Intra-party Divisions Research Articles

Prime minister leadership style and the role of parliament in security policy

This article explores how differences in prime ministers’ leadership styles may affect parliamentary influence in security policy. Drawing on work on personality differences in political psychology, I argue leadership style is a critical but often overlooked factor in the growing area of research on parliaments and foreign affairs. My key argument is that prime ministers vary in how they respond to and manage parliamentary involvement in security policymaking. I propose Leadership Trait Analysis to capture prime ministers’ orientations towards parliamentary involvement. I examine the plausibility of my argument with intra-country comparisons of Turkish and UK prime ministers’ orientations towards parliament in specific cases of security policy. More generally, this article challenges more formal-institutional approaches to parliaments’ role in security policy. A focus on prime ministers has an analytic advantage of bringing together some of the various factors (such as intraparty divisions and public opinion) to explain parliamentary influence in security policy.

Reading between the lines: party cues and SNP support for Scottish independence and Brexit

ABSTRACTScotland’s future within the European Union (EU) played a prominent role in the 2014 independence referendum. The story goes that latent supporters of independence voted to stay within the UK to maintain EU access. Defeated, Scottish leaders declared the referendum a once-in-a-life-time event only repeated if conditions substantially changed. With the UK now facing a chaotic exit from the EU, proponents of Scottish independence have suggested that a second referendum may occur after Brexit negotiations are completed. Faced with a consensus among Scottish party leaders in supporting EU membership, those hoping for a second independence referendum, we argue, looked to alternate sources of information that saw Brexit as an opportunity to create the conditions that would spur a second referendum. Using panel data from the British Election Study, we examine whether Scottish voters voted tactically to leave the EU. We argue that Scottish National Party voters were likely to interpret statements on the conditions for a second independence referendum as an implicit signal to vote “Leave.” The results have important implications for the role of referendums in representative democracy, strategic voting, and the importance of intra-party division on individual vote choices.

Policy, Office and Votes: Conservative MPs and the Brexit Referendum

The division within the Parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) over Britain’s membership of the EU has been one of the most significant intra-party divisions in European political history. The 2016 Brexit referendum campaign offered a unique opportunity to consider legislative motivations as almost every MP declared a preference and frontbench MPs were free to back either side. This article uses logistic regression analysis in order to consider MPs’ motivations in terms of Muller and Strom’s policy, office and votes trichotomy. It is argued that all three motivations affected MPs decision making on the EU referendum. However, vote-seeking motivations were less influential than either policy or office-seeking.

Towards Exit from the EU: The Conservative Party’s Increasing Euroscepticism since the 1980s

Since the 1980s, Britain’s Conservative Party has become increasingly critical of the European Union, and of the country’s membership of it. So contentious and controversial has this issue become that it was a significant factor in the downfall of three consecutive Conservative Prime Ministers, all of whom found it increasingly difficult to manage their Party in Parliament, and thereby maintain any semblance of Party unity. Initially, during the 1980s and 1990s, the intra-Party divisions were between Europhiles (pro-Europeans) and Eurosceptics, but this demarcation was subsequently superseded by a division between soft Eurosceptics and hard Eurosceptics. The development and deepening of these intra-Party divisions are attributable to a plethora of endogenous and exogenous factors, the combined and cumulative effect of which ultimately led to the ‘Brexit’ vote in the June 2016 referendum.

Conservative modernisation and European integration: From silence to salience and schism

The re-emergence of European integration as a difficult issue for the Conservative Party exposed the limits of Cameron’s modernisation project. In opposition, Cameron had defused the EU issue by lowering its salience but this suppressed rather than effectively addressed the issue, allowing Eurosceptics who favour withdrawal or fundamental renegotiation to shape the agenda. In office, new and familiar challenges emerged. The Eurozone sovereign debt crisis changed the dynamics of the UK’s relationship with the EU. Domestically, coalition with the Liberal Democrats and dissent from Eurosceptic Conservative MPs restricted Cameron’s room for manoeuvre, while the rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) added a new dimension to the problems the EU issue poses for the Conservatives. Cameron responded by promising that if the Conservatives win the 2015 general election, he will negotiate a ‘new settlement’ in the EU and hold an ‘in-out’ referendum. This article assesses whether this position amounts to a belated modernisation of Conservative policy that might both resolve intra-party divisions and settle the question of the UK’s place in the EU.

Chinese Patron-Clientelism for the Twenty-First Century: The Rise of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang

Patron-clientelism is the central dynamic propelling leadership change in China, and this model of personal association opened a path for China’s current top leaders. Patron-clientelism bolsters the key features of the Chinese political system: Leninist political organization, intra-party divisions, conflictual decision-making processes, and the vital roles played by senior figures. Patron-clientelism is characterized by both vertical and horizontal dimensions, and it is accompanied by endemic personalism, factionalism, corruption, and nepotism. Clientelistic ties have shaped all leadership transitions since the Maoist period, and they were most evident in the falls of leaders Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang in the 1980s. Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are the latest beneficiaries of the patron-clientelistic system. Xi was propelled by his “princeling” background and his association with the Shanghai faction of former top leader Jiang Zemin. Li is the latest scion of the Communist Youth League faction that produced Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao. The recent fall of Bo Xilai illustrates some of the pitfalls of factional and “princeling” leadership.

Where There is Discord, Can They Bring Harmony? Managing Intra-Party Dissent on European Integration in the Conservative Party

Research Highlights and Abstract The Conservative Party became more united around a soft Eurosceptic position in opposition, but internal divisions are evident on the scale and pace of change to the UK's relationship with the EU. Conservative Party leaders have employed a range of methods to manage intra-party dissent on European integration: intervention in candidate selection, patronage, discipline, policy compromises, permitting low-cost dissent, referendum pledges and reducing issue salience. Dissent on European integration tends to be higher when the Conservatives are in office because governing parties cannot individually control the EU agenda, must take difficult decisions and may have to sacrifice their preferred positions to broker compromises. Eurosceptic dissent has increased because Conservative policy has been diluted in coalition and the crisis in the Eurozone has raised the salience of the EU issue, but Eurosceptic rebels are not a cohesive group and this limits their influence. Divisions on European integration were prominent in the Conservative Party in the 1990s, but abated in opposition. In this period, the party became more cohesive in terms of attitudes on Europe as it embraced soft Euroscepticism. However, differences over the desired scale and pace of changes to Britain's relationship with the European Union saw dissent increase as the party entered coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. This article examines the effectiveness of various approaches to management of dissent on Europe utilised by the party leadership: intervention in candidate selection; patronage and discipline; permitting limited dissent; policy compromise and deferred decisions; pledging referendums; and agenda setting and issue salience. It shows that intra-party divisions on European integration are particularly difficult to manage and suggests that dissent on the issue may often be higher in governing parties than those in opposition.

The behaviour of political parties and MPs in the parliaments of the Weimar Republic

Analysing the roll-call votes of the MPs of the Weimar Republic we find: (1) that party competition in the Weimar parliaments can be structured along two dimensions: an economic left–right and a pro-/anti-democratic. Remarkably, this is stable throughout the entire lifespan of the Republic and not just in the later years and despite the varying content of votes across the lifespan of the Republic, and (2) that nearly all parties were troubled by intra-party divisions, though, in particular, the national socialists and communists became homogeneous in the final years of the Republic.

Where has all the trouble gone? British intra-party parliamentary divisions during the Lisbon ratification

The divisions over European integration used to be part of the landscape of British politics. Yet during the Lisbon ratification of 2007 and 2008 the main parliamentary characteristic was unity. All three main political parties had at least one issue that divided their party's MPs and peers, but for the most part such rebellion was sporadic and relatively low-level. Lisbon was the latest in more than a decade's worth of evidence that intra-party division has now been largely replaced by inter-party division, as largely united political parties face each other. The continued framing of the European issue as one of intra-party division prevents us understanding its role in British party politics.

Why Primaries in Latin American Presidential Elections?

In a context where primaries are not mandated, why do some parties use them to select presidential candidates? In this paper, we argue that the use of primary elections is likely to reflect the existence and intensity of divisions within political parties. We focus on several characteristics of political parties and party systems that are often associated with intraparty divisions. We find that these characteristics are correlated with the decision of Latin American parties to use primaries in selecting their presidential nominees. In particular, we find that coalitions and large, centrist parties are more likely to hold primaries, whereas primaries are less likely in institutional settings that facilitate exit from existing parties.

Invisible Politics: Institutional Incentives and Legislative Alignments in the Russian Duma, 1996–99

Previous analysis of legislative voting has focused on the behavior of nominal legislative parties, regardless of whether the country under examination was an established democracy or a newly democratized country. This approach is inadequate for countries with young party systems. To establish the extent to which legislative coalitions are party based, scholars must allow for the possibility that institutional incentives predominate over party influence. For this study, I applied a Bayesian discrete latent variable method to identify the legislative coalitions in the 1996‐99 Duma. I found that legislative alignments cut across party lines: electoral incentives and support for the president contribute to divides within parties that lack coherent platforms. Here I present a novel methodological approach to the identification of intraparty divisions and the major determinants of legislative coalitions in many legislative settings. This approach allows a comparison of the importance of party influence relative to other institutional incentives. It is especially useful for analyzing legislative voting in young party systems and where constitutional frameworks and electoral systems subject legislators to competing pressures.

Stumbling Through ‘Stage Two’: New Labour and House of Lords Reform

After more than 10 years in Office, New Labour has still not completed ‘stage two’ of House of Lords reform, and in spite of the March 2007 vote by MPs in favour of an 80 or 100% elected Second Chamber, there remains considerable disagreement within the Labour Party, at all levels, over precisely how the composition of the Upper House should be determined, now that most of the hereditary peers have been removed. Although many Labour MPs support a (more) democratic Upper House, they remain unable to agree on whether all, or only some, members of the Upper House should be elected, and by what method. There are also many Labour parliamentarians, who fear that an elected Second Chamber would acquire sufficient democratic legitimacy to challenge the House of Commons (and the government therein) on a much more regular and damaging basis. Now that most of the hereditary peers have been removed, these Labour MPs reason, the House of Lords is more politically representative than it has ever been, and should thus be left intact. Meanwhile, Labour MPs who want to abolish the House of Lords also fear that democratisation will enhance the legitimacy of the Second Chamber, and so often find themselves reluctantly endorsing a non-elected Second Chamber as the lesser of two evils. These intra-party divisions, clearly discernible in the votes held on proposals for reform in 2003 and 2007, coupled with the Labour leadership's determination to defend the primacy of the House of Commons, and the tacit acceptance of the Westminster Model, have ensured that after more than 10 years in Office, ‘stage two’ of House of Lords reform is still far from complete.

Explaining Change in British Public Opinion on the European Union: Top Down or Bottom Up?

Party-driven and voter-driven models of EU attitude change are compared using British survey data over 20 years. The dealignment of EU attitudes from the left–right politics dimension and growing magnitude of the effect of EU attitudes on Labour vs Conservative voting is consistent with an increasingly voter-driven process as the EU became more salient in the 1990s. The balance of influence would appear to have shifted from party-driven to voter-driven during the period under observation, though this probably results from the actions of the parties as well as external political events. The effective reversal of the position of the main parties during the 1980s followed by a period of intra-party division helped provide the conditions under which voter preferences on the EU were less constrained by elite signals.

A New Direction or Another False Dawn? David Cameron and the Crisis of British Conservatism

After three successive general election defeats, and three leaders since 1997, the Conservative Party finally seems to have staged a recovery during the first year of David Cameron's leadership. He has energetically sought to reposition the Conservatives ideologically, insisting on the need to depart from Thatcherism and move back towards the centre ground of British politics by promoting a more socially inclusive and compassionate Conservatism. His initial efforts seem to have been highly successful, with the Conservative Party enjoying its first sustained poll leads over Labour since 1992. However, more careful consideration suggests that the Conservative's recovery is rather fragile, and thus far dependent mainly on short-term factors. Certainly, the Party should be (and needs to be) much further ahead in the polls at this stage of the electoral cycle if it is to win the next general election. Moreover, Cameron has deliberately avoided making specific policy pledges so far, pending a comprehensive internal policy review to be completed by the summer of 2007, yet when more detailed policies are announced many of them are likely to refuel intra-party divisions between socially liberal modernizers and Thatcherite traditionalists, and this, in turn, will almost certainly alienate some of the electoral support (re)gained during Cameron's first year as Conservative leader. Consequently, a Conservative victory at the next general election remains highly unlikely.

Divisions within an ethno-regional party: The Volksunie in Belgium

The internal divisions leading to the end of the Volksunie are analysed in order to acquire more insight into the internal divisions within ethno-regional parties. Based on a combination of inter- and intra-party research, five possible sources of internal divisions are revealed and tested. We find three well-defined groups of party members that take an adversarial position to each other on all five possible sources of factionalism. As long as there is an overarching loyalty, sustained by a common belief in the necessity of constitutional reforms, divisions can be overcome. Once the region has been granted more autonomy, intra-party divisions tend to step into the limelight.

Party Members and the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland

The Good Friday Agreement represents an elite accommodation with popular legitimacy. Various accounts of how the deal was brokered at elite level have emerged and there is a growing amount of survey data on the attitudes of voters to the agreement. What, though, of the attitudes of the intermediate tier of party members? Continuing support for the deal among the 'centrist bloc' of the SDLP, Alliance and UUP is analysed in this article, based upon surveys of party members. The article highlights the different interpretations of the agreement, vital in the 'selling' of the deal to electors. In assessing the desires of party members in respect of contemporary debates, it suggests that the requirement for parallel consent across bloc designations within the assembly (opposed by Alliance) may be superfluous and may, in respect of education policy, operate as a barrier to change. Intra-party division, rather than inter-party conflict, appears evident from the views of members on the non-conflict management issues with which the assembly is primarily concerned.

Social Movements and Party Politics: The Case of the Christian Right

This paper explores the uneasy relationship between social movements and major political parties by considering the case of the Christian Right and the Republican Party in the 1994 elections. We look at four states where the movement was active in party politics and where Republican electoral fortunes varied from failure to success. We found that the degree of intraparty division generated by the Christian Right seemed to hurt Republicans at the polls, but the level of movement activity in itself apparently helped the Republicans. Most factors associated with support for the Christian Right did not help account for electoral outcomes across the states. Instead, the accessibility of the political party nomination processes to the movement best accounted for the election results: greater party openness was associated with poor results and more limited access with greater success for the GOP.

Intraparty Politics and Peacemaking in Democratic Societies: Israel's Labor Party and the Middle East Peace Process, 1992-96

The `linkage' between domestic politics and foreign policy is often discussed in the international relations literature. Yet, we know relatively little about the relationship between domestic politics and peacemaking. Moreover, we know next to nothing about what kind of impact internal party conflicts have on foreign policy. While the literature has attempted to address how the relationship between parties influences peacemaking, it has basically ignored how the internal divisions within parties can affect this process as well. Can intraparty factors encourage or deter a governing party from initiating a peace process? Can peacemaking produce intraparty divisions that will endanger or even foil the peace process? If, in democratic systems, foreign policy is influenced by domestic politics, then it is important to know which domestic actors can exert this influence. This article shows that the government's ability to implement its foreign policy and to elicit popular legitimacy is influenced by the extent of partisan cohesion. This article also points out that intrapartisan politics is an important aspect that must be brought into both international relations and political science research concerning domestic influences on foreign policy in general, and peacemaking in particular. Without this element, even an intermediate range theory on this relationship would be, at best, sanguine, if not incomplete. That is, the analysis of the relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy should not treat political parties as unitary actors. Using the case of the Israeli Labor Party and the Middle East peace process between 1992 and 1996, this article suggests that the peace process had a strong impact on the internal cohesion of the party, and that the internal partisan divisions influenced the peace process. This article, therefore, provides evidence that party cohesion is a necessary variable for successfully promoting a dramatically new foreign policy.

Moving Toward Unity

Conventional wisdom suggests that presidential nomination campaigns are inherently divisive and that the intraparty division fostered during the nomination campaign continues into the general election contest. Division occurs within the party between those preferring a nomination winner, the in-group, and those preferring a nomination loser, the out-group. This study examines in-group/out-group relations during the 1980 presidential nomination and general election campaigns. The author found clear evidence of intraparty division during the nomination period. However, during the general election the in-group/out-group relationship is ameliorated The author suggests that the institutional process, moving from a nomination to a general election campaign, helps to reduce factional division among the party's rank-and-file membership.

Individual Taste or Collective Decision? Public Policy on School Meals

ABSTRACTSchool meals today are provided on a compromise basis; some pupils are charged and others are not. The compromise thus rejects two types of universalistic principles: allocating private benefits by the market and provision of merit goods collectively free of charge. The article examines, empirically and conceptually, the changing meaning of school meals; the demand and supply of school meals and the allocation of public subsidies to non-needy children; conflicting goals of expert nutritionists, egalitarians, redistributionists, efficient managers, and parents and children. The article concludes by considering political constraints on rationalising the programme in the name of universalistic principles. These constraints include the inheritance of commitments from previous governments, collective responsibility of spending and Treasury ministers; intra-party divisions between frontbench and backbench MPs; and low political salience of charging as an issue.