Dimension Of Party Competition Research Articles

Clear Blue Water? The 2019 Party Manifestos

AbstractBrexit may have dominated the 2019 general election campaign, but it wasn't the only issue at stake. The political parties published wide‐ranging manifestos, while their appeals also rested on established ideological reputations. This article analyses the content of the 2019 manifestos and uses the latest Manifesto Project estimates to explore ideological movement in the British party system. It reports the changing policy emphases in Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos and the ideological positions of these and other political parties in 2019. It further presents new measures for parties’ positions on the cosmopolitan‐traditionalist dimension of party competition, an increasingly important divide in electoral politics. The article shows that the ideological gap between the Conservatives and Labour opened up further in 2019. It also shows how the parties’ distinctive ideological profiles, as well as their positions on Brexit, gave voters a clearer choice than in recent elections.

민주화 이후 한국 정당경쟁의 이념적 차원 연구 선거공약에 나타난 정책강조의 요인분석을 중심으로

이 글의 목적은 공약분석에 기초해 민주화 이후 정당 간 이념갈등의 성격을 규명하는데 있다. 이를 위해 1992년부터 2017년까지 주요정당의 총선과 대선공약에 대한 내용분석과 요인분석이 수행되었다. 분석의 결과는 한국 정당의 이념갈등이 정치 영역의 ‘평화·민주’와 ‘국가안보’, 그리고 경제영역의 ‘좌-우’ 차원에서 나타나고 있음을 보여준다. 이러한 발견은 국회의원 이념연구에서 나타난 ‘반공주의’와 ‘좌-우’ 갈등을 공약분석을 통해 확인하는 것이고, 여기에 더해 ‘민주주의’ 갈등이 지속되고 있음을 보여준다. 탈물질주의 갈등은 정당 간 정책경쟁에서 드러나지 않고, 사회문화적 수준의 ‘권위주의 대 자유주의’ 갈등도 정당수준의 이념갈등에서는 보이지 않는다. 대신에 권위주의와 자유주의 가치는 안보와 민주주의의 정치 이슈와 연관되고, 자유와 인권의 가치는 진보의 영역에 속하는 것으로 나타난다. 분석 결과들이 전체적으로 주는 함의는 민주화 이후 한국 정당정치가 경제적 ‘좌-우’ 갈등을 안착시킴과 동시에, 권위주의적 경험에 대한 경로의존성으로 인해 다양한 사회적 갈등의 동원에 결핍을 보이고 있다는 것이다.

Making sense of party strategy innovation: challenge to ideology and conflict-mobilisation as dimensions of party competition

This article develops a pooled comparative analysis aimed at addressing two of the three overarching research questions of the special issue. It first discuss an ‘end of ideology’ research question: that is, whether party constituencies and party strategy show clear challenges to classic twentieth century ideological alignments. Second, it investigates the type of issue strategy that parties employ in this new ideological environment, expecting mainstream parties to stress a problem-solving approach, while challenger parties should favour a conflict-mobilisation strategy. Finally, the article combines these two fundamental dimensions (ideological consistency; reliance on problem-solving vs. conflict-mobilisation strategies) in order to identify party strategy innovations in current West European elections.

New parties and the transformation of the Italian political space

This article presents an analysis of the programmatic supply and ideological positioning of parties in the general election of 2013. The Italian party system went through format simplification through a reduction in the number of party units after the creation of the two large parties, PD and the PdL, but the erosion of their vote and the corresponding breakthrough of the large anti-system party, the Five Star Movement, have reversed the previous tendency towards increased fragmentation. My main goal is to understand whether, after the emergence of new parties on the political scene, the national political space has changed not only in terms of format, but also of mechanics. In particular, this article explores whether new dimensions of party competition have arisen and whether the ideological positioning of parties has consequently been affected. I show that after 2013 the Italian party system was ideologically more polarised and multidimensional than in the past as new issue dimensions emerged and traditional ones acquired new meaning.

What Accounts for Party System Stability? Comparing the Dimensions of Party Competition in Postcommunist Europe

Why do party systems stabilise quickly in some new democracies while others remain in extended flux? As a core variable of comparative politics, party system stability has led scholars to generate various theoretical explanations, but consensus is still lacking. Given its widely divergent party systems, postcommunist Europe presents an important opportunity to revisit stability's determinants. Applying hypotheses derived from theories about competition in multidimensional policy spaces, I find that they better explain variation in a 14-case sample than contending hypotheses about the electoral system, economic performance, constitutional design, political culture, or previous democratic experience.

A Two-Dimensional Approach to the Political Opportunity Structure of Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe

Previous studies on the electoral fortunes of extreme right parties (ERPs) have pointed to the importance of variables of party competition for the success – or failure – of ERPs. These studies vary greatly when it comes to describing the political opportunity structure of the extreme right. Apart from their methodological differences, existing studies differ especially with regard to the assumed underlying dimension of party competition. This article tests the impact of three frequently discussed variables in the political opportunity structure of ERPs (mainstream party convergence, position of the established right and party system polarisation) on the vote share of ERPs in Western Europe. In addition to examining previous studies in this field, it focuses on the interplay between the economic and the cultural dimensions as part of the political opportunity structure. The authors show that a decrease in polarisation with regard to economic questions is accompanied by a growing salience of ERPs' core issues, leading in the end to an increase in ERPs' vote share.

Ideological Dimensions of Party Competition in Korea: A Comparison between Authoritarian and Democratic Periods

Ideological Dimensions of Party Competition in Korea: A Comparison between Authoritarian and Democratic Periods

Party system(s) and electoral behaviour in Belgium: From stability to balkanisation

Belgium has one of the most fragmented party systems of any modern democracy. This article asks the following questions: is party fragmentation linked to the importance of the ethno-regionalist vote or to the rules of the electoral system? Has party fragmentation also produced centrifugal or polarised multipartyism (between the regions, but also within Flanders, given the spectacular rise of the Vlaams Blok)? What explains the difference in party fragmentation between Flanders and Wallonia? What are the dimensions of party competition in each community and what are the socio-demographic and attitudinal characteristics of the different electorates? Which steps have the political elites taken to cope with the increasing fragmentation of the party landscape and growing voter volatility? To what extent has the increasing divergence between the regional party systems led to the building of asymmetrical coalitions at the federal and regional levels of government? The splitting of the Belgian party system into two, albeit still fragmented, party systems has further complicated the problems of coordination within a polarised, multi-cleavage and multilevel system that seriously undermines the stability of the entire political system.

Party conflict over European integration in Italy: a new dimension of party competition?

Party conflict over European integration in Italy: a new dimension of party competition?