Party Choice Research Articles

Clientelism and polarized voting: empirical evidence

One must take country-specific institutional features into account when analyzing former communist countries’ transformation process to new political institutions. We do so for post-communist Albania, where the regional and cultural polarization that has existed for centuries has evolved to clientelism in the new democracy. We show how clientelistic parties give rise to very particular voting patterns. These reveal major differences across regions not only in party choice but also in voters’ responses to government policies. These responses depend on the party in government and on the region concerned. This is in sharp contrast with results obtained when applying the same model to a large number of more advanced democracies with similar electoral institutions. A proper evaluation of democratization in Albania thus requires looking beyond the formal institutions governing elections and taking clientelism and its effect on voter behavior into account.

Party Preferences and Economic Voting in Turkey (Now That the Crisis Is Over)

The purpose of this study is to re-examine the factors that shape party preferences in Turkey by estimating an individual vote intention function. The economic variables in the empirical model are items that can be used to test the conventional `economic voting' hypotheses, i.e. whether individuals' economic evaluations about the past or the near future affect their party choice. In an earlier article, based on data from 2002, evidence was found in favour of these hypotheses. Those who had been affected adversely by the economic crisis of 2001 were found to be very unlikely to vote for the incumbent parties of the time. In the present article, we focus on comparing the characteristics of the intended voters of the currently ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) with those of other parties. According to multinomial logit estimates, those who make the more optimistic evaluations about the state of the economy are more likely to vote for the AKP. There is also an obvious increase in the number of AKP voters who support Turkey's European Union membership.

Strategic Voting under Proportional Representation: Threshold Insurance in German Elections

Does proportional representation imply incentives for strategic voting? This article investigates whether adherents of the major German parties voted against their preference in order to increase the chance of a majority coalition between their favourite party and the pre-electorally declared junior coalition partner. Focusing exclusively on the PR vote, the authors test whether strategic voting is guided by expectations with regard to the coalition formation stage. To that end they use a two-step estimation procedure to simultaneously predict (in-)complete party preferences and sincere and strategic voting in a random utility framework. Their results show that voters’ preferences, rather than mapping directly into party choice, are affected by their expectations on small parties’ re-entry chances.

Response Order, Party Choice, and Evaluations of the National Economy: A Survey Experiment

We present the results of a survey experiment in which we manipulate the order that respondents are administered vote choice and economic evaluation items. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence which suggests that survey respondents tacitly align evaluations of the national economy with previously stated attitudes and behaviour. Our results have implications for theories of economic voting and for the design of national election study questionnaires.

Valence Politics in Scotland: Towards an Explanation of the 2007 Election

In this article we use evidence from the Scottish Election Study 2007 to build an explanation for the narrow SNP victory in the Holyrood election. The theoretical focus is on valence models of voting, which are increasingly important in Scotland following dealignment and ideological convergence in the party system, and as Scottish governments flex their executive muscle. Exploring the valence battleground reveals mixed but overall negative evaluations of Labour's performance in government, and suggests advantages for the SNP on issue competence, leadership and party image. Modelling party choice at the individual level shows that key valence variables – performance evaluations, economic competence and party image – have strong and significant effects, unlike hitherto prominent factors like religion, class and national identity. Constitutional preferences are important too, but their effects suggest a further valence link: the SNP's strong showing among voters seeking further devolution but opposed to independence is due in large part to its credentials as a battler for Scottish interests. In contrast, Labour's stand against ‘more powers’ may have tarnished its own reputation on that score. We conclude that the SNP edged home by persuading enough voters that it had a positive agenda for governing Scotland within the current constitutional arrangements, and that it could deliver on that agenda.

Economic Voting and Party Choice

Economic Voting and Party Choice

Party Choice Elements in Japanese Voting Models

Party Choice Elements in Japanese Voting Models

The Role of Basic Personal Values in the Voting Behavior of Turkish People

We use data drawn from the European Social Survey to investigate the role played by Turkish people's basic personal values in their political choices. In line with previous work, nine basic values are aggregated to obtain four higher-order values that can be placed on the opposite ends of two separate dimensions. We focus on how these values relate to people's decisions to vote for Turkey's two major political parties, namely the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People's Party (CHP). We also examine how the 'values' variables relate to the more conventional determinants of party choice and how they fare against them in terms of predictive power. Our main finding is that values do play a significant role such that the decision to vote for the AKP is negatively related with openness to change and self-transcendence while the opposite is the case for the CHP.

Finality over Choice:Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v.Mattel, Inc.(U.S. Supreme Court)

In Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held that, under the Federal Arbitration Act, parties to an arbitration agreement may not contract for broader judicial review of arbitral awards than the grounds provided for in the FAA itself. The Supreme Court’s decision resolved a disagreement on this point among lower courts in the United States. The Court’s decision will have no effect on international arbitration agreements in which the parties did not seek to expand judicial review. But it seems highly unlikely that courts will enforce provisions of arbitration agreements that do call for broader review by courts. The decision in Hall Street sought to resolve a tension between two competing values in arbitration law: the desire for quick and final decisions versus the goal of enforcing the contractual choices of parties. In Hall Street, finality won out over party autonomy. In the course of reaching its decision, the Supreme Court discussed, but left untouched, “manifest disregard of the law,” an important common law ground on which an arbitration award may be vacated. The lower federal courts that have considered the issue all agree that arbitral awards are subject to review for manifest disregard of the law, though they differ on the nature and extent of that review. While the Supreme Court rejected the notion that the existence of the “manifest disregard” doctrine opened the door for private parties to expand judicial review by contract, it did not alter pre–existing case law on the availability of review of arbitral awards for “manifest disregard”of the law.

Globalization, Policy Constraints, and Vote Choice

Despite much attention to global markets and domestic politics, political scientists know very little about how globalization influences the most fundamental aspect of representative democracy, the vote. This article presents a model of party choice when the capacity of elites to deliver policy is limited by the global economy. I argue that voters evaluate parties differently when elected representatives are perceived to be constrained by exogenous conditions. Voters respond to globalization by reducing the weight assigned to economic performance evaluations and to party positions on economic issues. To compensate, they increase the salience of noneconomic issues. Analyses of French and British survey data support theoretical claims. Results show that market integration carries greater consequences for domestic politics than implied by recent work on the political economy of industrial democracies.

Explaining the salience of left–right ideology in postindustrial democracies: The role of structural economic change

AbstractDoes left–right ideology structure electoral competition? While many studies show that ideology is a powerful determinant of party choice, a growing number of scholars claim that the salience of ‘left’ and ‘right’ has declined in recent decades. These contrasting views motivate a consideration of whether the salience of the left–right dimension varies across political parties and national contexts. Drawing on recent advances in the study of the welfare state, this article argues that just as policy appeals expressed in the language of left and right crystallised during a period of economic change, changes in the organisation of postindustrial economies should weaken the left–right bases of competition. Analyses of 87 parties in 16 parliamentary democracies show that occupational heterogeneity in postindustrial economies – indicated by employment in the private service sector and in industries exposed to international competition – reduces the salience of the left–right dimension for the vote. The implications of study findings for future work on policy responsiveness and electoral change in advanced capitalist democracies are discussed.

Categorical Exemptions in Party Autonomy in Private International Law

While history records resistance, choice-of-law and choice-of-forum clauses enjoy widespread enforcement in the United States and Europe today as a recognition of the value of party autonomy in transactions increases. Yet not all such clauses can be enforced -- imagine a murder-for-hire contract that attempted to circumvent strong forum against murder through a choice-of-law clause. The methods by which the United States and Europe determine whether such clauses should be unenforceable differ, and their substantive results are also diverging. As a general matter, European courts will not enforce a party's choice to evade so-called mandatory rules, to deprive a consumer of the benefit of his home state's laws, or to deprive an employee of his home state's protections. Historically, American courts recognized similar exceptions but eschewed categorical exceptions in favor of a flexible and case-by-case public policy exception. Today, American courts are increasingly willing to enforce clauses even if they fall within what could be termed categorical exceptions to party autonomy in Europe.

PARTY POLITICS IN PORTUGAL

ABSTRACTSince the Portuguese revolution of April 25th, 1974, and the beginning of the democratic regime (with the first elections for parliament held on April 25th, 1975), political parties dominate the electoral process, both on central government and on the municipalities. The analysis of the political elites, their party filiations and recruitment and their social backgrounds has occupied Portuguese social scientists for the last years. With this paper, the author proposes to establish the relationship between these two levels of government, national and local, and access the importance of political parties in each of them. Many mayors’ political careers include vertical mobility, both upwards and downwards: from mayors to members of parliament to members of the European Parliament and ministers or even Prime Minister and President of the Republic (in the case of two mayors of Lisbon), or from ministers and members of parliament to mayors. In all of these cases, their party and their position within the party has played a central role, even when some individuals have pursued other party choices in order to get re-elected, or even have presented independent candidacies (only possible since 1997).

A New Communist Surprise – What's Next? Presidential Elections in the Republic of Cyprus, February 2008

The election of the communist party leader to the Presidency of the Republic of Cyprus constituted a surprise for many, despite the party's broad appeal. This article argues that this achievement can be explained by the party's choices and adaptation to changing conditions on the island and in the world. Cautious changes to ideology kept on board old voters, while broadening the party's appeal beyond its traditional electorate. At the same time, AKEL has shown restraint and patience for decades before contesting executive power. This course, along with the personality of the new President, played a decisive role in AKEL's success.

The grey vote: Determinants of older voters' party choice in Britain and West Germany

To what extent do older people vote differently from younger people? This article tests two generational and two life-cycle hypotheses with British and West German data. First, older voters belong to a political generation whose party preferences are shaped by the party fortunes experienced in early elections. The more de-aligned the party system, however, the less strong and clear generational differences seem to become. Second, New Politics parties are less favoured among older generations. Third, there is no evidence that ageing voters prefer to cast their ballots for economically more conservative parties. Finally, in more proportional electoral systems, older people seem to have a preference for larger parties that can leave repeated impressions on them as they age.

Economics and Ideology: Causal Evidence of the Impact of Economic Conditions on Support for Redistribution and Other Ballot Proposals

There is a large literature demonstrating that positive economic conditions increase support for incumbent candidates, but little understanding of how economic conditions affect preferences for parties and for particulars of their platforms. We ask how exogenous shifts to the value of residents' human capital affect voting behavior in California neighborhoods. As predicted by economic theory, we find that positive economic shocks decrease support for redistributive policies. More notably, we find that conservative voting on a wide variety of ballot propositions--from crime to gambling to campaign finance--is increasing in economic well being. We further show that positive economic circumstances decrease turnout and have a mixed impact on candidate choice, highlighting a limitation of inferring policy preferences from party choice.

Parliamentary Cycles and Party Switching in Legislatures

This article examines politicians' changes of party labels during the life of a legislature. The authors view a legislator's choice of party as a strategic decision recurring throughout the parliamentary cycle. In their approach, individuals are open to switching parties as they pursue goals specific to the stage in the parliamentary cycle. Analyzing Italy and Russia, they identify among legislators in both countries patterns of heightened switching for office benefits, policy advantage, and vote seeking at distinctive moments in the parliamentary cycle. The commonalities across the two systems provide compelling support for their theoretical framework. The evidence also points to a midterm peak in switching in both countries. Differences appear, however, in the timing of preelectoral positioning—contrasts that the authors attribute to differences in the degree of party system institutionalization, the age of the democratic regimes, and thus the information available to players in electoral politics.

Policy Positions, Issue Importance, and Party Competition in New Democracies

This article examines the dynamics of vote redistribution after new party entry in the context of East European democracies. Contrary to the dominant institutional and sociological approaches, the author focuses on the (strategic) policy choices of the new contestants. The author argues that a new party's choice about where to place itself in relation to existing parties and which issues to emphasize can determine its electoral success or failure. Aggregate and individual-level analyses confirm this argument. The findings underline the importance of policy-based party competition in the region. As a broader theoretical contribution, the study underscores the relevance of issue importance, and not just party issue positions, in political competition.

Economic Judgments, Party Choice, and Voter Abstention in Cross-National Perspective

This article proposes and applies a unified model of economic voting. The central claim of this article is that economic judgments affect the decision of whether to vote as well as how to vote. An analysis of cross-national survey data supports this claim, demonstrating that previous studies of economic voting have failed to identify the full relationship by omitting abstention. In addition, the analyses support a refined version of the clarity of responsibility hypothesis, showing that institutional clarity moderates the strength and nature of economic voting, with little evidence of vote-switching among parties in low-clarity settings. These findings suggest that students of voting behavior should give greater attention to the relationship between the decisions of whether and how to vote.

O Libertarian, Where Is Thy Sting?

With the 2008 Democratic National Convention slated for Denver, the libertarian concerns of Western voters, denizens of the so-called purple states, are suddenly of high interest. Pundits and commentators see in the “live and let live” ethos of the West a chance for the Democracy to reshape its faltering coalition and enter the twenty-first century rejuvenated and strong. Ryan Sager, a critic from the right, notes that from the Democratic perspective, “the West looks abundant with opportunities. And the same might be said of a long-neglected, long-suffering political demographic: libertarians.” This optimism in part underlay the party's choice of Denver over the traditional Democratic bastion of New York. Colorado is often identified as a libertarian-leaning state, and it was where the Libertarian Party was founded. But what exactly is libertarianism?