Multiparty Competition Research Articles

Conviction of Multiparty Competition and Elections among Chinese College Students: A List Experiment Study

Conviction of Multiparty Competition and Elections among Chinese College Students: A List Experiment Study

Comparative Vote Switching: A New Framework for Studying Dynamic Multiparty Competition

Comparative Vote Switching: A New Framework for Studying Dynamic Multiparty Competition

Смешанная несвязанная избирательная система — оптимальный выбор при авторитаризме? (Кросснациональное сравнительное исследование)

Over the past 30 years, the mixed parallel electoral system has become one of the popular types of electoral systems used in elections to national legislatures. Curiously, it received the highest popularity in authoritarian regimes. The article attempts to identify internal political factors that contribute to the introduction of mixed parallel electoral systems under the conditions of electoral authoritarianism. To perform this task, the author uses the binary logistic regression method. In this study, the author makes an assumption that when implementing electoral reform under authoritarianism, the ruling elite is largely guided by the desire to maintain and strengthen its power. The study shows that the mixed parallel electoral system is most likely to be introduced during the period of regime transformation. At the initial stage of the consolidation of an authoritarian regime that allows multi-party competition, the ruling elite faces the challenge of institutionalizing electoral uncertainty. The effectiveness and durability of the political regime depends on how the risks associated with elections are neutralized. The mechanical combination of majoritarian and proportional representation principles opens up an opportunity to utilize the advantages of each of the electoral formulas conditional on the political situation, allowing the existing authorities to gain control over the sweeping majority of seats in parliament even when electoral competition is increasing and the support for the dominant party is falling. According to the author’s conclusion, the use of the mixed parallel system plays an important role in the consolidation of an authoritarian regime. Due to the mechanisms inherent in this system, the ruling elite can efficiently manipulate elections, ensuring the survival and stability of the authoritarian order.

PMPD Perspective on Environment and Development

People’s Multiparty Democracy (PMPD) is a creative thought of redefining Marxism in the twenty-first century. It advocates for multiparty competition, the rule of law, and supremacy through competition for leadership. It is also characterized by social justice, human rights, and economic equality. PMPD respects the embedded relationships between women and nature and internalizes the harmony between people and the environment for sustainable development. It acknowledges diversity and differences in society and environment, claiming that colonialism and neoliberalism have commodity nature and destroyed biodiversity, and displaced communities depending on natural resources. Further, it amplifies the access and control of resources to the local people and is utilized with the values as argued in Vedic philosophy, and utilizes the environmental resources with due recognition to the needs of future generations.

Political Science Knowledge and Electoral Violence: Experiences From Kenya and Zimbabwe

The relevance of political science education and research in the conduct of elections is evident, but their actual roles are not. We zero in, specifically, on the contribution of political science education and research to peaceful polling in Kenya and Zimbabwe. In both countries, electoral violence has accompanied multi-party competition. To get a profile of political science scholarly production and impact, from a comparative perspective, particularly research output on electoral violence, we employ bibliometric analyses covering publications from the whole African continent. Web of Science and Sabinet databases provide a reliable picture of a fair amount of elections expertise in Kenya and Zimbabwe. In order to approach the role of political scientists in the countries’ electoral politics as well as their participation, or lack of it, in public engagement and public decision-making, we have conducted semi-structured interviews of political scientists working in universities there. Our study reveals structural obstacles related to the ethnicization of political power in Kenya and the economic decline in Zimbabwe. Although academic qualifications were respected and the faculty enjoyed freedom to express opinions on political issues, self-censorship and frustration were identified as hampering the ability of scholars to enhance peaceful polling.

Income inequality in authoritarian regimes: the role of political institutions and state capacity

AbstractIn recent decades, there has been an institutional shift in the literature on authoritarian regimes, with scholars investigating the role of political institutions, such as elections and political parties, in shaping regime stability and economic performance. However, scant attention has been devoted to the effect of political institutions on policy outcomes, and more specifically, on income inequality. This paper adds to this debate and sheds light on the role of formal and informal institutions, on the one hand, and state capacity, on the other, in influencing levels of income inequality in autocracies. We argue that, while the presence of elections and multiparty competition creates more favourable conditions for the adoption of redistributive policies, state capacity increases the likelihood of successfully implemented policy decisions aimed at reducing the level of inequality. Our empirical analysis rests on a time-series cross-sectional dataset, which includes around 100 countries from 1972 to 2014. The findings indicate that both political institutions and a higher level of state capacity lead to lower levels of income inequality in authoritarian contexts.

Does accommodation work? Mainstream party strategies and the success of radical right parties

AbstractThis research note investigates how mainstream party strategies affect the success of radical right parties (RRPs). It is a widespread view that mainstream party accommodation of radical right core issue positions would reduce the radical right's success. Empirical evidence for this claim, however, remains inconclusive. Using party level data as well as micro-level voter transitions between mainstream and RRPs, we re-evaluate the effectiveness of accommodative strategies and also test whether they work contingent on specific conditions, e.g., the newness of radical right challengers or the existence of a cordon sanitaire. We do not find any evidence that accommodative strategies reduce radical right support. If anything, our results suggest that they lead to more voters defecting to the radical right. Our findings have important implications for the study of multi-party competition as they challenge what has become a core assumption of this literature: that accommodative strategies reduce niche party success.

Discretionary Grants and Distributive Politics: Evidence from Spain

We study empirically whether the allocation of discretionary grants across Spanish regions is related to the number of swing voters and loyal voters of the ruling party. We estimate the number of swing and loyal voters from survey data. When estimating the number of swing voters, we account in a novel way for the two-dimensional ideological space and multiparty competition. We find that regions with more loyal voters of the ruling party received more grants per capita. Partisan alignment of regional governments also matters over a part of the studied period since the regions where the socialist party of the central government was a member of the regional government received more grants.

The Effects of Political Attitudes on Affective Polarization: Survey Evidence from 165 Elections

How do individual-level political attitudes influence affective polarization on a global scale? This article contributes to the debate on the social distance of party affect by testing a set of hypotheses in 165 elections across the world. With a sample of over 170,000 voters, the results of multilevel mixed-effects regressions demonstrate that ideological radicalism, political knowledge, and external efficacy substantively affect how voters see the main political parties in electoral disputes taking place in 52 countries from 1996 to 2019. Satisfaction with democracy, however, is context-dependent; it positively influences affective polarization only when generalized democratic satisfaction is low. Furthermore, I show that these correlations remain stable regardless of the operationalization of affective polarization—that is, based on two dominant parties and weighted for multiparty competition. These findings provide robust inputs to the study of party preferences and social distance in a cross-national longitudinal perspective.

Fear of campaign violence and support for democracy and autocracy

Election violence is common in many developing countries and has potentially detrimental implications for democratic consolidation. Drawing on political psychology, we argue that citizens’ fear of campaign violence undermines support for democracy while increasing support for autocracy. Using individual-level survey data from 21 electoral democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa, we find robust support for our argument. Citizens fearing campaign violence are less likely to support democracy and multi-party competition, more likely to favor a return to autocracy, and less likely to turn out to vote. Our findings have important implications for democratic survival and provide further impetus for reducing electoral violence.

Coalition incentives and party bias in Chile

This article revisits the debate over Chile's binomial electoral rules and its consequences and examines how the new electoral system conceived by a democratic congress altered political competition. It utilizes a seat-vote model of multiparty competition to analyze party bias under the binomial rule. This approach differs substantively from prior studies of the Chilean case that focused primarily on the disproportionality of aggregate results. In contrast to earlier analyses, the findings reveal that the allocation of the seats under the binominal resulted in significant party bias benefiting the main parties of the right. This bias, however, was eliminated after the electoral reform. The new rule continues to provide majoritarian benefits to parties receiving larger shares of votes, but this effect is less pronounced than before. It is now easier for small parties to gain seats, which has increased party fragmentation. However, we show that coalition incentives, which were heralded as one of the main advantages of the binomial rule, are also significant under the new rule in use since 2017.

Brahmin Left versus Merchant Right? Education, class, multiparty competition, and redistribution in Western Europe.

In this article, we revisit the main claims of Part Four of Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology and especially the changing support coalitions for parties of the left. Piketty's core argument in this part of the book is that the left now represents the highly educated and that, as a result, the redistributive preferences of the working class do not find representation in today's party systems. We address these claims building on existing political science research that has investigated the transformation of politics in advanced capitalist societies. We argue, first, that the educational divide cannot be adequately analyzed by looking at a left and a right bloc, but crucially needs to pay attention to the rise of green/left-libertarian and radical right parties. Second, we contend that the new middle classes that support parties of the left are largely in favor of economic redistribution. Analyzing data from the European Social Survey in 11 West European countries from 2002 to 2018, we show that the effect of education on voting left or right is indeed largely driven by green/left-libertarian and radical right parties, while there is little empirical evidence that social democratic parties represent the educational elite. We also find that redistributive preferences remain at the heart of voting behavior and that, especially for educated voters, these preferences determine whether someone votes for a party of the left rather than the right.

PARTY AND INDEPENDENT-INDIVIDUAL REPRESENTATION IN THE MECHANISM OF ENSURING THE DEMOCRATIC MANDATE OF THE POPULAR TRUST IN A CONSTITUTIONAL STATE

The party system in contemporary Russia has a number of features that should be taken into account in the course of the legal research and search for the optimal correlation of party and independent (individual) representation in the constitutional mechanism of the popular trust mandate. In our opinion, it is the features of the Russian party system at the present stage of its historical development, not multiparty as such, that determine the main vector of constitutional-legal regulation of these public relations and the relevant assessment of this phenomenon in Russian legal science. The research methodology is based on a comparative legal method that allowed the comparison of party and independent representation in the popular representation system. The use of the historical and legal method is determined by the need to identify the features of the development of the party system in modern Russia through the prism of historical facts. The forecasting method has allowed determining the prospects of further development of the Russian political system. The constitutional system of the Russian Federation over the past decades has demonstrated a very decisive rejection of the one-party ideological system and the transition to the nascent but steadily developing multiparty system. As the real multiparty system and political competition become stronger, the individual-independent form of popular representation will give way to the party mandate of popular trust until the institution of “independent” single-member deputies becomes a thing of the past, not only in the State Duma, but also in the legislative (representative) bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. “Independent-individual” national representation is more preferably for the local government, that is non-partisan national representation (in the general federal sense). By its constitutional and legal nature, the municipal popular representation is “independent and individual” in relation to political parties.

The effect of alternation in power on electoral intimidation in democratizing regimes

There is as yet little consensus in the literature as to the underlying drivers of electoral violence. This article identifies a key mechanism explaining the use of electoral intimidation, a form of violence, in democratizing regimes. Within this context, we argue that the use of electoral intimidation against the opposition is most likely to be observed when a country moving to democracy has not yet experienced an electoral turnover. Building on previous theoretical and empirical findings, we provide evidence supporting the idea that alternation in power serves as an effective tool to decrease the tensions between electoral winners and losers. Furthermore, we show that alternation in power is conditional on the performance of electoral management bodies. Based on a sample of 331 elections in 53 countries that have inaugurated multiparty competition since 1989, we find strong and robust support for our theoretical claims. Firstly, we show how alternation in power is determined by the degree of autonomy the electoral management body adopted as part of the political opening process. Secondly, we provide evidence that electoral turnover depresses the use of electoral violence after controlling for relevant variables and correcting for selection issues.

A Tale of Bias: Longitudinal Evidence of the Effect of Electoral Defeat on Citizens’ Evaluations of the Economy

Abstract The winner–loser electoral status may affect citizens’ perceptions of the national economy. In the context of Europe, this issue has aroused little interest as multi-party competition makes it difficult to study. We look at the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum, a top-down national referendum, which approximates second-order elections and divides voters in two groups, allowing the study of the effects of elections on opinions. Using a pre-post referendum panel survey, results show that losers—relying on motivated reasoning—radically change their retrospective and prospective economic evaluations after the referendum, and that this effect is conditional on party identification. The article provides new evidence on the role of partisan loyalties in the adjustment of economic perceptions.

Institutionalising electoral uncertainty and authoritarian regime survival.

Authoritarian incumbents routinely use democratic emulation as a strategy to extend their tenure in power. Yet, there is also evidence that multiparty competition makes electoral authoritarianism more vulnerable to failure. Proceeding from the assumption that the outcomes of authoritarian electoral openings are inherently uncertain, it is argued in this article that the institutionalisation of elections determines whether electoral authoritarianism promotes stability or vulnerability. By ‘institutionalisation’, it is meant the ability of authoritarian regimes to reduce uncertainty over outcomes as they regularly hold multiparty elections. Using discrete‐time event‐history models for competing risks, the effects of sequences of multiparty elections on patterns of regime survival and failure in 262 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2010 are assessed, conditioned on their degree of competitiveness. The findings suggest that the institutionalisation of electoral uncertainty enhances authoritarian regime survival. However, for competitive electoral authoritarian regimes this entails substantial risk. The first three elections substantially increase the probability of democratisation, with the danger subsequently diminishing. This suggests that convoking multiparty competition is a risky game with potentially high rewards for autocrats who manage to institutionalise elections. Yet, only a small number of authoritarian regimes survive as competitive beyond the first few elections, suggesting that truly competitive authoritarianism is hard to institutionalise. The study thus finds that the question of whether elections are dangerous or stabilising for authoritarianism is dependent on differences between the ability of competitive and hegemonic forms of electoral authoritarianism to reduce electoral uncertainty.

Issue Ownership and Strategic Policy Choice in Multiparty Africa

While it is widely believed that democratic institutions are more responsive to citizens’ policy needs and interests, there has been little effort to examine how multiparty competition in consolidating democracies affects policy choices among competing economic interests. The questions of whether and how democracy influences such policy decisions tend to be ignored because many presume constituents in developing countries are only sensitive to relatively direct exchanges of favors for votes, such as distribution of clientelistic benefits or local/club goods. In this study, I examine some nationally important economic (sub)sectors whose policies favor some parts of the economy over others, targeting investment, taxes, and subsidies, trade protections, or regulation. Applying issue ownership theory to two cases—Ghana and Kenya—I find that partisan competition leads incumbent governments to pursue policies that help ensure economic gains to their electoral supporters at the expense of the opposition backers’ interests.Related ArticlesKostadinova, Tatiana, and Petia Kostadinova. 2016. “Party Promises, Voter Understanding, and Mandate Responsiveness in East European Politics.” Politics & Policy 44 (1): 5‐34. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12145Pelizzo, Riccardo, and Zim Nwokora. 2016. “Bridging the Divide: Measuring Party System Change and Classifying Party Systems.” Politics & Policy 44 (6): 1017‐1052. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12188Pelizzo, Riccardo, and Zim Nwokora. 2018. “Party System Change and the Quality of Democracy in East Africa.” Politics & Policy 46 (3): 505‐528. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12255

Female Electoral Success in Taiwan Using sntv with Reserved Female Seats under Authoritarianism and Democracy

There is a debate over whether democracy is beneficial to female representation. Taiwan’s experience supports Krook’s (2013) contention that democracy may be necessary for gender quotas to produce sustainable female representation. Taiwan has employed gender quotas in single non-transferable vote (sntv) elections since the early 1950s, but this same system has had markedly different effects when embedded in different contexts. During the authoritarian era, female representation stagnated and the women who won often needed to invoke the reserved seat rule. After democratisation, women won larger seat shares and needed to invoke the reserved seat rule far less frequently. Parties were the critical actors, since with multiparty competition parties had an incentive to cultivate female political talent in order to prevent competing parties from winning seats at a discount. This paper analyses sntv electoral results in Taiwan from 1954 to 2014 in six different types of national and local elected assemblies.

Today's Party System in Indian Politics

The paper aim at to reveal the present condition of the Indian political parties. Besides, it also highlightsthe polices and decisions taken for the country which is the outcome of their party's political ideology. The Election Commission has tried to bring changes in the electoral process. Indian politics is a field of multi-party competition but the pattern through which the country is governed is all same whosoever party comes to power. Dynastic rule, splitting citizens by associating them with various castes and religion, and purchasing the media for election campaign etc. will remain common elements for various parties of Indian politics. The paradox of Indian democracy is that enlightened middle class has shown indifferent attitude towards electoral process. In the era of globalization, one is so deeply involved to fulfill his unending quench for attaining material pleasure that one fails to realize his larger national responsibility. Taking advantage of this attitude, political parties compromise with values, ethics, and morality to win elections. This raised the question that when the most educated and enlightened group will fail to fulfill their national obligation then how we can expect our political system to improve automatically. The question is whether Indian democracy has truly ensured the participation of every segment of the population in electoral process. Unless the fruits of democratic success are not shared with deprived and poorer section of the population, the goal of democracy cannot be said to be realized.

When All Parties Nominate Women: The Role of Political Gender Stereotypes in Voters’ Choices

AbstractDo political gender stereotypes exist in egalitarian settings in which all parties nominate women? Do they matter for candidate selection in systems of proportional representation with multiparty competition and preferential voting? To date, these questions remain unanswered because related research is limited to the U.S. case. Our pioneering study examines political stereotypes in one of the “least likely” cases, Finland—a global forerunner in gender equality. We find, first, that stereotypes persist even in egalitarian paradises. Second, when testing across settings of candidate choice, we find that the effect varies greatly: political gender stereotypes are powerful in hypothetical choices, but they work neither in favor of nor against female candidates when many “real,” viable, experienced, and incumbent female candidates are competing. Although in open-list systems with preferential voting, gender stereotypes can directly affect female candidates’ electoral success, in Finland, their actual impact in real legislative elections appears marginal.