Niche Parties Research Articles

Why accommodate? How niche pressure and intra-party divisions shape mainstream party strategies

ABSTRACT Research demonstrates that mainstream parties often take up the issues and positions of emerging Eurosceptic and anti-immigration parties. Yet, these accommodative strategies generally do not pay off. Why do mainstream parties nevertheless accommodate these niche actors? I argue that mainstream-niche competition is governed by intra-party dynamics. The pressure exerted by niche parties alone does not suffice to drive internally united mainstream parties to accommodate. However, when mainstream parties face substantial intra-party divisions on the niche party’s issue, they may yield under internal pressure. I find empirical support for my theoretical claims on the issue of European integration using expert survey data on 78 mainstream parties in 14 Western European democracies between 1999 and 2019. The findings contribute to our understanding of the conditions under which niche parties are contagious and illustrate how intra-party divisions can steer parties away from vote-seeking strategies with consequences for voter representation.

Why do voters support niche parties?

Why do voters support niche parties?

Navigating new realities: Explaining programmatic transitions of mainstream and niche parties

Electoral competition is determined by the issues that parties choose to compete on and the stances they adopt on these issues. However, little research has examined the trade-off between expanding a party’s programmatic stances to secondary issues while maintaining ideological continuity on primary issues. This article seeks to address this gap by examining programmatic transitions among mainstream and niche parties and in which contexts these transitions are more frequent. The study analyses 47 parties in 10 established democracies between 1986 and 2020 using multiple regression techniques. The results show that niche parties are more likely to focus on secondary issues, and when they make such transitions, they tend to be larger. The analysis also reveals that the length of niche competition influences mainstream parties’ programmatic transitions, while niche parties’ transitions are driven by their continuity in programmatic transitions and governmental experience.

Erratum to “20 years of niche parties being ‘fundamentally different’: Party constituency versus mean voter representation on multiple issues”

Erratum to “20 years of niche parties being ‘fundamentally different’: Party constituency versus mean voter representation on multiple issues”

Saved by the Greens?

Abstract Since the federal election in 2021 Alliance 90/the Greens have governed in a novel “traffic-light” coalition with the Social Democrats and the Liberals. The Greens’ willingness to experiment with new coalition models has precursors on the state level, where they have exhibited a surprising coalition flexibility. This article combines models from coalition theory with insights from issue ownership and niche parties to explain this flexibility. The empirical analysis based on Wahl-O-Mat data shows that one contributing factor is the emergence of a radical challenger that reduces the perceived distances between the established parties. This is reinforced by an increasing relevance of ecological and environmental issues, which the Greens have issue ownership of and which function as a bridge over the camp divide. The article illuminates how a general shift in a multilevel party organization shapes and enables coalition strategies on the federal level.

Past the saturation point: Why voters switch from mainstream to niche parties and vice‐versa

AbstractWhen do voters switch from mainstream to niche parties and vice‐versa? To understand these switches, we focus on the saturation of the party system. We theorize that when a party system is oversaturated – i.e. when a higher effective number of parties contests elections than predicted based on socio‐political contextual characteristics (the system's ‘carrying capacity’) – it becomes increasingly likely that: (1) mainstream party voters defect to niche parties; and (2) niche party voters refrain from switching to mainstream parties. Based on vote‐switching patterns in 15 countries and 53 elections, we find that oversaturation increases shifts from mainstream to niche parties. Further analyses show that this holds for shifts from mainstream to radical left and right parties, but not for shifts to green parties. This has important consequences for research on vote switching, the electoral consequences of policy differentiation and the competition between niche and mainstream parties.

Competing on competence: the issue profiles of mainstream parties in Western Europe

Despite a more volatile electoral landscape and in many countries also the electoral rise of niche parties, major mainstream parties continue to define the major political alternatives that citizens in Western Europe face when it comes to government alternatives. However, the voluminous literature on party competition in Western Europe mostly takes niche parties as the starting point to understand the consequences of the changing electoral landscape and also to understand the issue strategies of major mainstream parties. These parties should come to the centerstage. They pursue a common competence strategy which leads them to focus particularly on macroeconomics, health care, and education where they can document government competence to large parts of the electorate. This implies an increased overall similarity in their issue profiles. These findings are based on CAP coded party manifestos from seven countries since the early 1980s.

20 years of niche parties being ‘fundamentally different’: Party constituency versus mean voter representation on multiple issues

The literature on the concept of niche parties is rapidly growing. Characterized by a narrow electorate with extreme issue positions or salience and their responsiveness to this electorate, debate remains as to their operationalization and multidimensional behavior. This paper explores the variation in definitions used to identify niche parties or “nicheness” and analyzes their implications for the validity of findings about the strategic behavior of niche parties. Specifically, we replicate a much cited article, which argues that niche parties are more responsive to their supporters than mainstream parties while mainstream parties are more responsive to the general electorate. Using manifesto, expert, and survey data covering more than 81 European parties in the period 2006-2019, we show that this key finding is surprisingly robust to various niche party definitions. Beyond this, we demonstrate that niche parties are more responsive to their voters in multidimensional space, while mainstream parties are primarily responsive to the general electorate. The multidimensional responsiveness of niche parties - to their narrower electorate - ought to be taken into account by future scholars of party-voter linkages.

Overcoming the cost of governance? Junior party strategy in multi-level politics

How can junior coalition members overcome the costs of governing in a coalition? In this article, we argue that junior partners can use supranational and subnational political institutions as a venue for signaling disagreement with their coalition partners to mitigate the brand dilution that occurs in the coalition. To test this argument, we use roll-call data from the European Parliament (EP) from 1999-2009 to demonstrate that when intra-coalitional conflict increases, junior parties are more likely to defect from the prime minister’s party. In addition, we find that while junior parties in general are no more likely to defect on votes focused on their owned issues, niche parties are more likely to defect from the PM’s party on their owned issues as intra-coalitional conflict increases. Our results have important implications for junior party behavior and how multi-level politics can be used to strengthen party brands.

Explaining the allocation of legislative specialization

Abstract This article explains why there is important variation in the degree of concentration of legislative specialization across legislative parties. Greater concentration of legislative specialization leads parties to concentrate their legislative efforts on a smaller set of policy jurisdictions. Through enhancing their concentration of legislative specialization in certain policy areas, parties might more clearly signal their policy concerns and interests to voters. This study argues and shows that party size alters the concentration of legislative specialization. In particular, I find that a U-shaped curve defines the relationship between party size and the degree of concentration of legislative specialization: niche parties and the largest parties choose higher levels of concentration of legislative specialization.

Securitization, fear politics, and the formation of an opposition alliance in competitive authoritarian regimes

ABSTRACT This article examines how opposition parties with diverse ideologies can form alliances in competitive authoritarian regimes despite the securitization strategy used by authoritarian incumbents. Using Turkey as a case study, the article demonstrates that an authoritarian leader may associate terrorism with opposition parties and may disseminate this fear to manipulate moderate voters and prevent coalition formation between niche parties. By analysing public speeches of political actors in Turkey, the study argues that if opposition parties recognize the vulnerabilities of the regime and believe that forming an alliance would gain support from the masses and encourage cross-party voting, then the securitization strategy would not deter them from forming a pre-electoral alliance. However, the failure of the securitization strategy to prevent opposition parties from forming an alliance does not guarantee opposition victory in elections. The securitization strategy employed by the authoritarian regime can still be utilized to effectively empower the authoritarian leader, enabling them to win elections by capitalizing on fear and depicting the opposition alliance as a security threat and a potential source of instability if they were to come into power.

Mainstream parties and global warming: What determines parties’ engagement in climate protection?

AbstractGlobal warming is not only a serious threat for humanity but increasingly structures political competition in Western Europe. The rise of green (niche) parties and public awareness of the issue pressure mainstream parties to emphasise climate protection. Yet, while scholars reflect on the factors influencing mainstream parties’ environmental agendas, we know little about what triggers climate standpoints and about the role public opinion plays in this process. This study measures the salience of climate protection in 292 election manifestos of mainstream parties in 10 Western European countries since the 1990s and estimates the impact of different factors on their climate agenda using OLS regressions. The findings suggest that green parties are not the driving factor, and that it is the public salience of environmental issues and pressure from the Fridays for Future movement influencing mainstream parties’ agendas. Accordingly, mainstream parties seem to be responsive to public opinion pressure adopting climate protection stances. The study further proposes a different measure of niche party success than that used in previous studies.

Shifting Positions: Party Positions and Political Manifestos in Costa Rica

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes how niche parties may utilize a strategy of policy shifting to garner additional voters. It leverages a unique opportunity in which a Costa Rican political party released two different versions of its party manifesto at different moments during a single election cycle. This rare opportunity uncovers how the party shifted from having a hard conservative stance on social issues, such as abortion, to moderating its stance and centering its focus on less contentious issues in a runoff election campaign. Understanding how a single political party may alter its strategy is important because it allows us to better gauge the effectiveness of shifting policy positions, especially for niche parties, for which a particular issue area is dominant. Moreover, this analysis opens additional avenues of research on political parties in the Latin American context, since research utilizing manifesto data in this context has been limited.

왜 프랑스는 극우화되는가?

It is remarkable that, during the French presidential election in 2022, there are two far-right parties: Reconquête and Rassemblée nationale(RN). After creation at the end of 2021, approval rating for Reconquête rose from 13% to 16% and then fell, winning 7.1% of the votes at the first round of 2022 presidential election. Approval rating for Marine Le Pen was in inverse proportion to that of Reconquête. This paper aims to analyze the rise of Reconquête with a niche party theory, trying to confirm it through parties leaders’ declarations, on the one hand, and election pledges of the Reconquête, Front national(FN) and RN party of 2002 and 2022, on the other hand. Analysis shows that the emergence of Reconquête was a consequence of Marine Le Pen’s “dédiabolisation” strategy. In order to keep distance from Jean-Marie Le Pen who caused several scandals by his radical remarks, Marine Le Pen changed the Party’s name from FN to RN, and tried to correct the excessively far-righted path, similar to fascist one. RN succeeded in becoming less extreme far-right party, and was finally criticized for being “too normal”, leaving an extreme far-right party’s place vacant. Reconquête took over the position of an extreme far-right party that had been vacant, and therefore became more politically similar to that of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Common points of two leaders are found in radical remarks which led them sometimes to be sentenced to be guilty, and in the similar campaign pledges of Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002 and Zemmour in 2022. For these aspects, Reconquête can be seen as a niche party, given that it does not depend on a specific ideology, and keeps strong policy rigidity. In addition, Zemmour’s policy follows extreme far-right tendencies of Jean-Marie Le Pen, which contributes to maintain a consistent minority support in the sense that existing parties are reluctant to deal with it. Moreover, the niche party strategy of Reconquête expanded the support base of the far-right parties. RN’s maximum approval rating was just over 26% before the rise of Reconquête, but, when the latter was included in the polls since September 2021, and during the first round of the 2022 presidential election, the total approval rating for the two far-right parties increased further to 30.3%, which is much more than 26% of RN. Yet, it is possible that the political position of far-rights parties in France would be depend on whether Reconquête will keep its stance as a niche party in the next elections, or its niche party position will be weakened.

Nationalist identities, preferences and voting for sub‐state nationalist parties in the Flemish region of Belgium

AbstractThere is an ongoing academic debate about the question whether sub‐state nationalist parties should be considered as niche parties, focusing almost exclusively on their core issue of centre‐periphery relations, or whether their electoral appeal can be considered as multidimensional. In that case, these other dimensions can vary with regard to the specific ideological position, historical circumstances and strategic considerations. In this article, we address this theoretical question by relying on the case study of the sub‐state nationalist parties in the Flemish region of Belgium, where they jointly obtained 44% of the vote in the most recent elections. Comparing election surveys from 2009, 2014 and 2019 suggests that the electoral appeal of these parties rests on a mixture of nationalist issues, right‐wing economic policies and a restrictive attitude towards immigration. These results suggest that sub‐state nationalist parties are not purely niche parties, but should be seen as multiple issue parties, and this broader electoral appeal can explain the discrepancy between electoral results and public opinion on the core issues of these parties.

Intertwined fates? Members switching between niche and mainstream parties

Little attention has been paid to the process of members leaving parties in order to support other parties. Party developments in the UK in the 2010s provide an opportunity to analyse the determinants of members giving up their current party and joining a rival. We examine this issue using an original panel survey of 2,679 members of the Green Party of England and Wales. Our results show that members who joined the Greens motivated by concern about social justice are more likely to leave and support Labour after Jeremy Corbyn’s election as party leader. Members who joined to protect the environment are less likely to leave. Niche parties can attract members predominantly motivated by issues traditionally represented by a mainstream party but these members are more likely to leave the party again following a position change by the mainstream party.

Adaptation or inflexibility? Niche party responsiveness to policy competition, with evidence from regionalist parties

AbstractDespite a growing literature on niche parties, little is known about whether and how these parties are responsive to policy competition. Drawing upon data on regionalist parties’ programmatic strategies across Western Europe from 1971 to 2009, I find that these niche parties are more ideologically flexible than previously posited when facing governmental policy appeasement. While they do not shift to a more extreme issue position following increases in a region's decentralization level, regionalist parties do broaden their issue agenda. Issue diversification, however, is limited to those parties whose goals are being met; dissatisfied secessionist parties do not expand their issue emphases after decentralization reforms short of independence. Supported by emerging evidence of similar agenda diversification among appeased green and radical right parties, these analyses further our understanding of niche parties as strategic actors and offer new explanations for variation in the effectiveness of mainstream party tactics towards them.

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.

Populist communication among usual and unusual suspects: A longitudinal analysis of the communication of Finnish party leaders during parliamentary elections (2007–2019)

AbstractA great deal of scholarly attention has been devoted to the success of populist actors around the world. However, to a lesser extent, the focus has been directed towards the way in which populist political communication is used by other parties and how populist political communication has developed over time. Hence, this article takes a longitudinal approach to examine how Finnish party leaders have used populist communication during four parliamentary elections and if populist communication is contagious. This study argues that populism is best understood as a discursive frame, combined with the necessary element of people centrism with antielitism and/or exclusion of ‘dangerous others’. Manual content analysis has been used to measure the usage of populism in Finnish party leader interviews during the parliamentary elections between 2007 and 2019. The analysis reveals that several party leaders used populist political communication and that an increase in its overall usage occurred during the 2011 parliamentary election. Most commonly, populism was used by the Finns Party's leaders and by leaders of other niche parties in the opposition. However, in the 2011 parliamentary election, certain mainstream parties also used populist political communication. The article critically examines the idea of a populist Zeitgeist and the contagious effect of populist political communication as an explanation for the significant increase in populist political communication. The article suggests that populist communication spreads to certain parties, but to speak of a full‐blown populist Zeitgeist seems exaggerated in a consensus‐seeking multiparty democracy.

Representational deprivation: niche parties, niche voters and political protest

Political participation has increasingly taken unconventional forms in advanced democracies. At the same time, the traditional party systems of Europe have been upended by the recent emergence of successful niche parties. While some studies have examined partisanship and protest in tandem, the literature lacks a theoretical framework that ties niche voters to political protest. This article argues that niche voters are more likely to protest than mainstream voters, especially when the politics of governing coalitions results in niche parties being unable to represent their voters. Specifically, niche voters are more likely to protest when their party joins a coalition with a PM who is ideologically distant from the niche party’s position. Using all nine waves of the European Social Survey in Western Europe, the findings broadly support this argument. These findings have important implications for understanding conditions under which people engage in political protest, especially voters of niche parties. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2040237 .