Space jam: Are niche parties strategic or looney?

Abstract

There is an emerging consensus that niche parties are fundamentally different from mainstream parties because niche parties do not moderate their policy positions strategically. However, there is theoretical reason to believe that niche parties have an electoral incentive to shift their policy positions in the same direction as parties that are proximate to them in their most salient policy space. This paper examines whether niche parties respond to such electoral incentives, using data on government coalitions from the Parliament and Government Composition Database, and party behavior from the Comparative Manifesto Project in 17 Western style democracies. The results suggest that niche parties tend to respond strategically to the perceived behavior of proximate parties, especially on their most salient policy dimension.