Party Choice Research Articles

Los puntos de conexión rígidos para determinar la ley aplicable al contrato internacional en la Unión Europea. ¿Evolución o retroceso?

La determinación de la ley aplicable a los contratos internacionales en defecto de elección de parte en la Unión Europea estuvo regulada durante más de veinte años por el artículo 4 del Convenio de Roma de 1980. Dicho precepto mezclaba un alto grado de flexibilidad para elegir la ley del contrato —mediante el principio de los vínculos más estrechos—, con un moderado nivel de rigidez presunción basada en la teoría de la prestación característica—. Este precepto generó muchas dificultades interpretativas, lo que produjo gran cantidad de sentencias contradictorias. Con ocasión de la trasformación del Convenio de Roma de 1980 en un Reglamento de la Unión Europea, se aprovechó para incluir importantes modificaciones al artículo 4, lo cual dio atención especial el establecimiento de normas rígidas para determinar de manera inflexible la ley aplicable a ocho de los más importantes contratos internacionales. El presente artículo pretende analizar si los puntos de conexión rígidos para determinar la ley aplicable constituyen una solución que permita alcanzar un alto grado de seguridad jurídica en la Unión Europea.

Social Policy Preferences and Party Choice in the 2011 Swiss Elections

AbstractTo what extent do social policy preferences explain party choice? This question has received little attention over the past years, because the bulk of the literature has argued that electoral choice is increasingly shaped by identity‐based attitudes, rather than by preferences for economic‐distributive social policies. We argue that in the wake of this debate, the significance of social policy preferences for electoral choice has been underestimated, because most contributions neglect social policy debates that are specific to post‐industrial societies. In particular, they merely focus on income redistribution, while neglecting distributive conflicts around social investment. The Selects 2011 data allows investigating this crucial distinction for Switzerland. Our empirical analyses confirm that it is pivotal to take the pluridimensionality of distributive conflicts seriously: when looking at preferences for social investment rather than income redistribution, we find that social policy preferences are significant explanatory factors for the choice of the five major Swiss political parties.

Deliberation, political knowledge and vote choice: Results from an experiment with second-order elections

This article assesses the effects of deliberation and increased political knowledge on vote choice. The observed knowledge gains result from participation in a deliberative experiment in the context of second-order elections, which facilitates realistic estimates of information gains that can be expected if citizens were politically more engaged than they actually are. Using survey data on 333 participants in the deliberative experiment and 729 respondents from a control group, we find that deliberation is associated with significant changes in vote choice. Specifically, participating in the deliberative event is related to an increased likelihood of vote switching in favour of Green parties. However, there is no support for the expectation that changes in citizens’ party choices are related to the observed increase in political knowledge.

‘The right flower to stick to’: the Unionist Party's questionable choice in 1959

In 1959 the Ulster Unionist Party (U.U.P.) abandoned the idea that relations between the government in Belfast and the two main parties in Westminster should be maintained with a semblance of impartiality. Hitherto, although the Unionist M.P.s at Westminster had taken the Conservative whip, overt criticism of Labour had remained comparatively muted, if only to ensure that those with socialist sympathies would remain under the Unionist umbrella rather than defect to the Northern Ireland Labour Party (N.I.L.P.). In the run-up to the 1959 Westminster general election, however, the U.U.P. not only made offers of unconditional support to the Conservatives, but accompanied them with disparagement of Labour policies and objectives. The logic of that choice was not only contrary to the experience of inter-governmental relations with London since 1945, it also carried a high risk at a time when key areas of the Northern Ireland economy were becoming dependent on support from the British government, and a Conservative victory in the election was by no means certain. It therefore raised the inter-related questions of whether relations with the Labour party had been so toxic, and whether the attitude of the Conservatives, who had been in government in Westminster for most of the decade, had been so benevolent as to justify abandoning the approach which formerly had prevailed. Support for the Conservatives was the U.U.P. default setting, but unless carefully managed, that support carried with it the danger of alienating the Labour party which, given the rotation of power at Westminster, was bound someday to form the government with which Northern Ireland ministers would have to work.

Voters are not fools, or are they? Party profile, individual sophistication and party choice

This article builds on V.O. Key’s postulate that voters are not fools and that they function as an echo chamber reflecting the clarity of alternatives presented to them. We first propose a reassessment of Key’s claim by examining whether and to what extent the impact of issue preferences on the vote choice depends on the clarity of parties’ profile on these issues. Our empirical tests are based on data from the 2007 Swiss election study and cover three different issues that voters may use as decision-making criteria. Our results confirm that the clearer a party’s profile on a given issue, the higher the impact of that issue on the vote for the party. Second, we offer a refinement of Key’s argument by arguing that voters’ political sophistication conditions the strength of issue voting. Empirical evidence supports this argument, but shows that the effect of political sophistication is curvilinear: sophistication exerts a stronger mediating role when a party has a moderately clear profile than when it has a low or high profile.

‘We Don't Do God’? Religion and Party Choice in Britain

This article shows that religion has been consistently important in predicting voters’ party choices in Britain over time. The relationship between religion and party preference is not primarily due to the social make-up of different religious groups, nor to ideological differences between religious groups, whether in terms of social conservatism, economic leftism or national identity. Instead, particular denominations are associated with parties that represented those denominational groups in the early twentieth century when social cleavages were ‘frozen’ within the system. The main mechanism underpinning these divisions is parental transmission of party affiliations within denominations. These findings have important implications for how we understand both the persistence of social cleavages and the precise mechanisms that maintain social cleavages.

The CISG as Soft Law & Choice of Law: GGjj Ryy?

The CISG is hard law. Yet in many ways, it arguably mimics soft law in its operation and impact. This has much to do with the pedestal upon which the CISG places party autonomy, since it enables parties to modify its provisions or exclude its application altogether. However, whether parties actually exercise their autonomy in this way is itself influenced by factors relevant to their choice of law more broadly.In this Chapter it is argued that the CISG behaves like soft law in many senses. It argues that rather than taking a purely doctrinal approach, an interpretive approach which takes into account the effect on party choices of law when choosing between otherwise equally valid interpretations may help mould the CISG in a manner more conducive to its underlying aims. In this context, treating the CISG as a ‘soft’ or ‘optional’ law can focus attention on the effect of interpretation upon choices of law.Soft law depends entirely upon its acceptability to potential users, primarily in terms of its economic value, for its effectiveness. Likewise, if factors which affect choices of law by parties are taken into account in interpretation, the CISG may become more desirable. This may increase the frequency with which the CISG is ultimately applied and its comparative efficiency vis-a-vis other choices of law. This in turn, will enhance its impact and arguably improve the efficiency of international trade.

The Political Consequences of Blame Attribution for the Economic Crisis in the 2013 Italian National Election

This article describes the events that brought about the dismissal of the Berlusconi government in November 2011 and the appointment of a cabinet led by former EU commissioner Mario Monti, before moving to an analysis of how popular perceptions of the economic and political situation have evolved since that time. Relying on an ITANES five-wave inter-electoral panel study, the article shows the EU's growing importance as a divisive political issue. Blaming the EU or the former Berlusconi government as a source of the economic crisis exerted a significant impact on party choice in the 2013 election, while retrospective sociotropic economic evaluations were conditional in their impact on the structure of blame attribution for the economic crisis.

A Simultaneous Analysis of Turnout and Voting Under Proportional Representation: Theory and Experiments

In a system of proportional representation, we study the interaction between a voter’s turnout decision and her party choice, and how these relate to party polarization. Quantal response equilibria predict such interaction effects. In particular they predict (i) a Polarization Effect: reduced strategic party choice when voting is voluntary makes voters more likely to vote for extreme parties (conditional on voting at all); (ii) an Extremist Effect: voters supporting extreme parties are most likely to vote; (iii) a Turnout Effect: party polarization increases voter turnout. We provide data from a laboratory experiment that support these theoretical predictions. In addition, we provide supporting empirical evidence from real world elections. Hence, the interaction between turnout and strategic voting that has been neglected in most of the previous literature is shown to be important.

Different Surveys, Different Results? A Comparison of Two Surveys on the 2009 European Parliamentary Election

The European Election Survey (EES) is carried out in all member states at the time of each European Parliament election. The mode of data collection (mainly telephone interviews) and the sampling procedure (achieving 1,000 interviews in each country) raise doubts about the data quality. Until now knowledge has been lacking about the extent to which the mode of data collection and the sampling procedure bias the results. In one European country an independently designed election survey is carried out: The Swedish National European Parliament Election Study (SNES). The survey consists of face-to-face interviews of a random net sample of 2,682 individuals (response rate 67 per cent compared to 11.2 in the Swedish EES survey). In addition, SNES includes a large number of variables from official register data (including validated voting) that facilitates analyses without any non-responses generating missing data. This quasi-experimental methodological set up is used to compare the data from the two surveys for voter turnout, left–right placement and party choice. Results show that EES overestimates turnout levels more than SNES. EES also has a large overrepresentation of highly educated respondents, and thus underestimates differences in turnout between highly and less educated citizens. As for left–right placement, respondents in EES place both themselves and the parties on more extreme positions. Regarding party choice, the main difference between the surveys is that the EES largely underestimates the share of Social Democratic voters.

Labour market risks and political preferences: The case of temporary employment

AbstractThe political economy literature has gathered compelling evidence that labour market risks shape political preferences. Accordingly, insecurity fuels support for redistribution and left parties. This article analyses this argument for temporary workers, a so far neglected risk category which has increased dramatically in the past two decades. Temporary workers also have been in the focus of recent insider‐outsider debates. Some authors in this line of research have argued that temporary work leads to political disenchantment – for example, non‐instrumental responses such as vote abstention or protest voting. This contradicts risk‐based explanations of political preferences. The article discusses both theoretical perspectives and derives conflicting hypotheses for the empirical analysis of temporary workers' policy and party preferences. The review reveals considerable ambiguity regarding the questions which parties temporary workers can be expected to support and what the underlying motives for party choice are. Synthesising arguments from both perspectives, the article proposes an alternative argument according to which temporary workers are expected to support the ‘new’ left – that is, green and other left‐libertarian parties. It is argued that this party family combines redistributive policies with outsider‐friendly policy design. Using individual‐level data from the European Social Survey for 15 European countries, the article supports this argument by showing that temporary, compared to permanent, workers exhibit higher demand for redistribution and stronger support for the new left. Neither the risk‐based nor the insider‐outsider explanations receive full support. In particular, no signs of political disenchantment of temporary workers can be found. Thus, the findings challenge central claims of the insider‐outsider literature.

Gender and party choice at the 2011 New Zealand general election

This paper investigates gender differences in voting for the two major parties (Labour and National) and the two main small parties (Green and New Zealand First) at the 2011 New Zealand general election. In contrast to the gender gap found in many post-industrial societies with women being more likely to lean towards the left than men, this study reveals limited differences in party preferences among men and women in New Zealand. The only substantial gender difference is found in relation to voting for New Zealand First, with women being substantially less supportive of the populist party than men. This gap is robust and remains substantial even when gender differences in socioeconomic characteristics and issue positions related to the role of government, the welfare state and the presence of immigrants are taken into account. Interestingly, while no gender gap occurs at first sight in support for the mainstream right-wing party National, a gap does arise once gender differences in policy issue positions are controlled for, with women being more likely to support National than men.

The Calculus of Ethnic Minority Voting in Britain

Using data from the 2010 UK general election, the article shows that there is a distinctive calculus of party choice among Britain's overwhelmingly Labour-supporting ethnic minorities. Ethnic minority (EM) voters are similar to whites in the importance they accord to partisanship and valence considerations in deciding which party they vote for. However, EM voters place less emphasis on ideological spatial calculations. Additionally, across all ethnic minority groups, there is an important – and differentiated – role for perceptions of discrimination. In 2010, personal experience of (egocentric) discrimination tended to damage Labour as the incumbent governing party. In contrast, perceptions of (sociotropic) discrimination against fellow EM citizens interacted with participation in British cultural practices to increase support for Labour. These findings reflect the history of Labour and Conservative governments in the UK. Labour is the only party that, in power, has legislated actively to promote ethnic minority rights and interests.

Party choice in hard times: Group-specific responses to economic downturns in Sweden

This article asks if, when, and why different groups of voters behave differently in the wake of economic downturns. We examine two Swedish elections (1994 and 2010) that were held just after two deep recessions (the financial crisis of 1991–1993 and the 2008–2009 Great Recession). We find that group differences were much larger in 2010 than they were in 1994. After the 1991–1993 recession, the government's electoral support declined across the board. In 2010, there were large differences between voters with low economic status (who were unlikely to support the government) and voters with high economic status (who were likely to do so). Our findings suggest that group differences in electoral behavior after an economic downturn depend on contextual differences across elections. We argue that future research should pay close attention to the magnitude of economic shocks, the development of asset prices (especially real estate), and changes in social policy.

The Twenty-first-Century Left in El Salvador and Nicaragua

For the first time, two former guerrilla organizations simultaneously hold power in Central America: the Salvadoran Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front and the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front. Both parties’ preference for leftist policies is constrained by the lack of development of the productive forces in both countries and the imperatives of the neoliberal model under which they are forced to operate, often yielding behaviors that are ostensibly contradictory to their revolutionary origins. The apparent contradictions are best understood as the result of strategic party choices, diverging conceptions about the appropriate policies for the construction of socialism, and the transformation of the leftist agenda in the twenty-first century. Por primera vez, dos organizaciones de ex-guerrilleros tienen el poder simultáneamente en Centroamérica: el Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional en El Salvador y el Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional en Nicaragua. La preferencia de ambos partidos por una política izquierdista está limitada por la falta de desarrollo de las fuerzas productivas y por los imperativos del modelo neoliberal en el que se ven obligados a operar, a menudo dando lugar a comportamientos que aparentemente contradicen sus orígenes revolucionarios. Las aparentes contradicciones se entienden mejor como resultado de decisiones partidistas estratégicas, concepciones divergentes sobre las políticas adecuadas para construir el socialismo y la transformación de la agenda izquierdista en el siglo veintiuno.

Social structure, social coalitions and party choice in Hungary

This article examines the relationship between social structure and party choice in Hungary on the basis of a survey from 2009 (N = 2980). The following structural variables are examined: ascriptive variables (age and gender), territorial variables (region and urban-rural residence), social class variables (education, social class and household income), sector employment and religious variables (religious denomination, church attendance and self-declared religiosity).The analysis shows that age and territorial variables are the most important socio-structural variables for explaining party support in Hungary. The role of religious and class variables is considerably smaller in this respect.The two largest parties, Fidesz and the Socialist Party, are first and foremost anchored in different generations and in territorial variables although different degrees of religiosity also has significant effect on support for these parties. The impact of the religious variables is, however, low. The class variables have the opposite impact on the two largest parties from what we should expect according to traditional class voting. Fidesz gets strongest support from the working class and the lower educated strata while the Socialist Party gets strongest support from the service class. The two largest parties are foremost social coalitions of very different social groups. The explanatory power of social structure on party choice is low in Hungary. This is also confirmed from comparative studies.

Candidate and party bias in the news and its effects on party choice: Evidence from Austria

This paper investigates the impact of exposure to actor-related news bias on party choice in the 2008 Austrian elections. More specifically, this work introduces relative and relational measures of party and candidate biases in electoral reporting and outlines their effects on vote choice. The applied integrative understanding of party and candidate bias in the news, combining visibility and valence, results in a single measure classifying parties and party leaders in media-outlet-specific bias spectra. To measure bias exposure effects on party choice, the candidate and party bias levels in each newspaper are weighted with the individual exposure to these papers. This study rests on the analytical linkage between a media content analysis of Austrian daily newspapers and a representative post-election survey. Firstly, this investigation shows that the Austrian newspaper coverage is characterized by clear, not uniform but rather outlet-specific, biases toward parties and their leaders. Above all, the tabloid press primarily focuses on a strong polarization and duelization regarding the parties and the leaders contesting for chancellorship. Secondly, in a case study investigating the effects of news bias exposure on party choice regarding the governing parties, we find a positive relation between high exposure to advantageous party and candidate biases in newspapers and the probability to vote for the respective party.

H. H. Stevens and the Chinese: The Transition to Conservative Government and the Management of Controls on Chinese Immigration to Canada, 1900-1914

This article uses the political life of H. H. Stevens, a Vancouver businessman, Conservative member of parliament, and anti-Asian activist to examine the nature of the relationship between the institutions of Canadian immigration control and the political and ideological context of the time. It shows how the transition from Liberal to Conservative government after the Canadian election of 1911 provides an opportunity to examine the importance of individual and party choices in the implementation of immigration regulations. It becomes clear that the policies of control were subject to a certain amount of improvisation on the part of those responsible for implementing the system and allowed those who had strong opinions to harden the line against Chinese immigration. Further, the article reveals how differences in Liberal and Conservative attitudes on Chinese immigration are clearly not merely differences in racial outlook, but rather differences in individuals’ material position at home and their political calculations in the larger context of the British Empire.

The influence of social structure, networks and community on party choice in the Flemish region of Belgium: A multilevel analysis

The impact of social position, networks and context on party choice is tested in a multilevel model of voting choice for a multi-party system, Flanders (Belgium), using the 2009 Social Cohesion Indicators Flanders survey data. Social position is shown to be a robust indicator of party choice for Christian-Democrats, Greens and extreme right partisans. The contribution of network indicators is modest, except for the extreme right party, where voters are more socially isolated. Although community has an impact on most preferences, a vote for the extreme right does not seem to be related to the community context any more. The analysis demonstrates that, although varying by party, voting choice still depends on structural features of social position, network and context. These structural determinants proved to be important not just for traditional parties, but also for more recent parties like the Greens or the extreme right.

Does aging affect preferences for welfare spending? A study of peoples' spending preferences in 22 countries, 1985–2006

A recurrent assertion is that aging will intensify age-related conflict over public budget allocation. If people are led by their self-interest, the young will prioritize public education services, while the elderly will demand better pensions and health-care services. Addressing this issue requires longitudinal survey data and estimation of age (life-cycle), period and cohort effects. Except for a few of studies based on US data, such analyses are non-existent.We use repeated cross-section survey-data for 22 countries. Respondents are classified into ten-year age-groups and birth decades, and we estimate a regression model explaining respondents' public spending preferences. When period and cohort effects are taken into account, elderly people want less education spending, and more health care and pension spending. These life-cycle effects vary considerably between countries, but are generally quite small. Preferences also appear mostly unrelated to left–right party choice.