Party System Research Articles

Ideological polarization in roll call votes in constitutional conventions: The case of Chile in 2021–2

Abstract What factors account for polarization in constitutional conventions comprised of party members and many independents without prior legislative experience? Using the 4,669 roll call votes in the 155-member constitutional convention in Chile (2021–2), comprised of more independents than party members, we explore the determinants of ideological polarization. Relying on absolute values for the WNominate scores, we find that party members are less polarized than independents and that prior legislative experience does not impact polarization. In institutionalized party systems that allow independents to compete with party members on a level playing field, a larger presence of independents in legislatures might help increase ideological polarization while a larger number of party members helps reduce ideological polarization in roll call votes.

Building of Brazilian Party System

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the phenomenon of the formation and success of new parties in the period of redemocratization and the return of Brazilian multipartyism (1979-2018). Although the phenomenon is recurrent in Brazil, few studies have looked more directly at the subject in Brazil. What are the determinants of the ongoing formation of new parties? Our hypotheses are that the permissiveness of the electoral system loses effect when actors adapt to it and that factors endogenous to political competition increase the likelihood of new parties emerging. We use previous methodologies and conceptualize new parties as those that are organizationally new (obtain a new registration) and win at least one seat in the Chamber of Deputies. We divided the parties into contestation or coaptation parties to assess the impact of institutional and economic variables on them. Our results indicate that parties that are totally "outside the system" (those of contestation) have more difficulty in becoming competitive, demonstrating that the phenomenon of the appearance of new acronyms is more linked to a strategic reorganization of the elites than to a demand from voters.

Is unequal representation the consequence of different voting behavior across income groups?

Extant literature documents the unequal representation of the interests of low- and high-income groups in democracies. One potential explanation for this phenomenon is the electoral behavior of different groups of voters. If affluent citizens base their vote decisions more strongly on policy considerations, while the less affluent rely on forms of electoral support that are less strongly conditioned by policy or performance evaluations, this pattern could influence the ability and willingness of political elites to represent low-income citizens. We make use of the integrated CSES election data to study how, across a diverse set of countries, income levels affect the criteria voters rely on when voting: namely, proximity voting, valence considerations, and economic voting. Overall, our findings show no meaningful differences in voting criteria across income groups, nor consequences for party systems. These findings have important implications for the literature on unequal representation, as they rule out the common narrative that the affluent cast more sophisticated vote decisions.

The history of studying the problem of transformation of the Spanish political system on the example of the activity of the party «Citizens» (2015-2022)

The paper offers an analysis of modern research devoted to the qualification of the state of the modern political system in Spain. The author's attention is focused on the interpretation of systemic changes, the indicator of which was the activity of a new national party – "Citizens". The activities of the "Citizens" revealed the crisis of the traditional political system, based, in particular, on bipartisanship, within which two national forces dominated the country for more than 30 years – the conservative People's Party (NP) and the center-left Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). Therefore, the activity of the Citizens Party in 2015-2022 is an illustrative example of the changes taking place in the country's political system. The author systematized the main directions of modern historiography, both Spanish and Russian, paying attention to the logic of their formation, the focuses of research interest, the source base and the methods used by specialists. The methodological basis of the work is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, systematic analysis; historical and genetic method and comparative approach, which is due to the research logic of studying works on the transformation of the Spanish political system over time, and involves a comparative analysis of domestic and foreign literature. The conclusion is made about the similarity of methodology and sources; the "turn" in the study of Spanish Transit and the party-political system formed in 1975-1982 is defined – the transition from "modeling" to historical specifics. The main characteristics of the Spanish political system that exist in modern research are revealed, and the controversial prospects for the evolution of the system are noted. The author's qualification of the party system (the movement from bipartism to unstable multiparty system) dominates both modern historical works and political analysis. Modern researchers and analysts mainly paid their attention to the bright Podemos party, which is associated with its loud rhetoric and opposition to the constitutional foundations of Spain, but the activities of "Citizens", despite their activity in a crisis situation, turned out to be on the sidelines of research interest.

The effects of election timing on national and subnational turnout in Canada

ABSTRACT Where a considerable volume of work has been spent looking at the effects of voter fatigue in multi-level democracies, few work has looked at Canada as a unique case. Leveraging the specificity of the Canadian federation – level-specific party systems and electoral cycles – we show that there exists a strong and significant voter fatigue effect such that electoral turnout is lower in early, ‘snap’ elections and increases as does the time in weeks between elections, wherever the level at play. This is particularly important given that the stochastic nature of provincial and federal elections in Canada induces Canadians to go to the polls frequently – perhaps in part explaining the country’s turnout decline since the mid-1940s.

Flexible Organizational Weapon of the Party: The New Presence of Women’s Federations in Women’s NGOs in China

ABSTRACT In the past decade, the Party-state has shifted from pragmatic strategies to Party integration approaches when dealing with the third sector. It has reintroduced its organizational mechanism—mass organizations—to manage this sector and enhance direct linkages with its social constituents. This article investigates how mass organizations strategically connect with and govern civil society through a series of Party integration approaches. Drawing on the cases of women’s federations (WFs) and women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs), we propose a new typology of NGOs based on their relations with the Party: WF-affiliated, civic and independent NGOs. We then evaluate WFs’ Party integration strategies directed at each type of NGOs. First, NGOs directly affiliated with WFs/the Party play a unique political role. Second, to increase regime support, WFs develop patronage relations with civic women’s NGOs that are managed via the administrative system but unembedded in the Party system. Third, independent NGOs detached from both the Party and administrative organizations are flexibly marginalized. This article suggests that Party–state–society relations have been rewritten: civil society faces compound control from the administrative and Party systems, and the Party aims to build organizational hegemony.

Executive Approval Dynamics in Presidential and Parliamentary Democratic Regimes

Does the type of democratic regime matter for public evaluations of leaders? We argue two characteristics intrinsic to presidential and parliamentary regimes lead to divergent patterns of executive approval. For presidents, direct elections foster more personal leader-voter linkages; for prime ministers, dependence on the legislature for survival contributes to more institutionalized party systems. These two mechanisms should generate higher approval at the outset of a term—larger honeymoons— for presidents than for prime ministers, but also more rapid decline. Analyses of data from 40 countries produce evidence consistent with these constitutionally-based distinctions. Yet we uncover important within-regime differences. Within presidential systems, approval patterns vary along with paths to power—first-election versus re-election, and elected versus unelected. Within parliamentarism, honeymoons are greater for prime ministers overseeing single-party majoritarian governments. Study findings advance long-standing debates about the relative merits of presidential and parliamentary systems—particularly the tradeoff between democratic responsiveness and stability.

A Comparison of Legislative Election Systems in Indonesia and Malaysia

The article aimed to analyze the comparison of electoral systems in Indonesia and Malaysia due to relevant differences and similarities. In Malaysia, the legislative election system was implemented to elect members of the People Council using a district platform. Meanwhile, Indonesia used an Open Proportional system to elect members of the National and Regional Representative Councils. A total of three aspects were also compared between both countries through a legal research and comparative approach, namely Government, Election, and Party Systems. Data collection was subsequently carried out through empirical studies, including interviews and literature reviews. The results showed that differences in government systems, state forms, and administration were observed between Indonesia and Malaysia, where proportional and district electoral platforms were implemented, respectively. Despite the differences, the two countries still had various similarities, such as the implementation of a multiparty system using different party coalition platforms. Variations were also observed in the implementation of voting rights by soldiers and convicts within both countries.

Authoritarian Party Systems. Party Politics in Autocratic Regimes, 1945–2019Grigorii V. Golosov, Authoritarian Party Systems. Party Politics in Autocratic Regimes, 1945–2019 . London & Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific, 2022, xix + 276pp., £60.00ebook.

Authoritarian Party Systems. Party Politics in Autocratic Regimes, 1945–2019Grigorii V. Golosov, <i>Authoritarian Party Systems. Party Politics in Autocratic Regimes, 1945–2019</i> . London &amp; Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific, 2022, xix + 276pp., £60.00ebook.

Interrogating regional territorial representation in post-democratic Spain

ABSTRACT In this article, we examine the function of territorial representation by national cabinet ministers in multi-ethnic democracies. In particular, we observe whether ministers from regions with a specific identity shape a distinctive sense of representation in the national executive, and whether this depends on how political parties and the party system articulate it. Borrowing from Pitkin’s four dimensions of political representation, we investigate the recruitment and role of ministers from the three distinct Spanish regions of the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia. This paper stresses that these ministers have played a distinctly territorial representative role in the national cabinet quite unlike that of ministers from other Spanish regions. Nevertheless, it is worth noting the poorest performance of Catalan ministers in relation to their Basque and Galician counterparts in terms of descriptive representation, levels of partisanship, survival rates and appointment to certain portfolios.

Generational (re)alignment: emerging issues and new voters in Western Europe

Voting behaviour in Western Europe has become increasingly structured by attitudes towards socio-cultural issues, such as immigration and European unification. This study examines whether generational differences affect this form of realignment. By combining data from the ESS and the CHES, it explores party–voter alignment on specific issues across 17 West European party systems from 2002 to 2020. ‘Age-Period-Cohort’ (APC) analyses demonstrate that younger generations are more strongly aligned than older generations on immigration, LGBTQ+-rights, the environment and left–right placement, but not on the EU and income redistribution. The results also show over-time increases in issue alignment for three of the six issues, but these period effects are more country-specific than the generational differences. Consequently, generational replacement can be expected to increase party–voter alignment on the left–right dimension and (some) new issues.

Changing Something So That Nothing Changes. The Decorative Reform of Mandatory Primary Elections in Peru

Objective/context: In 2019, promoted by President Martín Vizcarra, the Congress of the Republic of Peru sanctioned a law on mandatory primary elections for voters and political parties. However, the regulation was not implemented, given that it was suspended by the Legislative Branch for the general elections in 2021 and the regional elections in 2022. Methodology: This paper studies the reform process of mandatory, simultaneous, and open primaries (PASO, for its acronym in Spanish) in Peru and its counter-reform based on its suspension on two occasions (2021 and 2022). Twenty-three key actors were interviewed for this research, including congresspersons, ministers, electoral officials, and researchers, in addition to the revision of secondary sources and newspapers of legislative sessions. Conclusions: The paper concludes that PASO were a “decorative” reform, i.e., a law passed without the intention of implementing it. Its sanction was the product of a reformist coalition between civil society and the President of the nation, where the objectives of increasing popular support for President Vizcarra and the need to improve the legitimacy of the political system converged. The reform was resisted by congresspersons who formed two counter-reformist coalitions that suspended the PASO on two occasions. Originality: The research shows that these counter-reform coalitions are intrinsically linked to the atomization and personalization of the Peruvian party system, characterized by hyper-personalism and a lack of party structures. In addition, it generates theoretical contributions to studying the processes of reforms and counter-reforms in the context of institutional weakness.

Primárias abertas e simultâneas na América Latina. Uma proposta preliminar para um estudo comparativo

Objective/context: This article presents a comparative analysis of the system of simultaneous and open presidential primaries (PAS, for its acronym in Spanish) in Latin American countries that have adopted legislation on the subject. In what appears to be a growing trend, nine countries—with differences among them—have established a PAS regime regulated by the electoral body and with public financing. Methodology: First, a description is presented to characterize and classify different PAS systems, considering their main normative differences. Then, hypotheses about their possible effects are proposed based on the literature on presidential primaries and electoral systems. Finally, taking into account the results of the primaries carried out and the subsequent presidential elections, an attempt is made to show to what extent the PAS system encourages citizen participation and competition for nomination, whether it favors or harms the parties that carry them out, and its capacity to stabilize the party system. Conclusions: Factors that stimulate participation, such as compulsory voting and simultaneity with other elections, and encourage competition, such as open presidential ticket, are identified. No institutional factors are found to directly benefit or harm the groups that decide the candidacy in a primary, although conflicting primaries seem to affect them. The ability of the PAS system to stabilize party systems seems to depend on its interaction with other institutional and political factors. Originality: This is the first work that ventures into a comparative analysis of the PAS system with regional coverage.

La ficción de las primarias presidenciales en Bolivia

Objective/context: The system of presidential primaries was introduced into the Bolivian system in 2018 and was applied only once in 2019. This article aims to analyze the causes, characteristics, and effects of the compulsory and simultaneous primary system in Bolivia. Methodology: The characteristics of the party system, the method of selecting presidential candidates from 1982 to the present, the existing dynamics in the Legislature, the results of the 2019 primary elections, the current context, and regulations with a view to the 2025 general elections will be analyzed. Conclusions: This study shows that the presidential primaries were not on the agenda of the parties and were used by the ruling party to legitimize its presidential ticket. Therefore, using its legislative supermajority and control of other state organs, the primaries are introduced under the exclusive control of the leadership, which vertically decides whether they will be competitive or not. Originality: The detail and characteristics of this study offer a high degree of novelty and propose new elements for comparison and academic debate.

Towards Effective Measures for Curbing the Illegal Wildlife Trade: A Comprehensive Approach with ARIMA Modeling and Responsible Party Evaluation

Illegal wildlife trade has become an urgent global problem that threatens global ecosystems, biodiversity and sustainable development. This problem requires us to propose comprehensive measures to significantly curb illegal wildlife trade.We used data from government work reports from 2014 to 2023 to establish an evaluation system for the responsible parties, and found that wildlife conservation is very important to the Chinese government using the AHP-Entropy weight method. We developed relevant measures to reduce illegal wildlife trade based on Citespace's literature research method. Then we collected public data from Chinese governmental departments from 2010 to 2023, and used ARIMA model to predict the future of the initiatives we developed to reduce illegal wildlife trade. By collecting public data from the China Wildlife Wildlife Enforcement Agency and fitting the state of wildlife conservation based on China's national conditions over the past 15 years, we evaluated the available resources and found that while the overall trend of the Chinese government can reduce illegal trade practices, the trend is not stable in the short term. China's wildlife protection agencies can continue to increase enforcement of this problem to better reduce the occurrence of illegal wildlife trade behavior.

Patterns of politicization following triggering events: the indirect effect of issue-owning challengers

Changes in party systems do not always occur gradually. While structural changes in societies lead to new tensions and potential conflicts, these conflicts often become politicized in the wake of ‘triggering events’. However, such events do not always lead to the politicization of an issue. This study addresses the question why potentially triggering events sometimes produce extensive political attention and conflict around an associated issue, whereas in other circumstances very similar events do not generate much political attention or contestation. Some scholars highlight the strategic incentives of party political elites (the top-down perspective) whereas others focus on the key role of political challengers in politicizing issues (‘the bottom-up perspective)’. We focus on three events that potentially trigger the politicization of immigration (9–11, Banlieus riots and the Cartoon crisis) and identify anti-immigration parties as challengers of government parties. Based on political claims analysis of newspapers in seven European countries, we find that government parties exert strong control over the political agenda, both in terms of salience as in positional terms. However, when anti-immigration parties are large and in opposition, they do play an important role in politicizing the issue of immigration. Since anti-immigration parties have increased their vote share over the past decade and typically remain in the opposition nevertheless, it is likely that future events will lead to further politicization of the issue of immigration.

Patterns of democracy and democratic satisfaction: Results from a comparative conjoint experiment

AbstractThis study presents the results from a series of conjoint experiments evaluating how the various components of political systems affect citizens’ satisfaction with democracy (SWD). Compared to earlier studies, our approach is unique in that we were able to disentangle the effects of otherwise highly collinear variables corresponding to three defining features of any political system, namely (1) access to power, (2) the policy‐making process and (3) performance. We fielded identical conjoint experiments in countries with significant variations across the key independent variables: France, Hungary and Italy. Overall, our study supports the view that citizens are more satisfied with democracy in consensus systems than in majoritarian democracies, while it also contributes to identifying the respective weight of the specific components of political systems. Respondents across all countries recognize that proportionality and party system fragmentation magnify their voices by creating a more representative political climate. With regard to output legitimacy, we find that respondents identify good economic performance and public probity as important features of a well‐performing democracy. The positive effect of the legislators’ constituency orientation on SWD is a particularly noteworthy result that is currently understudied in the literature. Moreover, the state of the economy has by far the biggest impact on SWD, which indicates a highly materialistic view of democracy in all three countries.

Mirroring societal shifts: revisiting the ethno-racial, ethno-religious, and ideological foundations of Guyana’s party system

ABSTRACT While scholars have relied on societal cleavages to explain the origins and evolution of party systems in Western democracies, drawing that link in Latin America and the Caribbean has been more challenging. Guyana is an exception to the norm. Its party system has aligned ethnically since independence in the 1960s. The People’s National Congress mostly appeals to the Afro-Guyanese, and the People’s Progressive Party largely draws support from the Indo-Guyanese. However, in recent decades, the country has experienced relevant demographic shifts that force a reconsideration of the predominance of ethno-racial traits as fuelling inter-party competition. We use the AmericasBarometer to examine the individual-level ethno-racial, ethno-religious, and ideological correlates of partisanship from 2010 to 2016. The results indicate that ethno-racial divisions have lost salience as ethno-religious features have become a more prevalent source of partisan attachments. We conclude that the correlates of partisanship in Guyana mirror its broader socio-demographic transformation.

Continuity and change in Turkish politics: economic and behavioural explanations of democratic backsliding

ABSTRACT This paper introduces a special issue focusing on the intricacies of Turkey’s party system and the evolution of Turkish party competition amid democratic challenges. The introduction provides a brief overview of each paper in this special issue, which delves into the relationship between economic factors and voter behavior, offering insights into the continued dominance of the ruling party. While doing so, the special issue specifically examines the 2023 Turkish General elections, presenting alternative perspectives on how the incumbent party maintains its electoral success.

The Regional Political Parties and the Leaders of Odisha: A brief History of Odisha during 1961-1980

Odisha has been in part a tradition-bound, underdeveloped, backward, and feudal state struggling in the path towards modernity. Hence, the emergence, development, and working of party system and party leadership in Odisha present an interesting study. Odisha, offers a unique opportunity to examine the capacity of political development to effect socio-economic change. Looking at the political instability which was persistent in the state for almost two decades between 1961-1980. The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of the repeated failures of Odisha's administration and legislative, which led to the imposition of president rule between the years 1961 and 1980. Thus, the study examines party politics in Odisha in all of its varied facets. The present chapter will first provide a historical background of the state of Odisha in order to properly understand the politics of Odisha in the post-independence period to the eighties of the last century. Secondly, the details of party politics and political leadership in Odisha in between the years 1960 and 1980 will be debated upon. This will allow for a proper understanding of the politics of Odisha in the post-independence period to the eighties of the twentieth century.