue that Western societies have seen a decreasing impact of voting behavior based on cleavages and party identifications. Equally, issue ownership voting is seemingly not increasing its relevance by filling this gap. From this departure we seek out an alternative variable by posing the question: Do party brands influence voting behavior? Currently, we do not know because the two research fields of voting behavior and party brands are currently not explicitly linked. Traditionally, the study of voting behavior has gained powerful insights from concepts such as cleavage structure, party identification and issue ownership. On the other hand, the study of political brands has illuminated how people employ brands in their identity construction and how voters use party brands to differentiate between political parties. In this light, the article first distinguishes the brand concept from related heuristics and voting models. Next, the article measures the brand value of Danish parties by utilizing a representative association analysis. Finally, this measure is used to conduct the very first empirical analysis of a party brand's effect on voting behavior. Overall, the primary finding demonstrates that political brand value (PBV) has an effect on voting behavior—also when a number of other relevant explanatory variables are held constant.     

Party Strategies,Voter Demands and Territorial Reform in Belgium

This article examines the determinants of the positioning of parties on the question of territorial reform in Belgium. It argues that one cannot explain the high salience assigned to the issue of decentralisation among political parties by looking only at voter demands. Instead, it is the dynamics of party competition that has encouraged parties to adopt an electoral and territorial logic of action. The article shows that the main driver of territorial reform in Belgium has been the continuous relevance of regionalist parties in the Flemish party system, which have compelled mainstream parties to accommodate their demands for territorial autonomy, and, more recently, independence. Regionalist parties have capitalised on a strong sense of Flemish national identity, itself shaped by long-run structural factors. The article also shows that the adoption of an electoral and territorial logic has been strengthened by the split of the Belgian party system and the reinforcement of social cleavages, and, more recently, by the increasing competitiveness of elections and the opening up of party competition at multiple levels.     

How established parties reduce other parties’ electoral support: the strategy of parroting the pariah

In every democracy, established political parties are challenged by other parties. Established parties react in various ways to other parties’ presence. A key hypothesis in the relevant literature is that established parties can decrease another party’s electoral support by parroting it, i.e. adopting its core policy issue position. This article argues, and demonstrates empirically, that this hypothesised effect mainly occurs in the event that a critical prerequisite is in place. Parroting a party decreases its support only if that party is ostracised at the same time. The article classifies a party as ostracised if its largest established competitor systematically rules out all political cooperation with it. Analysing 296 election results of 28 West European parties (1944–2011), evidence is found for a parrot effect – however, concerning ostracised parties only. On several occasions established parties have substantially decreased another party’s support by simultaneously parroting that party and ostracising it.     

Political Cleavages in Sweden and Norway

The topic of the article is a comparison of voter reactions in Sweden and Norway towards some current political issues. The analysis is based upon nationwide election surveys in 1976 (Sweden) and in 1977 (Norway). Despite the fact that the party systems are different in several ways, the patterns of political attitudes in the two electorates are surprisingly similar. The analysis suggests that political cleavages are basically the same in these two neighbouring countries. Likewise the location of corresponding parties in the two systems is approximately the same in relation to specific cleavages.     

Union members at the polls in diverse trade union landscapes

This article investigates to what extent social democratic parties still benefit from the support of union members at the polls. Not only are social democratic parties confronted with new competitors in the party systems, but also the union confederations of the socialist labour movement are in some countries losing their dominant position due to the rise of separate professional confederations. It is argued in the article that the effect of union membership on voting choice is conditioned by the structure of the trade union movement. The support of union members for social democracy is fostered by the strength of the confederations historically close to this party family, while it is hampered when strong separate (or politically unaffiliated) white‐collar confederations exist. Using European Social Survey and Swedish Public Opinion data, the article shows that social democratic parties still enjoy important support from trade union members, but at the same time are under fierce competition from bourgeois and green parties among members of white‐collar confederations. This reinforces the challenges for social democracy to build new voters’ coalitions in post‐industrial societies.     

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.     

The party choice set and satisfaction with democracy

A well-functioning democracy requires citizens’ support for its political institutions and procedures. While scholars have previously studied the role of contextual factors for explaining satisfaction with democracy, a rigorous focus on how the party choice set affects how satisfied citizens are with democracy is largely absent from the literature. This neglect of the impact of parties is surprising, given their central position within modern, representative democracies. In this article, a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the impact of party systems on citizens’ satisfaction with democracy is presented. Use is made of the combined data of the first four modules of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project and various measures of the party system are used to capture different aspects of the party choice set: the number of parties, their polarisation, and the congruence between public opinion and the party offer. In contrast to expectations, only scant evidence is found that having a wider choice increases citizens’ satisfaction with democracy.     

Public images of political parties: A necessary evil?

The debate on citizen images of political parties is long standing, but recently it has taken on added importance as the evidence of party dealignment has spread across Western democracies. This article assembles an unprecedented cross-national array of public opinion data that describe current images of political parties. Sentiments are broadly negative, and this pessimism has deepened over the past generation. Then, we demonstrate how distrust of parties decreases voting turnout, contributes to the fragmentation of contemporary party systems and the electoral base of new protest parties, and stimulates broader cynicism towards government. Although political parties are the foundation of the system of representative democracy, fewer citizens today trust political parties, and this is reshaping the nature of democratic politics.     

Do voters learn? Evidence that voters respond accurately to changes in political parties’ policy positions

A premise of the mass–elite linkage at the heart of representative democracy is that voters notice changes in political parties’ policy positions and update their party perceptions accordingly. However, recent studies question the ability of voters accurately to perceive changes in parties’ positions. The study advances this literature with a two-wave panel survey design that measured voters’ perception of party positions before and after a major policy shift by parties in the government coalition in Denmark 2011–2013. Two key findings extend previous work. First, voters do indeed pay attention to parties when they visibly change policy position. Second, voters update their perceptions of the party positions much more accurately than would have been expected if they merely relied on a ‘coalition heuristic’ as a rule-of-thumb. These findings imply that under some conditions voters are better able to make meaningful political choices than previous work suggests.     

Party bureaucrats,independent professionals,or politicians? A study of party employees

The number of party employees is increasing, but to what extent and in what sense are party employees integrated into their parties? Based on the literature on party change, the article identifies three important dimensions ? ties, tasks, and career plans ? and constructs a typology of four ideal types of party employees – technical assistants, party bureaucrats, independent professionals, and unelected politicians. Data on Norwegian party employees suggest that they have strong party ties and are entrusted with a wide range of political tasks. However, career plans rarely include elected office. The results indicate that party employees have stronger party ties than envisaged in influential party models. Professionalisation does not render party grassroots irrelevant, but rather turns some grassroots activists into professionals – what can be called ‘unelected politicians’. In conclusion, the article discusses implications for contemporary understandings of political parties.     

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.