Comparative Manifesto Project Research Articles

A Transformer Model for Manifesto Classification Using Cross-Context Training: An Ecuadorian Case Study

Content analysis of political manifestos is necessary to understand the policies and proposed actions of a party. However, manually labeling political texts is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Transformer networks have become essential tools for automating this task. Nevertheless, these models require extensive datasets to achieve good performance. This can be a limitation in manifesto classification, where the availability of publicly labeled datasets can be scarce. To address this challenge, in this work, we developed a Transformer network for the classification of manifestos using a cross-domain training strategy. Using the database of the Comparative Manifesto Project, we implemented a fractional factorial experimental design to determine which Spanish-written manifestos form the best training set for Ecuadorian manifesto labeling. Furthermore, we statistically analyzed which Transformer architecture and preprocessing operations improve the model accuracy. The results indicate that creating a training set with manifestos from Spain and Uruguay, along with implementing stemming and lemmatization preprocessing operations, produces the highest classification accuracy. In addition, we found that the DistilBERT and RoBERTa transformer networks perform statistically similarly and consistently well in manifesto classification. Using the cross-context training strategy, DistilBERT and RoBERTa achieve 60.05% and 57.64% accuracy, respectively, in the classification of the Ecuadorian manifesto. Finally, we investigated the effect of the composition of the training set on performance. The experiments demonstrate that training DistilBERT solely with Ecuadorian manifestos achieves the highest accuracy and F1-score. Furthermore, in the absence of the Ecuadorian dataset, competitive performance is achieved by training the model with datasets from Spain and Uruguay.

Voting for trade protectionist parties: Evidence from nine waves of the European Social Survey

This article empirically investigates the impact of globalization on voting behavior. Specifically, combining individual-level data from the first nine waves of the European Social Survey, party-level information from the Comparative Manifesto Project, and country-level data from Eurostat, we study the individual determinants of the vote for trade protectionist parties. Our findings show, firstly, that protectionist parties mainly receive electoral support from less-educated voters, unemployed individuals, and members of labor unions. Secondly, we test the compensation principle using a macro measure of a country's compensation potential and find, contrary to expectations, no significant evidence that a greater potential to mitigate the labor market adjustment costs resulting from economic openness deters the propensity to vote for protectionist parties in national elections.

Deradicalization and the Experience of Governing: Evidence from the Transformation of Socialist Parties in Western Europe, 1945–2021

AbstractThe question of deradicalization looms large in the historiography of western European socialism. But in this contested field, the contributions of the New Left historian, Ralph Miliband, have been curiously neglected. Through his work on the British Labour Party, Miliband developed a distinctive account of deradicalization that foregrounds the fact that when parties enter government, party elites find themselves transplanted into new, alien institutions. Over time, he argued, they then come to internalize the worldviews of those institutions and reshape their parties accordingly. This essay presents the first quantitative and cross-national test of this “experience of governing hypothesis,” using Comparative Manifesto Project data from western European socialist parties between 1945 and 2021 and a novel matching technique for panel data. Miliband’s theory is strongly supported by this analysis, which also demonstrates the value of taking a multi-dimensional approach to deradicalization.

Negative campaign statements, coalition heterogeneity, and the support for government parties

European party systems have become increasingly complex in recent years, resulting in ideologically more heterogeneous coalition governments with far-reaching policy compromises. Consequently, an important goal of the parties' electoral campaign strategies is to present the voters a distinct policy profile on which the electorate can evaluate the competing parties. We argue that voters reward those coalition parties that attack their government partners in the election campaign and try to clarify their programmatic positions with the help of a more aggressive campaign strategy. Based on data from the CSES, the Comparative Manifesto Project database and a novel data base on party campaign statements in seven European countries from 2007 to 2018, we find that voters’ support for coalition parties increases if the latter attack their partners in the last four weeks before election day. Yet, this relationship is only observable in contexts when the ideological diversity of the incumbent coalition government is rather low.

The Effect of Ideological Distance on Voting Behaviour in Parliament Under Changing Economic Conditions: A Comparison Between Portugal and Spain

ABSTRACT In this article we empirically test the impact of ideological distance between opposition parties and incumbents on consensus in parliament in two different countries, Portugal and Spain, amid changing economic conditions. To do so, we employ the Comparative Manifesto Project database and develop a measure of ideological distance on the left-right and the centre-periphery dimensions based on parties’ preferences as expressed in their manifestos. We demonstrate that the economic crisis had different effects in the two countries. In Portugal, it amplified the negative impact on consensus of ideological distance between the incumbent and opposition parties. As expected, parties more distant from the incumbent on the left-right continuum were more likely to vote against legislation. In Spain, by contrast, changes in the party system forced traditional mainstream parties, especially the socialists, to increase their opposition in parliament. Moreover, the crisis amplified the effect of the centre-periphery dimension on parliamentary conflict. As a result, not only parties ideologically distant from the incumbent on the left-right continuum were more likely to vote against legislation.

Political Elite Discourses and Majority Members’ Beliefs About the Prevalence of Ethnic Discrimination in Europe

AbstractThis article investigates European majority members’ perceptions of the prevalence of ethnic discrimination. We use individual-level data from the Eurobarometer ‘Discrimination in the EU’ series, covering 26 European countries and six years (2006, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2019), enriched with contextual information on political elite discourses from the Comparative Manifesto Project. We shed light on significant and substantive cross-country and cross-temporal variations in these perceptions. Next, we explore how these variations are related to national political elite discourses by employing multilevel models. By disentangling between and within country variations, we find that particularly changes in political elite discourses within countries over time are associated with variations in majority members’ beliefs about the prevalence of ethnic discrimination in their society. Exclusive discourses, which emphasize nationalistic ideas and demarcate strong boundaries between ethnic groups, are associated with majority members thinking that ethnic discrimination is less widespread in their country. The reverse holds for inclusive discourses: when political elites underline the importance of cultural diversity and multiculturalism, majorities perceive more ethnic discrimination. While these discourses are only related to within country variations, our descriptive and multilevel results show that the national context matters for majorities’ perceptions of the prevalence of ethnic discrimination.

Activating Self-Interest: The Role of Party Polarization in Preferences for Redistribution

Although extensive research has analyzed the factors that moderate economic self-interest—the relationship between individuals’ income positions and their preferences for redistribution—there is little crossnational research that analyzes the role of political parties. This article argues that political parties play a considerable moderating role in (de-)activating economic self-interest based on the polarization they display in their economic and cultural positions. By combining the World/European Values Survey, the World Income Inequality Database, and the Comparative Manifesto Project datasets, the analyses estimate the moderating effect of party polarization on economic self-interest. The results suggest that economic polarization enhances self-interest for the poor (respondents below the mean income), even when controlling for income inequality, but not for the rich. Moreover, cultural polarization also appears to reinforce self-interest for the poor, rather than supplanting it. The findings have important implications regarding ability for political parties to activate issues among the public.

Are Left and Right Converging or Becoming Meaningless?: A Discussion on Contemporary Ideological Positions

Although the history of ideologies is traced back to the ancient times of human history, it is actually a phenomenon of modern times. The concept was first systematically studied by philosophers in the Age of Enlightenment. With the development of political parties in the 19th century, the concept of ideology was intertwined with political parties. In the modern era, political parties try to get the votes of their voters by aligning their identities on the right and left spectrum. This study aims to evaluate whether or not the expressions “left” and “right” are meaningless today. If they are still meaningful, what are their meanings? The study examines ideological convergence in Western countries using the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) data. The research results show that although the concepts of left and right still make sense, they have eroded over time. The results also demonstrate that right and left do not have the same meaning in every country.

How party competition shapes ethnic parties’ positions on migration and immigration

What positions do ethnic parties adopt on issues related to migration and immigration? We argue that, first, the specific characteristics of the party system – that is, if there are further ethnic parties that compete for votes, in particular among the same ethnic group – matter for the policy profile of ethnic parties on immigration policy. Secondly, we expect that the ideological position of an ethnic party should matter for their immigration policy position: ethnic parties with a more right-wing ideological profile should adopt more negative positions on immigration, in particular, if they face competition from another ethnic party. We use regression analysis and a manually coded sample of ethnic parties based on the Comparative Manifesto Project to test these assumptions. The empirical analysis provides support for our expectations: ethnic parties take more negative immigration positions if they compete with other parties among the same group of ethnic voters and the more the ethnic parties belong to the right wing of the ideological spectrum.

Environmental chauvinism? Explaining issue expansion among non-mainstream parties

Do non-mainstream parties respond to other non-mainstream parties’ owned issues? Whereas a great deal of extant research has examined the owned issues of non-mainstream parties and when mainstream parties take on these issues, little research has been done to explore when non-mainstream parties expand their issue focus to include the owned issues of other non-mainstream parties. We argue that non-mainstream parties will expand their issue focus as the public salience on the issue increases, but that this expansion is conditioned by the type of issue. In particular, we posit that non-mainstream parties will expand on issues on which there is agreement among their supporters. To test our claims, we examine radical-left, radical right and green parties’ issue expansion on the environment and immigration in 15 West and East European countries from 1980–2018 using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, national election studies, and the Comparative Manifestos Project. Our findings have important implications for non-mainstream parties’ issue evolution and party competition more generally.

Voting Green in European Parliament elections: issue voting in an electoral context

ABSTRACT The 2019 European Parliament (EP) elections produced remarkable gains for Green parties throughout the European Union (EU). We analyse in how far different national electoral contexts can explain the electoral success of Green parties in EU member states. On the theoretical side, we argue that an increased salience of EU environmental politics has led to ‘green issue voting’. However, the relevance of environmental issue preferences depends on the electoral context in which Green parties compete for votes. Specifically, we expect ‘green issue voting’ to be most relevant for the smaller Green parties who own the environmental issue. On the empirical side, we test our argument by combining survey data collected by the European Election Study with information on party positions provided by the Comparative Manifestos Project. Our findings strongly suggest that the relevance of ‘green issue voting’ in the 2019 EP elections was conditionally dependent on the national electoral context.

The Party without Qualities?

In the 2021 German federal election, the Left Party suffered its worst electoral defeat ever. Although it hemorrhaged voters to all the parties, its losses to the Social Democrats and Greens were particularly large. In this article, we examine the reasons behind Die Linke’s poor electoral performance. Although a number of factors may have played small roles, we hypothesize that the most important by far was the Left Party’s failure to distinguish itself in its policy positions from its chief rivals on the center left and the left. Using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project (cpm) and Chapel Hill Expert Survey (ches), we demonstrate the Left Party’s lack of issue ownership and its distinct policy and ideological profile in 2021. Consequently, we argue that Die Linke gave voters few reasons to vote for it.

How challenger party issue entrepreneurship and mainstream party strategies drive public issue salience: evidence from radical-right parties and the issue of immigration

AbstractWhen mainstream parties accommodate radical-right parties, do citizens grow more concerned about immigration? Based on a rich literature, we argue that challenger parties’ ability to affect mainstream party positions, particularly on immigration, is associated with greater public salience of immigration and voter positivity towards challengers exists. We use Comparative Manifesto Project and Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data in order to show that challenger issue entrepreneurship, and mainstream accommodation are associated with greater public concern for challenger issues. These factors do not result in greater public positivity towards challengers. Our findings thus support the argument that a mainstream party accommodative strategy might not be as beneficial for them as often expected by pundit and political scientists alike. This has implications for understanding the effect of indirect party strategies on public attitudes, since mainstream accommodation changes public concern regarding issues, which may bolster challengers’ positions, including radical-right parties.

Not the Far-Right Only: Which Parties Occupy the Niche of Cultural Protectionism in the EU Countries?

In the 2010s many moderate parties in Europe began to use the agenda of the far-rights, competing with them on the same field. This article is devoted to the problem of inter-party competition in European countries amidst the rise of far-right parties. We also intended to check if the far-right profile is the same for all EU countries. To achieve the goal of the study, we used two databases on party positioning - MARPOR (Comparative Manifesto Project) and CHES (Chapel Hill Expert Survey). The study revealed that the consolidated family of the far-rights exists only in the countries of North-Western Europe, while in the countries of East-Central Europe the agenda of the far-rights is less consolidated and regionally heterogeneous. The mainstream competitors of the far-rights included mostly conservatives in North-Western Europe, and various parties, including the Social Democrats, in East-Central Europe. The study confirmed the hypothesis about the serious influence of the far-rights on mainstream politics. At the same time, it questioned the traditional approach which attributes the far-right profile only to far-right parties and ignores both regional differences and the factor of spatial competition.

The relative importance of industrial relations ideas in politics: A quantitative analysis of political party manifestos across 54 countries

AbstractIdeas are important but hard to quantify, making large‐scale, quantitative analyses difficult. Political parties are important ideational contributors, and their election year manifestos provide explicit compilations of their ideas. Using Comparative Manifesto Project data, we propose three channels through which ideas enter into manifestos and examine the fraction of manifesto content devoted to pro‐worker and anti‐union statements to measure the importance of these ideas. Multivariate analyses across 54 countries, 75 years, and 1132 parties uniquely uncover predictors of industrial relations ideas, including party characteristics, responses to other parties, and economic and political conditions. Further, pro‐worker ideas matter to voters during elections.

Party system polarization in developing democracies: the case of Turkey, 1950–2018

ABSTRACT This paper examines party system polarization over 19 general elections in Turkey from1950 to 2018. Using data on party policies from the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), we show that, contrary to the common view, party system polarization is not a persistent feature of Turkish politics. We also find that party system polarization on the left-right continuum reflects party differences primarily on social rather than economic or European integration issues. Finally, our results demonstrate that the military interventions in 1960 and 1980 reduced party system polarization in subsequent elections, even when controlling for other determinants of polarization. These findings have important implications for debates on party politics, military rule, and the prospects of democratic governance in developing democracies.

Three sides of the same coin? comparing party positions in VAAs, expert surveys and manifesto data

ABSTRACT Existing research on political parties’ policy positions has traditionally relied on expert surveys and/or party manifesto data. More recently, Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have been increasingly used as an additional method for locating parties in the policy space, with a closer focus on concrete policy issues. In this manuscript, we examine the reliability of party positions originated from a VAA, utilising the euandi longitudinal dataset, which provides data on positions of over 400 unique political parties across 28 EU member states from the European Parliament elections of 2009, 2014 and 2019. We cross-validate euandi data with the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES). Our results attest the reliability of the euandi trend file vis-à-vis remaining data sources, demonstrating the validity of VAA-based methods to estimate the policy positions of European political parties. Convergence is especially high with CHES party placements. We also explore the sources of divergence in the estimation of policy positions across the three methods, finding little evidence of a systematic source of bias in the estimates between datasets. We conclude with an inventory of arguments in favour of party position measurements used by VAAs for the study of policy-making in European democracies.

Electoral competition and the party politics of public investments

When do political parties propose long-term investments? Electoral competitiveness should be a key variable explaining parties’ investment priorities: parties can be less responsive to voters’ short-term priorities and overcome time inconsistencies when they are more likely to win the next election. The article distinguishes the characteristics of three types of investments in education, environmental protection and technology and infrastructure, gathered from the Comparative Manifesto Project. It finds a linear positive relationship between parties’ probability of entering office and the proportion of manifestoes allocated to statements about technology and infrastructure. In contrast, statements about education are highest at high levels of electoral competitiveness, as parties propose more education to attract voters, while statements about the environment are affected by parties’ ideology on the left-right axis rather than by electoral competitiveness. Power-sharing institutions help parties to overcome time inconsistency problems, reducing the impact of electoral competition on investments.

Anti-Establishment Parties in Government

Abstract Anti-establishment parties with either a left-wing or a right-wing ideological slant have been entering contemporary European Democracies with sizeable vote shares. During the Great Recession, the Greek party system could be perceived as a relevant case-study for the formation and breakthrough of anti-establishment parties. Given the fact that two deeply ideologically diverging anti-establishment parties, the Coalition of the Radical Left – Social Unionist Front (syriza) and the populist radical right-wing Independent Greeks (anel), came to power, forming a coalition government from early 2015 to January 2019, the primary goal of this article is to enquire into ‘supply-side’ parameters, exploring potential associations along a range of programmatic stances and policy dimensions that effectuated the syriza-anel alliance. Using the Comparative Manifesto Project and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey datasets from 2012 to 2017, our findings confirm beyond the expected programmatic differences the existence of a converging policymaking basis between syriza and anel which goes beyond the ‘pro-Memorandum vs. anti-Memorandum’ divide.

The Europeanization of national elections. The role of country characteristics in shaping EU issue voting

Research has shown that voting in European elections is affected by domestic politics. However, in the last years, and particularly after the European debt crisis, also the EU has gained relevance and salience in national politics. In this paper we address the Europeanization of national elections and assess to what extent the characteristics of countries condition the intensity of EU issue voting. Using data from the European Election Studies and the Comparative Manifestos Project, our results demonstrate the importance of congruence between citizens' and parties’ positions on the EU for the individual vote on the national level and show how this varies across countries. We provide evidence that EU issue voting is more intense in countries with more political influence in the EU as well as in countries that are net contributors to EU funds.