Party Positions Research Articles

The politics of phasing out fossil fuels: party positions and voter reactions in Norway

ABSTRACT To mitigate climate change, fossil fuels need to be phased out, but political parties may fear a voter backlash when implementing the required policies. We investigate whether such backlash occurred in Norway, a multi-party democracy reliant on a large petroleum sector. Specifically, we analyse whether the loss of jobs in the petroleum industry due to the 2014 crash of the international oil price has influenced political support for the petroleum sector. Using data from party manifestos, we find that party positions on the petroleum sector remained constant over time even during an industry downturn. Pro-petroleum parties capitalized on the oil price shock by increasing their vote shares. However, the reaction remained local and confined to parties whose voters are not overwhelmingly concerned with other subjects, such as immigration. The voter gains enjoyed by pro-petroleum parties did not arise at the expense of pro-fossil fuel phaseout parties; instead, it was parties with an ambiguous position on the issue that incurred losses. Hence, multi-party politics of fossil fuel phaseouts are complex and taking a pro-phaseout position may not be politically costly.

Book Review: Rationality of Irrationality: Political Determinants and Effects of Party Position Blurring

Book Review: Rationality of Irrationality: Political Determinants and Effects of Party Position Blurring

Predicting user engagement with anti-gender, homophobic and sexist social media posts – a choice-based conjoint study in Hungary and Germany

ABSTRACT Social media are used by populist radical right parties for anti-gender campaigns to mobilize against the ‘gender ideology’. Anti-gender hate speech targets women, sexual minorities, and feminist activists and therefore poses a threat to their participation in society. In this study, we examine the engagement with anti-gender hate speech on social media in Germany and Hungary, using anti-gender, homophobic, and sexist Facebook posts as examples. These countries were chosen because of the cultural differences in the way gender issues and discrimination are dealt with, as well as the position of populist radical right parties. Employing a choice-based conjoint design, we analyze which content and source characteristics as well as cultural and individual factors influence users’ engagement with such postings. Findings show country differences in the acceptance (likes, shares) and disapproval (flagging behavior) of anti-gender hate speech but also with respect to relevance of the three main topics of hate speech (anti-gender, homophobia, sexism).

The Influence of Government Ideology on Renewable Energy Consumption in the European Union Countries

By utilizing the panel quantile regression method and employing unbalanced panel data covering the years between 1972 and 2020, this study examines the impact of government ideology on renewable energy consumption for 26 EU member countries. The estimation results indicated that an increase in the relative power position of right-wing parties in government was correlated with a decrease in renewable energy consumption, whereas a rise in the relative power position of left-wing or center-wing parties in government was associated with an increase in renewable energy consumption across all quantiles evaluated. The estimation results were robust to different indicators of renewable energy consumption and government ideology. The estimation results of this study also indicated statistically significant positive associations between the share of seats in parliament for political parties classified as green and renewable energy consumption, and between the total Christian democratic governing party seats as a percentage of all legislative seats and renewable energy consumption. This result suggests that green parties and Christian democratic parties may be the key driving forces behind the positive coefficients for variables representing left-wing and center-wing parties in our study.

Party politics and the shaping of migration policy in the Council of Ministers

AbstractThe Council of Ministers is still the European Union's decision‐making center in migration policy. However, we know little about the determinants of member state's policy positions. This article tests three hypotheses: member state positions might be influenced by socioeconomic conditions, by public opinion, or by partisan preferences. We conduct a quantitative analysis of two legislative proposals at the intersection of migration and welfare policy (the returns directive, COD/2005/167 and the social security regulation, 2016/0397/COD) using member state positions as the dependent variable. The result is that different factors are important for positioning on the two proposals: member state positions on the returns directive are correlated with public opinion, while their positions on the social security regulation are correlated with party positions, especially the position of the economically rightmost coalition partner. Thus, our study takes issue with the argument that migration politics in the Council are disconnected from the domestic arena.

Contradiction of Waiver Clauses Articles 1266 and 1267 of the Civil Code in Standard Contracts

In a standard contract, one party can waive Articles 1266 and 1267 of the Civil Code. As a result, one of the parties will default or not fulfill the terms of the agreement, preventing the need for the deal to be annulled by a court and instead allowing it to be terminated by the parties themselves. However, in this case, there is a contradiction in the overriding clause of the article. In this research, we conducted a case study of rejecting overriding this clause in credit card agreements. The research results show that this article should not be excluded because it will result in reduced protection for both parties, and there is a need to balance the positions of both parties by upholding the principles of justice.

Protecting the climate to challenge the centre? Secessionism and climate policy preferences in Catalonia

ABSTRACT Climate policy is mostly ruled by national governments, which in multi-level systems creates tensions with sub-national tiers. Recent research has suggested that political parties’ climate policy preferences and their stances on decentralisation are associated as pro-peripheral parties tend to assume the role of climate pioneers not solely due to environmental concerns, but also as a means to challenge the central authority of the state. In this research, we analyse whether the salience of climate change in the manifestos of parties competing in the 2017 and 2021 Catalan regional elections varies between them and if these differences are associated with the aforementioned cleavage. Our empirical findings reveal that the prominence given to climate change in the manifestos of the parties studied tends to be higher the more pro-periphery the positions of parties are, and the more salient decentralisation and independence.

Who influences whom? Inequality in the mutual responsiveness between voters and elites

ABSTRACT Recent years have seen a proliferation of research on the connection between voters and elites. One literature explores whether elites’ responsiveness is biased towards affluent voters, but does not allow for reverse causality. Another literature investigates voters’ responsiveness to elite cues but pays limited attention to potential inequality in such responsiveness. This study combines insights from both literatures by analysing income inequality in elite responsiveness to voters, and vice versa. It does so using detailed time-series data on citizens’ preferences and party positions towards government spending in the Netherlands. Empirical analyses reveal that there is no exclusive pro-middle or pro-rich bias in voter influence, while adaptation increases with income. The analysis has important implications for the study of representation and inequality and, more broadly, for the relationship between citizens and elites in established democracies.

Immigration Clashes, Party Polarization, and Republican Radicalization: Tracking Shifts in State and National Party Platforms since 1980

Abstract Studies of U.S. politics increasingly aim to make sense of two key trends: party polarization and Republican Party radicalization. Surprisingly, however, party divergences on immigration have been largely overlooked. Drawing on state and national political party platforms since 1980, we document the rise of attention to immigration, the polarization of substantive party positions, and the sharp GOP turn toward restrictive measures. After pinpointing the timing and relative trajectories of national and state-level agenda shifts, we explore potential drivers and establish two sets of flashpoint events worth further study: highly visible and mostly deadlocked congressional battles over immigration grand bargains, and bottom-up reverberations from the widespread 2006 immigrant rights protests and post-2008 Tea Party organizing. We find that grassroots Tea Party efforts were intervening accelerators rather than original causes of the Republican embrace of tough immigration restrictions. The article concludes by stressing the chronological layering of successive party polarizations—from 1960s divergences around civil rights, through clashes about abortion and LGBTQ rights from the late 1970s to the 1990s, and followed by immigration polarization in the 2000s. This process of layering polarizations on top of one another may have supercharged recent GOP turns toward ethnonationalism and tolerance for threats of violence.

Восприятие политических партий и их лидеров на фоне актуального психологического состояния российского общества

The article is devoted to the images of the Russian parties and their leaders against the background of the changes in the psychological state of our society in the modern conditions. The study was based on qualitative and quantitative research conducted in late 2022 — early 2023 in 22 regions. The object of the study were five parties represented in the State Duma (United Russia, The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, The Liberal Democratic Party, A Just Russia — For Truth, New People) and their leaders (A.Turchak, G.Zyuganov, V.Zhirinovsky, L.Slutsky, S.Mironov, and A.Nechaev). The research methodology included a survey, an in-depth interview, a semantic differential, a projective test, and a directed associations method. The study was not representative of the country as a whole, but the sample was balanced in terms of gender, age and education. The study demonstrated that the high level of anxiety and concerns of citizens about military actions did not affect a number of perception parameters, such as the attitude towards parties as a necessary part of the democratic process, the lack of a clear ideological identification of parties, and the personification of party images. At the same time, some parameters have undergone a significant transformation. First, the perception of a position of parties within the framework of the dichotomy “power — opposition” has changed. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, A Just Russia — For Truth and The Liberal Democratic Party have lost a significant part of their image as opposition in the perception of citizens, while support for United Russia, which is clearly associated with the authorities, has increased. Second, the popularity of a flamboyant style has become a thing of the past, and today the image of the centrist party is the most attractive for voters. The new political reality requires that parties work to consolidate the society in the face of an external threat rather than demonstrate their independence and distance themselves from the authorities. Third, if before the beginning of the 2020s the demand for conservatism prevailed in the society, in the current situation social democratic and liberal values are more in demand.

Secessionism as the Mainstream: Regionalist Parties’ Strategies in the Catalan and Scottish 2021 Regional Elections

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic was a critical event that has challenged regionalist-secessionist parties to maintain their dominance at the regional level, because it has questioned the attractiveness of the idea of independence for the electorate. Nevertheless, the results of the regional elections 2021 in Catalonia and Scotland brought about the success of regionalist parties with secessionist demands. This study analyzes regionalist parties’ strategies in the 2021 regional elections in Catalonia and Scotland, advancing our understanding of their strategic choices to get/remain in office. This study employed the Regional Manifesto project methodological approach to perform a manual content analysis of party positioning and selective emphasis. Additionally, it advances the distinction between blurring and subsuming strategies through a frame analysis of electoral campaigns. The results suggest that regionalist parties mainly use subsuming and two-dimensional strategies to gain electoral success and that the exact strategic choices depend on the structure of the competition. The research confirms the framing of territorial demands primarily in socioeconomic rather than political terms, as proposed by the FraTerr Project. However, regionalist parties have avoided radicalizing their social demands owing to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the Skills and Basic Connotation of Business Negotiation

The purpose of business negotiation is to change the relationship between each other through the exchange of interests, exchange views through the form of business negotiation, in order to achieve a process of seeking common ground for cooperation. Business negotiation is a relatively complex negotiation process, not only to clarify and safeguard their own rights and interests, but also to consider the economic interests of the other side. Therefore, business negotiation is like a game of rights, through various ways to achieve their own purposes, in order to obtain the maximum economic benefits. Both parties in business negotiations need to work together to achieve a win-win goal. While maximizing their own economic interests, they can also maintain the position of both parties based on mutual benefit, which is the goal pursued by all enterprises. In this paper, the negotiation skills required for business negotiation and its profound connotation are studied as follows.

What does it mean to be pro-European? The case of the European centre-left and centre-right in Austria, Germany and the UK

Europhilism has traditionally been associated with centre-left and centre-right parties, those parties that contributed to the development of the EU. However, centrist parties vary in their support of European integration. Yet, we know comparatively little about the extent to which these parties support European integration. Should they be classified as Eurosceptic, or do they continue to support European integration? A comparative analysis of national and European manifestos of centre-left and centre-right parties in Austria, Germany and the UK between 1990 and 2019 shows that pro-European attitudes can be split into three patterns: enthusiast, equivocal and critical Europhiles. These patterns are combined with Vasilopoulou’s patterns of Euroscepticism to create a continuum from support for to opposition to European integration, thereby recognising that centre-left and centre-right party attitudes can change across time. These findings have implications for research on centre-left and centre-right parties’ EU attitudes by identifying the nuances of the pro-European position.

What role for solidarity? A frame analysis of the solidarity conceptions of the German Laender governments in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT Solidarity experienced a revival during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been an important component of the political discourse in every economic—and therefore also the social—crisis that hit Europe in the last years. This contribution aims to assess the relevance that members of German governing parties at the Laender level attached to solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic. By conducting a frame analysis, we identify calls to different types of solidarity, and brought these in relation to the explanatory power of situational aspects, economic interests and party-political positions. Empirical analysis displays that solidarity is an important, albeit not too frequently used frame, in crisis dialogue. High threat perception (but not actual threat) appears to foster claims to solidarity and other forms of communal behaviour, while the economic situation and party-political stances do not exhibit an equally strong effect. Nevertheless, aligned party-political positions on solidarity go along with a reduced understanding of the concept, which primarily serves as a justification for placing a burden on the caretakers of society. This traditional notion of solidarity is even more prominent amongst leftist party members, a fact raising questions concerning the distinctiveness of German party positions, as well as concerning social equality.

Does issue importance attenuate partisan cue-taking?

AbstractAre cues from party leaders so important that they can cause individuals to change their own issue positions to align with the party's position? Recent work on the importance of party cues suggests they do, especially given the literature on partisanship as a strong and persistent group identity. However, in this paper we test the limits of those partisan cues. Using a unique two-wave panel survey design we find that the effect of party cues is moderated by the prior level of importance individuals place on an issue. We find that when a person believes an issue area to be more important, party cues are less likely to move that citizen's position, particularly when the cue goes against partisan ideological norms. Our results show evidence that an individual's own issue positions—at least the important ones—can be resilient in the face of party cues.

Women in leadership in the party: Women’s representation in intra-party leadership and party positions on gender equality in employment

Labour policies have large impacts on gender equality in the workplace. While political parties play critical roles in policy making, it remains unclear if party-level women’s representation impacts labour policies. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between women’s representation in intra-party leadership and party policy positions on gender equality in employment. The analyses of 1,955 political parties in 169 countries from 1970 to 2019 find that a higher proportion of women in intra-party leadership results in the party taking stances more likely to favor gender equality in employment. Even among the parties we would expect to be the least women-friendly, a greater representation of women in intra-party leadership has positive influence. More women in leadership means stronger party support for gender equality regardless of ideological party placement. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that women party leaders have greater impacts on labour policies when a party leadership has greater decision-making power.

Turning off the base: Social democracy's neoliberal turn, income inequality, and turnout

AbstractGreater party system polarization has recently been shown to influence voter turnout under conditions of higher income inequality. This article builds on these findings by introducing into the framework the policy positions of social democratic parties. It does so through multilevel regression on a sample of 30 advanced democracies in 111 elections, from 1996 to 2019. In doing so, it contributes to the identification of party policy offerings as a mechanism moderating inequality and turnout. It finds that income inequality significantly reduces voter turnout, which is substantially magnified when social democratic parties adopt rightward welfare state positions. It also finds that social democratic parties can largely mitigate the negative effects of inequality on turnout for low‐income individuals by offering leftist welfare state positions. The findings carry important implications for understanding the electoral consequences of both party positioning and rising inequality in advanced democracies.Related ArticlesSimon, Christopher A., and Raymond Tatalovich. 2022. “The Turnout Myth and Referendum Voting in the United States.” Politics & Policy 50(3): 472–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12483.Stockemer, Daniel, and Stephanie Parent. 2013. “The Inequality Turnout Nexus: New Evidence from Presidential Elections.” Politics & Policy 42(2): 221–45. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12067.Wilford, Allan M. 2020. “Understanding the Competing Effects of Economic Hardship and Income Inequality on Voter Turnout.” Politics & Policy 48(2): 314–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12344.

Trade and the transnational cleavage in European party politics

ABSTRACT Theorists of the transnational cleavage, defined as a political reaction against European integration and immigration, also regularly conceptualise international trade preferences as a component of this contemporary societal divide. Yet empirical analyses of this cleavage focus on the former two topics, while trade and the transnational cleavage has not been systematically investigated. Making use of a new item in the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey that measures party support for protection of domestic producer groups versus support for trade liberalisation, we examine the applicability of explanations for European integration positioning for the topic of trade. The results show that party positions on international trade correlate with parties’ underlying two-dimensional ideology: parties of the economic left and culturally conservative parties support trade protection. The findings advance previous studies on the transnational cleavage and party positioning on trade, and demonstrate the continued importance of economic factors in driving patterns of trade protection.

The Complexity of Climate Positions of Right-wing Populist Parties in Europe

The rise of anti-climate right-wing populist parties urgently threatens mainstream climate governance goals in Europe. However, it is an oversimplification to portray all right-wing populist parties as outright climate deniers. In reality, the climate positions of right-wing populist parties are complex. While some right-wing populist parties continue to deny climate science and oppose climate action, others acknowledge the evidence but distance themselves from mainstream climate policies. This complexity arises from the tension between these parties’ ideological convictions and strategic considerations. On the optimistic side, the complexity of right-wing populist parties’ climate positions could create openings for cross-party cooperation based on scientific consensus and help transform some right-wing populist parties into constructive actors on climate governance. However, most right-wing populist parties remain deeply hostile to climate action; it is hard to expect that the opportunism of such parties in their climate positions will prompt them to make real policy concessions.

Do They Get Close? Party Shifts and Changes in Parliamentary Congruence on Multiple Issue Dimensions in the Wake of the Crises

ABSTRACT This article explores congruence in the wake of the crises. It analyses (1) shifts in parties’ positions on multiple issue dimensions and (2) examines congruence between citizens and parliament in times of crisis. The article refers to three issue dimensions: left-right, migration and European integration. First, I hypothesise that shifts in party positions are more pronounced on newly contested issue dimensions, such as migration or European integration, than on the left-right dimension. Second, I argue that systemic congruence will increase over the course of time. Third, I posit that systemic congruence will increase particularly on newly contested issue dimensions, like migration and European integration. The study brings together a set of Western European countries: France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain and Sweden. The analysis is based on CHES- and ESS-data (2006–2018/2019) and explores congruence as a many-to-many relationship. In large part, the results confirm the hypotheses. First, party positions changed, and shifted particularly on the issue dimensions of European integration and migration. Second, systemic congruence increased in several cases. Third, the most profound changes are to be found on the issue dimension of European integration.