Constraint in European party activists’ sympathy scores for interest groups

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents an analysis, country by country, of sympathy scores given by European party activists from 58 political parties in 11 countries of the European Community to more than 100 different national interest groups. In all countries but one, the left‐right dimension is the predominant criterion for interpreting the sympathy scores given. In Belgium, the exception, a regional (Flemish‐Walloon) cleavage line is most important. The analyses were performed with a new adapted version of the unidimensional Coombsian unfolding model. Bad fit to the unidimensional model is not remedied by postulating additional common dimensions, but by identifying and removing stimuli (interest groups) that do not conform to the unidimensional unfolding model. The nonrepresentability of these stimuli can be attributed to lack of agreement among activists about the location of these stimuli on the left‐right dimension. More specifically, certain relatively popular stimuli are perceived by most respondents as close to their own location on the left‐right scale, and, conversely, certain relatively unpopular stimuli are perceived by most respondents as distant from their own location.