National Parliamentary Elections Research Articles

Mind the gap: How party–voter incongruence fuels the entry and support of new parties

AbstractThis article examines to what extent ideological incongruence (i.e., mismatch between policy positions of voters and parties) increases the entry of new parties in national parliamentary elections and their individual‐level electoral support. Current empirical research on party entry and new party support either neglects the role of party–voter incongruence, or it only examines its effect on the entry and support of specific new parties or party families. This article fills this lacuna. Based on spatial theory, we hypothesise that parties are more likely to enter when ideological incongruence between voters and parties is higher (Study 1) and that voters are more likely to vote for new parties if these stand closer to them than established parties (Study 2). Together our two studies span 17 countries between 1996 and 2016. Time‐series analyses support both hypotheses. This has important implications for spatial models of elections and empirical research on party entry and new party support.

Gender differences in civic and political engagement and participation among Italian young people

A substantial amount of literature has revealed gender gaps in political participation. However, little is known about such gaps when using more comprehensive measures of civic and political participation including online participation. In the present study, we recruited a sample (n = 1792) of young people living in Italy. Controlling for age, majority/minority status, socioeconomic status, respondents’ educational attainment, and parents’ educational attainment, we found that female participants reported higher scores on online and civic participation, while male participants were more likely to report political and activist participation. The effect size for these gender differences was small. In addition, we did not find any gender differences in voting behavior in the last European parliamentary elections, national parliamentary elections, and local elections. These findings highlight the need to move toward a more comprehensive and detailed picture of gender gaps in political engagement and participation including different types of participation.

The Looming Refugee Crisis in the EU: Right‐Wing Party Competition and Strategic Positioning

AbstractDespite a rise in the number of competitive far right parties leading up to the European refugee crisis, some centre right parties achieved or maintained electoral success. We argue that some centre right parties recognize the electoral opportunity for radical right parties to exploit the refugee crisis for electoral gains and strategically adopt hard‐line positions on immigration to maintain and even increase their electoral success. We test our theory of strategic positioning using data on party competition in national parliamentary elections across 28 EU member states at the start of the refugee crisis. Strategic positioning appears to be a particularly successful choice for centre right parties. The quantitative analysis is supported by case studies in Western Europe of Austria and The Netherlands. Whilst strategic positioning may produce short‐term electoral success, it also mainstreams radical immigration positions in contemporary European politics, with negative implications for liberal democracy in Europe.

The concept of types of popular representation

Democracy has many appearances. The principle of democracy is implemented in republics as well as monarchies, unitary states and federations. This article proposes a new dimension of democracy – the type of popular representation – which depends on the electoral system used in national parliamentary elections. The ownership of power in the state by the people is ensured by the functioning of a representative body elected by citizens and having exclusive authority to pass laws that are binding on all. In addition, the parliament participates in the formation of bodies of other branches of power and approves the budget. Thus, research into the manifestations of the institution of popular representation is important not only for countries with a parliamentary government, but also for all other states. The direct dependence of the composition of the legislature on the will of the people guarantees that the actions of the state are subordinated to the interests of this entity. An electoral system is used to identify this will of the people. However, the significance of this legal mechanism is not limited to the role of a guide between votes and parliamentary mandates alone. The electoral system is a “double-edged” instrument that can influence the exercise of power by the people. The purpose of this article is to analyse this influence and demonstrate the existence of three types of popular representation formed by different categories of electoral systems. Types of people’s representation arise as a result of the repeated application of a certain mechanism and the following establishment of the party composition of the parliament and party structure of the government. The established type of people’s representation is characterised by the varying degree of effectiveness of political parties in expressing and realising the interests of the people. In addition, the implementation of the principle of alternation of power and the functioning of the checks and balances are also dependent on the electoral system used. This article formulates a concept that makes it possible to differentiate the way democracy is developed in the state and to consider transparently the constitutional and legal consequences of the choice of the electoral system.

The Refugee Crisis and Right-Wing Populism: Evidence from the Italian Dispersal Policy

This paper examines how the 2014-2017 'refugee crisis' in Italy affected voting behaviour and the rise of right-wing populism in national Parliamentary elections. We collect unique administrative data throughout the crisis and leverage exogenous variation in refugee resettlement across Italian municipalities induced by the Dispersal Policy. We find a positive and significant effect of the share of asylum seekers on support for radical-right anti-immigration parties. The effect is heterogeneous across municipality characteristics, yet robust to dispersal policy features. We provide causal evidence that the anti-immigration backlash is not rooted in adverse economic effects, while it is triggered by radical-right propaganda.

Election Cycles in European Public Procurement

This paper studies the existence of election cycles in public procurement in the European Union for the national level. We analyze different steps along the procurement process, namely the publication of the contract notice, the awarding of the contract, and the project completion. We point out how these steps should differ in their potential to address specific types of voters. We argue that the award provides politicians with a particularly appealing opportunity. It allows them to please the award-winning firms' stakeholders and the spending decision becomes binding and credible also from the perspective of forward-looking voters. We find robust evidence for electioneering in contract notices and awards prior to national parliamentary elections. The effect in contract awards is particularly strong for certain sub-categories like education and is more pronounced for visible projects.

Low-wage import competition and populist backlash: The case of Italy

This paper studies empirically the role of trade globalization in shifting the electoral base towards populism. We proxy the trade shock with swiftly rising import competition from China and compare voting patterns at the national parliamentary elections from 1992 to 2013 in about 8000 Italian municipalities differently exposed to the trade shock. We instrument import competition from China with Chinese export flows to other high-income countries and estimate the model in first differences. Our results indicate that trade globalization increases support for populist parties, as well as invalid votes and abstentionism. To rationalize these findings, we offer evidence that import competition worsens local labor market conditions – higher unemployment, lower income and durable consumption – and increases inequality. Finally, we point out that local public expenditure may play a role in mitigating the political consequences of the trade shock, arguably because it alleviates economic distress.

The 2019 European Elections: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something green

In the aftermath of a European Parliament (EP) election, there are normally two prominent aspects that receive attention by scholars and experts: the turnout rate and whether the Second Order Election (SOE) model proposed by Reif and Schmitt (1980) still applies. That model is based on the idea that, because EP elections do not themselves provide enough stimulus as to replace the concerns normally present at national elections, the outcomes of EP elections in any participating country manifest themselves as a sort of distorted mirror of national (Parliamentary) elections in that country. The mirror is distorted because those national concerns are modified, not so much by the concerns arising from the European context in which EP elections are held as simply by the fact that EP elections are not national elections. In particular, at EP elections, national executive power is not at stake. The same party or parties will rule in each country after an EP election as ruled there before.

Responsiveness when parties are “weak”: A candidate-based analysis of voter-party congruence in Europe

Outside the US, the crucial question of how well politicians represent the preferences of voters is usually investigated at the party level. Reversing this perspective, we examine representation in Europe from the point of view of individual candidates running in national parliamentary elections. This is especially insightful in a period that seems characterized by a decline in parties’ representational capacities and an increasing personalization of politics. We analyze representation by considering the incongruence between candidates’ left–right positions and the average placement of their party voters. By combining candidate survey data with mass survey data on voters, we assess how ideological incongruence varies according to predictors measured at the levels of candidates, parties, and party systems. The results highlight a systematic association between a partisan style of representation and candidates’ proximity to voters, as well as the interactions between representational roles and factors such as the anti-establishment nature of parties and ideological polarization in the party system.

New kids on the ballot: The party-level determinants of new party success

New parties can shake up party systems by advancing new issues, influencing established competitors and affecting the dynamics of party competition. However, which kinds of new parties are successful? While the literature has extensively focused on institutional-level and election-level drivers of new party success, the literature on party-level determinants of new party success is scarce. As most studies on new party success focus on party entry at the election level or on new party survival, we argue that these studies suffer from selection bias as they do not leverage information on unsuccessful parties. This is understandable, since quality data on unsuccessful parties’ vote shares, party organizations and ideological characteristics are scant. To overcome this limitation, we examine the party-level determinants of new party success in the Netherlands, including all parties that have participated in national parliamentary elections since 1946. Our findings have important implications for the study of new parties in modern democracies.

Even in Sweden?1: Misinformation and elections in the new media landscape

Abstract The Swedish national parliamentary election of 2018 took place amidst considerable concern over the role of misinformation. This paper examines the role of digital media during the election against the background of the Swedish media system. It focuses on the role of bots and how they supported the Sweden Democrats, whose agenda was also promoted by anti-immigrant alternative news websites. This article reports on a study of Twitter that used computational techniques to distinguish bots from genuine accounts across hashtags related to the election and Swedish politics (such as #valet2018). I examine which parties are supported and criticised by bots and by genuine accounts, and discuss the content of the tweets. In this article, I place bots in the context of broader debates about the role of digital media in politics and argue that misinformation and alternative news websites will demand continued future vigilance.

Fighting Fire with Fire? Inequality, Populism and Voter Turnout

In this article, we ask whether the presence of populist parties influences the negative effect of income inequality on voter turnout. A number of studies have shown that voter turnout is lower in unequal countries. In particular, citizens with fewer resources abstain at higher rates. Since populist parties seek to mobilize these groups, their success could lead to higher and less unequal turnout rates. To assess empirically whether this holds true, we analyzed a dataset encompassing data on 296 national parliamentary elections in 31 European countries between 1970 and 2016. The results show that there is neither a direct nor an indirect effect of populism on voter turnout. In elections with more successful populist parties, voter turnout was not significantly higher than in other elections. Higher vote shares of populist parties also do not mitigate the negative impact of income inequality on voter turnout. Finally, there does not seem to be a difference between elections with high left-wing or right-wing populist parties’ success. Neither variant of populism alters the relationship between inequality and turnout.

The Impact of Corona Populism: Empirical Evidence from Austria and Theory

I study the impact of corona populism – politics aimed at denying or downplaying the danger posed by COVID-19 – on the evolution of the pandemic using regional data from Austria. The right-wing FPÖ made a corona populist turn at the end of the first wave of infections. Using panel regression analysis, I show that the vote share of the FPÖ at the last national parliamentary elections is a strong predictor for the number of COVID-19 deaths per capita after the FPÖ switched their policy stance, while there is no correlation before the policy switch. Interestingly, I do not find a statistically significant correlation between the FPÖ vote share and the reported number of infections. I hypothesize that this can be traced back to a self-selection bias in testing, which causes a higher dark figure in FPÖ strongholds. To explore this hypothesis, I extend the classical SIRD model to incorporate conditional quarantine, and heterogeneous mixing of two groups of agents who react differently to the pandemic. Such a model can explain the nontrivial empirics: if mixing is sufficiently homophilic, an increase in the share of “corona sceptics” can cause an increase in the number of deaths without increasing the number of reported infections. I finally discuss the non-trivial implications of the interplay between group sizes, behavioral differences and the degree of homophily on public health outcomes within the theoretical model.

Political Budget Cycles in European Public Procurement

This paper studies whether political budget cycles occur in public procurement in the European Union. Using project- level data from Tenders Electronic Daily (2008-2018), I analyze different steps along the procurement process, namely the publication of the contract notice, the awarding of the contract, and the completion of the project. While there is no evidence of an increased activity in project completions, I find an increase in public procurement contract notices and awards prior to national parliamentary elections. This effect is more pronounced for visible and labor-intensive projects and can be interpreted as a “credible election promise”, as the budget for the project is only committed at the time of the award and not spent yet.

Spain’s party system development trends in the context of the electoral cycle 2019

The topicality of the article is that the party system of Spain is undergoing serious transformations, the positioning of political forces and their ideologies, the organizational structure are changing significantly. National parliamentary elections are held for the fourth time in 4 years, which is unique to the countries of consolidated democracy. Trends in the development of Spain are relevant for cross- national comparisons of party systems. Methods – systems approach, synchronous comparative analysis, a secondary analysis of the results of opinion polls, mapping of party support in the elections. Materials: regulations; statements by party leaders; pre-election programs; results of sociological surveys; statistics on the results of elections. Results: The crisis of the party system in Spain is peculiar to the transition from a bipartisan model to a model of moderate pluralism, increased fragmentation, significant volatility, and the dependence of the main national parties on the support of regional parties. In the electoral cycle of 2019, the party system of Spain is a system of moderate pluralism (5 leading actors) with the growing role of regional parties, pragmatic coalitions are inevitable for creating a government. The economic recovery of 2014–2019 influenced the decline in the influence of “Unidos Podemos”, their electorate partially returned to the PSOE. In European and subnational elections, these trends are even more pronounced due to the format of electoral systems and the isolation of regional party systems. The threefold structure of the Spanish electorate, distributed mainly among left-leaning centers, center-right and regional nationalists, is preserved. An analysis of the statistical results of the elections and questionnaires proves an inversely correlated relationship between the level of support for the PSOE and “Unidos Podemos” in the center-left segment, and the level of support for the People’s Party, “Citizens” and “Vox” in the center-right camp. The influence of parties is extremely uneven across autonomous communities, and unevenness is increasing. The increase in the instability of the party system in Spain is predicted due to the growing influence of new parties and the underdeveloped culture of parliamentary coalitions. This process increases the chances of Catalan nationalists. A radical reform of the political system of Spain is brewing; the electorate of the left parties expresses the greatest demand for reform.

AUTNES Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Post-Election Survey 2017 (AUTNES Edition)

Reduced edition for public use. Full edition available for scientific use. This is Open Access data based on the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) Module 5 and focuses on the Austrian National Parliamentary Election held on 15 October 2017. This survey is part of the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES).

Duverger and the territory: explaining deviations from the two-party-competition-law

ABSTRACT According to Duverger’s Law, plurality voting systems lead to two-party competition. However, many results of national parliamentary elections deviate from this rule. In contrast to previous research, which argues that in countries with territorial splits, regional two-party systems aggregate to national multi-party systems, this article shows that this explanation accounts for only a small proportion of the empirical exceptions to Duverger’s Law. Instead, this article distinguishes three explanations for Non-Duvergerian outcomes at the national level. The three mechanisms relate to the level of electoral constituencies, to the aggregation of constituency results, and to the interaction between constituency- and aggregation effects. This article assesses the explanatory power of each of the three explanations on an extensive sample of election results from plurality vote systems, linking national to constituency-level results.

Internet and voting in the social media era: Evidence from a local broadband policy

This paper analyzes the causal impact of broadband Internet on electoral outcomes beyond the introduction phase of broadband technology—that is, in the social media era—based on a local broadband policy. We exploit the staged infrastructure upgrade across rural municipalities in the Province of Trento (Italy), generating exogenous (spatial and temporal) variation in the provision of advanced broadband technology (ADSL2+). Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find positive effects of ADSL2+ availability on overall electoral turnout at national parliamentary elections. Party vote analysis shows significant shifts across the ideological spectrum. These shifts, however, are likely transitory rather than persistent. Placebo estimates support a causal interpretation. Further evidence shows that the policy caused private broadband take-up at the extensive margin rather than a speed upgrade. We also provide evidence in support of social media use as a major mechanism for turnout effects.

Closer to the people: A comparative content analysis of populist communication on social networking sites in pre- and post-Election periods

ABSTRACT A comparative content analysis explores stylistic and contextual factors that resonate with populist communication on social networking sites (SNSs). Advancing the field, we investigate differences in politicians’ use of populist communication in pre- and post-election periods by analyzing a comprehensive sample of Facebook posts and tweets (N = 1,010) of the leading candidates in the 2017 national parliamentary elections in Austria and the Netherlands. We identify important stylistic elements that resonate with populist political communication such as negative emotions or an us-versus-them rhetoric. Our findings further suggest that although populist communication is more prevalent in the SNS communication of right-wing and left-wing populist parties, political actors across all parties are more likely to use populist communication before than after elections. In line with recent conceptualizations, we argue that populism can be understood as a framework of communication with measurable sub frames, which can be expressed by different political actors with different goals. Understanding populism as a discursive framework of communication can ultimately help to reconcile existing divergent conceptualizations of populism.

Von der „nationalen Nebenwahl“ zur „europäisierten Wahl“? Die Wahl zum Europäischen Parlament vom 26. Mai 2019

It is questionable if the concept of the European election as a second-order national election is still a useful explanatory model or if the European election has become a relevant “Europeanized” election . Therefore, six hypotheses about the orientations as well as the turnout and the electoral behavior of the electorate at European elections in comparison to national parliamentary elections are developed and empirically tested by analyzing the campaign and results of the European election 2019 in Germany . Four of the six hypotheses can be confirmed . Nevertheless, in view of the changes of many indicators one can speak of a “Europeanization” of the European election . Additionally, the composition of the parliament in comparison to the situation after the 2014 elections is discussed, concentrating on the rise of the right-wing parties . Finally, the article deals with the conflict between the European Parliament and the European Council concerning the election of the successor of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission . [ZParl, vol . 50 (2019), no . 4, pp . 691 - 714]