Party convergence and vote switching: Explaining mainstream party decline across Europe

How can one explain the significant vote losses of mainstream parties across Europe in recent years? In this article, it is argued that mainstream party convergence is an important determinant of the recent political and electoral volatility in European party systems. More specifically, it is hypothesised that as mainstream parties converge on the left-right scale, voters will switch from supporting a mainstream party to a non-mainstream party in the next election as they look for an alternative that better represents their ideological views. To test these theoretical expectations, data is combined from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the Manifestos Project for nearly 15,000 vote choices of individual voters in 30 elections in 16 West and East European countries from 2001 until 2013. The findings have important implications for understanding the recent rise of non-mainstream parties, the changing nature of party systems and the increasing complexity of cabinet formation across Europe.     

Responding to the crisis: Eurosceptic parties of the left and right and their changing position towards the European Union

At the time of the election of the European Parliament (EP) in 2014, the European Union (EU) was heavily affected by a multifaceted crisis that had – and still has – far-reaching implications for the political system of its member countries, but also for the European level of governance. Against the background of the strong Eurosceptic vote in the 2014 EP elections, this study aims to investigate in which way Eurosceptic parties of the left and the right respond to the multiple crises of the EU. Using data from the Euromanifesto Project from 2004/2009 and 2014, changes in the party positions towards the EU are analysed in the shadow of the multiple crises and the reasons thereof are explored. The findings show a general anti-European shift among the two types of Eurosceptic parties. Nevertheless, the changes in the EU polity tone are not determined by issue-based repercussions of the multiple crises, but by the EU-related evaluation – the polity mood – of the national citizenry. For far-right Eurosceptic parties, the shift is moderated by the level of public support for EU integration in their national environment. Among far-left Eurosceptic parties, by contrast, it is moderated by the more specific public attitudes about the monetary union policy of the EU. Consequently, political parties when drafting their manifestos for EP elections are not so much guided by the objective severity of political problems or by the evaluations of these problems by the citizenry. What matters in the end is the link that citizens themselves are able to establish between the severity of political problems, on the one hand, and the responsibility of the EU for these problems on the other. This has important consequences for understanding of the nature and substance of political responsiveness within the EU system of multilevel governance.     

A problem with empirical studies of party policy shifts: Alternative measures of party shifts are uncorrelated

Many recent cross-national studies analyse the causes and electoral consequences of party policy shifts, using party position measures derived from election manifestos, expert surveys or voter surveys. However few studies validate their findings by analysing multiple measures of party policy shifts. In this article, data on European parties’ position shifts on both European integration and left-right ideology is analysed, showing that this is problematic because, while alternative measures of party policy positions correlate strongly in cross-sectional analyses, alternative measures of parties’ policy shifts are essentially uncorrelated in longitudinal analyses. Suggestions are offered on how to address this problem.     

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.     

论股东对公司对外诉讼裁判提起第三人撤销之诉——兼评最高人民法院指导案例148号

最高人民法院指导案例148号的裁判要点指出,对于公司与相对人之间的生效裁判,股东无权提起第三人撤销之诉。股东是否为公司对外诉讼的第三人,取决于股东就公司对外法律关系是否有一定的实体法地位。公司对外行为可能有越权、不当关联交易、恶意串通等瑕疵。只有在公司行为构成恶意串通无效时,股东在实体上才有权攻击公司与相对人之间的法律关系,相应地在程序上成为公司诉讼的有独立请求权第三人。若效力瑕疵在实体上仅能由公司主张,则股东因欠缺实体法权限而非为有独立请求权第三人,亦不能基于"代位"而成为无独立请求权第三人。承认股东的原告资格符合第三人撤销之诉的制度机理,且与公司的法人独立人格不矛盾,因为在恶意串通时不存在法人独立人格所保护的法益。股东第三人撤销之诉的效果亦非公司内部救济所能代替。未来应修正该指导案例的裁判规则,承认特定情形下股东的第三人撤销之诉原告资格。     

Do party supporters accept policy compromises in coalition governments?

Government formation in multi-party systems often requires coalition negotiations and finding common ground among coalition partners. Supporters of parties involved in the government formation process face a trade-off when evaluating such bargaining processes: on the one hand, voters usually prefer seeing their party being in government rather than in opposition; on the other hand, negotiations require coalition compromises that they might dislike. In this paper, we study voters’ willingness to accept policy compromises during government formation processes. We argue that voters’ acceptance of policy compromises depends on both the strength of their party attachment and the importance they assign to the issue at stake during the coalition negotiations. Not giving in on important issues is key, especially for supporters of challenger parties, who hold strong policy preferences on a selected number of issues. To test these expectations, we collected original survey data immediately after the Spanish general election in November 2019. The results show support for the hypothesized effects, shed light on the pressure potential coalition partners face during government formation and help explain the failures of government formation attempts in increasingly polarized societies.     

Who talks about what? Issue strategies across the party hierarchy

We combine the recent literature on issue competition with work on intra-party heterogeneity to advance a novel theoretical argument. Starting from the premise that party leaders and non-leaders have different motivations and incentives, we conjecture that issue strategies should vary across the party hierarchy. We, therefore, expect systematic intra-party differences in the use of riding the wave and issue ownership strategies. We test this claim by linking public opinion data to manually coded information on over 3600 press releases issued by over 500 party actors across five election campaigns in Austria between 2006 and 2019. We account for self-selection into leadership roles by exploiting transitions into and out of leadership status over time. The results show that party leaders are more likely than non-leaders to respond to the public's issue priorities, but not more or less likely to pursue issue-ownership strategies.     

中共早期领导人的文化安全观探析

中共早期领导人尽管没有提出文化安全的概念，但在严峻的民族危机面前，思考民族的前途和命运不可避免地要涉及到文化安全问题。主要内容包括：大力提倡爱国主义，弘扬民族精神；倡导文化革新，主张新的文化创造；强调开放的文化心态，反对盲目排外；揭露帝国主义侵略的实质，批判殖民主义文化；批判封建复古主义，指出迈向新文化的道路。     

论有独立请求权的第三人制度之完善

有独立请求权的第三人制度,作为我国民事诉讼法的众多制度之一,既具有一系列优点,又存在一些不足和缺陷。本文在重点分析我国有独立请求权的第三人制度所存在的诉讼依据过于狭窄、第三人权利保护不如原告全面、诉讼结构不尽合理等不足与缺陷基础上,有针对性地提出了完善我国有独立请求权的第三人制度的一些建议和措施。     

建设马克思主义学习型政党的历史透视

中国共产党始终注重学习马克思主义理论,并不断将其与中国实际相结合,努力实现马克思主义中国化。党学习马克思主义理论,在党创立后的前30年,着重从思想上建设党,确立了正确的思想和政治路线,实现了马克思主义中国化第一次历史性飞跃,取得了新民主主义革命伟大胜利;在第二个＂30年＂,对适合中国情况的社会主义建设道路进行了艰苦的探索,教训十分深刻;在最近的＂30年＂,党从号召学习马克思主义理论走向建设马克思主义学习型政党,期间现实了马克思主义中国化第二次历史性飞跃,从而取得了中国特色社会主义事业的伟大成就。党建设马克思主义学习型政党的历史给予我们许多重要启示。