Membership vote for party leadership changes: Electoral effects and the causal mechanisms behind

Political parties in parliamentary democracies have increasingly democratized their leadership selection processes, incorporating the votes of party members. Despite generating numerous headlines, there has been a relative dearth of cross-national scholarly work on the electoral effects of selectorate expansion and the causal mechanisms behind them. This study fills this gap in the literature. Using observational data from eleven parliamentary democracies, we show that parties using membership selection can expect a polling boost when compared to those using more exclusive mechanisms. However, membership selection does not affect electoral performance. Nevertheless, our crossnational analyses and results from a survey experiment from Australia suggest that incorporating members generates excitement, demonstrates an openness to new ideas, and can be a signal of leader work ethic and a commitment to the democratic process, increasing leader legitimacy. We discuss the disconnect between these positive evaluations and the lack of electoral effects, and suggest possible strategies for parties to improve their electoral standing.     

Ideological mavericks or party herd? The effect of candidates’ ideological positions on intra-party success

Political candidates' ideological positions have been used to explain success in inter-party competition, but little is known about how they impact success in intra-party competition. Here, candidates' positions on the Left–Right and GAL–TAN dimensions are analysed in three Finnish parliamentary elections (2011, 2015, 2019). Candidates' ideological positions are measured in terms of their ideological distance from their own party's median candidate. Absolute ideological distances between candidates and their party's median candidate decrease candidates' preference votes. Furthermore, the effects are contingent on the general ideological position of the candidate's party. However, these interactions do not follow any clear pattern, as more rightist candidates in right-wing parties and more green-alternative-libertarian candidates in traditional-authoritarian-nationalist parties all experience a decrease in their preference votes. This effect is large enough to be a decisive factor in intra-party competition between the last candidate that was elected and the first one that was not.     

没有党内和谐就没有社会和谐

构建社会主义和谐社会,关键在党,关键在党内和谐。以党内和谐促进社会和谐,是构建社会主义和谐社会的重要路径。     

Signaling and Counter‐Signaling in the Judicial Hierarchy: An Empirical Analysis of En Banc Review

We leverage the institutional features of American courts to evaluate the importance of whistleblowers in hierarchical oversight. Drawing on a formal theory of signaling in the judicial hierarchy, we examine the role of whistleblowing dissents in triggering en banc review of three‐judge panels by full circuits of the Courts of Appeals. The theory generates predictions about how dissent interacts with judicial preferences to influence circuits' review and reversal decisions, which we test using original and existing data. First, we show that judges who dissent counter to their preferences are more likely to see their dissents lead to review and reversal. Second, we show that dissents are most influential when the likelihood of non‐compliance by a three‐judge panel is highest. Our results underscore the importance of dissent in the judicial hierarchy and illustrate how judicial whistleblowers can help appellate courts target the most important cases for review.     

Reconciling Intra-Party and Intra-Coalition Dissent in Morality Politics: Parliamentary Debates on Marriage Equality in the German Bundestag

This article analyses parliamentary debates on marriage equality in Germany to understand what factors shape how parties deal with morality politics argumentatively. I argue that the internal divisions of parties and their coalition parties are crucial for the argumentation strategies used in parliamentary debates on morally charged wedge issues. Internally divided parties and parties that must be loyal to coalition partners confronted with internal divisions are likely to employ a discursive avoidance strategy to mitigate the potential for intra-party and intra-coalition polarization. To test this empirically, I examine the speeches of the German Bundestag on the Life Partnership Act in 2000 and Marriage for All in 2016 and 2017. The qualitative content analysis confirms my argument: The internally divided CDU and its coalition partners applied avoidance strategies by framing the issue primarily around constitutional principles and using procedural arguments, rather than framing the discourse as an issue of morality politics.

Zusammenfassung

Der Artikel analysiert parlamentarische Debatten zur Anerkennung gleichgeschlechtlicher Partnerschaften und Ehen in Deutschland, um zu verstehen, welche Faktoren die Argumentationen von Parteien im Wettbewerb um Moralpolitik beeinflussen. Ich argumentiere, dass die interne Spaltung von Parteien und ihrer Koalitionsparteien entscheidend für die Argumentationsstrategien ist, die in parlamentarischen Debatten über moralisch aufgeladene „wedge issues “verwendet werden. Intern gespaltene Parteien und Parteien, die loyal zu Koalitionspartnern sein müssen, die mit internen Spaltungen konfrontiert sind, verwenden eine diskursive Vermeidungsstrategie, um das Potenzial für eine innerparteiliche und koalitionsinterne Polarisierung abzuschwächen. Das Argument wird anhand einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse von Reden von Abgeordneten des Deutschen Bundestages zum Lebenspartnerschaftsgesetz im Jahr 2000 und zur Ehe für Alle im Jahr 2016/2017 bestätigt: Die innerparteilich zerstrittene CDU und ihre Koalitionspartner wendeten Vermeidungsstrategien an, indem sie das Thema in erster Linie in Zusammenhang mit verfassungsrechtlichen Grundsätzen thematisieren und prozedurale Argumente verwendeten, anstatt den Diskurs als eine moralpolitische Frage zu gestalten.

Résumé

Cet article analyse les débats parlementaires afin de comprendre les facteurs qui façonnent la manière dont les partis traitent la politique morale sur le plan argumentatif. Je soutiens que les divisions au sein des partis et entre les partis d'une coalition représentent un facteur décisif dans les stratégies d'argumentation utilisées dans les débats parlementaires sur les questions morales portant à controverse (« wedge issues »). Les partis divisés en interne et les partis devant rester loyaux envers leurs partenaires de coalition, eux-mêmes confrontés à des divisions internes, sont susceptibles d'employer une stratégie discursive d'évitement pour atténuer le potentiel de polarisation intra-parti et intra-coalition. Pour tester cela empiriquement, j'examine les discours du Bundestag allemand sur la loi relative au partenariat de vie enregistré en 2000 et celle instituant le mariage pour tous en 2016/17. L'analyse qualitative de ces textes confirme mon argument: La CDU, divisée en interne, et ses partenaires de coalition ont appliqué des stratégies d'évitement en abordant la question principalement autour des principes constitutionnels et en utilisant des arguments procéduraux, plutôt que de cadrer le discours comme une question de politique morale.