Party Positions Research Articles

Long-Term Strategic Thinking, Cost Considerations, and the Partisan Politics of Ghent

It has long been established that the presence of the so-called “Ghent systems” of unemployment insurance greatly enhances unionization rates. This paper investigates the political determinants of the choice for and against the introduction and continuation of these systems. Based on a diachronic analysis of three paradigmatic cases, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden, and two shadow cases, Germany and Britain, it shows that all major actors were well aware of their organizational effect during the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, it shows that long-term strategic thinking only played a major role in shaping party attitudes toward “Ghent” in countries where the prevailing party system ensured that its introduction produced clear partisan “winners” and “losers.” In all other countries, cost considerations were central in shaping party views on Ghent. The analysis shows how cost considerations can explain both bourgeois party support for its introduction and left-party support for its discontinuation.

Conscientiousness of representatives and agreement with their party positions

ABSTRACT Party unity is an important feature in contemporary democracies. Ideological loyalty, disciplinary measures implemented by party leaders and homogeneity of preferences among elected representatives lead them to act in unison. This study focuses on the last mechanism and assesses under which conditions party representatives agree on policy positions. It argues that the personality trait of conscientiousness is linked to how a representative agrees with her party’s position and that this relationship is moderated by her knowledge of dissent between party voters and representatives. This study use data from a comparative survey conducted among 866 representatives in Belgium, Canada, Germany and Switzerland, and among the party constituencies in the four countries. Results show that conscientious representatives are more likely to differ significantly from the position of their party peers if they spend more time on constituency work and if their voters’ preferences are not congruent with those of their fellow representatives.

Parliamentary political parties in Poland in the face of the climate change issue in the years 2005–2019 (perspective of social networks)

The aim of the article was to define the attitude of Polish parliamentary political parties towards the issue of climate change in the years 2005–2019. Discourse Network Analysis, used in the study, allowed to identify the most frequently co-occurring concepts expressed by different parties over the past fifteen years, as well as, to present the affiliation networks between the parties. The postulates regarding climate policy proposed by Polish election committees were gradually modified in the analyzed period. The gradual convergence of pro-climate positions of Polish parliamentary parties is visible over time, while the structure of anti-climate positions becoming less coherent. However, there is still a visible difference in the approach to climate protection between the centrist and left-wing parties and those identifying themselves as right-wing.

Ideology and Party Positions on Gender Issues in Spain: Evidence from a Novel Data Set

AbstractThis article introduces new quantitative fine-tuned indicators to objectively measure political parties’ preferences on gender issues. We assess the validity and reliability of these new empirical indicators by analyzing the relationship between ideology and gender positions in decentralized Spain. Using data collected by the Regional Manifestos Project, which for the first time has incorporated a fully fledged gender domain into its coding scheme for content analysis of regional manifestos, we analyze parties’ gender positions on four fundamental dimensions: welfare and the labor market, violence, representation, and values and identity. The results suggest that there is a persistent left-right divide on the last three dimensions: Spanish left-wing parties score significantly higher than right-wing and regionalist parties. However, ideology does not drive parties’ gender positions on welfare and labor market policies; support for gender equality policies on this dimension is so widespread that it can be considered a “valence issue”—all parties, irrespective of their ideology, endorse the same (positive) position.

Peculiarities of the activities of Russian political parties in the context of the special military operation in 2022

This article analyzes the positioning of political parties in the current political realities. The special military operation in Ukraine is considered as a significant internal political and geopolitical event, which to one degree or another affected almost all socio-political institutions of Russia, including political parties. In this article the parties are classified into new ones, that are those which created after 2015 and participating in federal election campaigns, and those parties that managed to take a firm place in the political system and form fractions in the Parliament. The purpose of this study is to determine whether new political parties in 2022 were able to take advantage of the current period of instability to strengthen their position in the political space and to which extent. Analyzing the legislative, media and public activities of such parties as “United Russia”, the Communist party, the Liberal-Democratic party, “Just Russia – for the Truth”, “New People”, “Green Alternative” and the “Party of Growth” in 2022 it was concluded that among the new political parties only "New People" are relatively active in the framework of the agenda of a special military operation. Other new political parties, except for minor actions, projects and other activities, almost do not use special operations in their activities to promote their party brand and attract new supporters. At the same time, almost all the parties under consideration integrated the agenda of the special military operation into their activities, but this had a very small impact on the electoral sympathies of the population.

Demokracja bezpośrednia w Austrii – praktyka i perspektywy rozwoju

DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN AUSTRIA – PRACTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PROSPECTS First, the article traces the historical development of and legal regulations related to the instruments of direct democracy in the Second Republic. It details such forms of direct democracy as: the obligatory and optional referendum (Volksabstimmung), consultative referendum (Volksbefragung) and popular legislative initiative (Volksbegehren), as well as provides historical examples of their use. The latter part of the article elaborates on the positions of the main political parties in Austria and federal coalition plans for the years 2003-2020 against the backdrop of popularisation of forms of direct democracy. The research hypothesis adopted assumes that there is no agreement among the Austrian establishment as to whether direct democracy should become a permanent and significant supplement to representative democracy. The scarce interest in referendums and non-binding (consultative) referendums in Austria results from institutional and legal barriers, which make it difficult to initiate any forms of direct democracy, as well as from the huge influence of political parties that support representative democracy.

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Immigration Policies: An Intra-Party Perspective

ABSTRACT This article investigates the immigration policies and positions of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from the perspective of intra-party dynamics. As far-right parties and anti-immigration discourses gained ground in Europe, social democratic and left-wing parties responded with different political strategies on immigration. This paper investigates the case of the German SPD and looks for possible policy changes (or the lack of them) in a timeframe where immigration was a highly salient, politicised issue. The paper focuses on the period between 2005 and 2017, utilising party congresses and manifestos to establish, analyse and compare the positions of intra-party actors, namely, the activists and the party elite and the official party line. A conceptual framework developed from the literature establishes the actors' and party's frames and positions, providing insights into their approach to immigration. The article then analyses the SPD's positions within the timeframe and tests May's Law on SPD intra-party actors and their discourses on immigration. The results highlight that May's Law holds for the SPD's intra-party actors on the issue of immigration. Findings also suggest that activists influence the official party positions although this is limited, as the official policies are closer to the party elite's positions.

The parliamentary politics of the rule of law crisis in the EU

ABSTRACT This article studies the positions of political parties around the rule of law crisis in the European Union (EU). What factors explain their position in this crisis? The theoretical expectations focus on populism and government status as the drivers of party positions towards a Member State violating the rule of law. This article assesses these expectations through a comparative case study of the actions of different EU political parties during the first term of the Law and Justice government in Poland (2015–2019). The article examines the relevant documents such as debates and resolutions of parliaments within the EU. It concludes that populist parties are more likely to support the Law and Justice party than mainstream parties, and that parties in government are less likely to challenge Law and Justice than opposition parties. These findings provide important insights into the dynamics of parties’ positioning on the rule of law crisis.

Perceptual Consequences of Portfolios: How Allocation Affects Left–Right Placement

AbstractRecent research suggests that party leaders can strategically impact the perceived left–right position of their parties by changing their selective emphasis on certain issues. We suggest that a party's ideological image can also be altered by the portfolio allocation of the coalition government in which the party participates. By controlling a portfolio, the party will have a more direct influence on the related issue and will frequently communicate the party's issue position publicly, thereby cultivating a perception of strong emphasis on the related issue. We run a cross-national party-level analysis showing that portfolio allocation matters with regard to the importance of the subdimensions for the general left–right dimension. In particular, the influence of sociocultural stances depends on the share of sociocultural portfolios. In addition, we show that the mechanism does not apply at the beginning of a government's tenure, but only after a year or longer in office.

Positioning analysis of Spanish politicians through their Twitter posts versus Spanish public opinion

The evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has changed the way we communicate. Access to the Internet and social networks has even changed the way we organise ourselves socially. Despite advances in this field, research on the use of social networks in political discourse and citizens’ perceptions of public policy remains scarce. So, the empirical study of politicians’ discourse on social networks in relation to citizens’ perception of public and fiscal policies according to their political affinity is of particular interest. The aim of the research is, therefore, to analyse positioning, from a dual perspective. Firstly, the study analyses the positioning in the discourse of the communication campaigns posted on social networks of Spain’s most prominent politicians. And secondly, it evaluates whether this positioning is reflected in citizens’ opinions about the public and fiscal policies being implemented in Spain. To this end, a qualitative semantic analysis and a positioning map is performed on a total of 1553 tweets published between 1 June and 31 July 2021 by the leaders of the top ten Spanish political parties. In parallel, a cross-sectional quantitative analysis is carried out, also through positioning analysis, based on the database of the Public Opinion and Fiscal Policy Survey of July 2021 by the Sociological Research Centre (CIS), whose sample is 2849 Spanish citizens. The results show a significant difference in the discourse of political leaders’ social network posts—which is more pronounced between right-wing and left-wing parties—and only some differences in citizens’ perception of public policies according to their political affinity. This work contributes to identifying the differentiation and positioning of the main parties and helps to guide the discourse of their posts.

Religion, Ideology, and Political Parties’ Positions on Refugees in South Asia and the Middle East

Some political parties adopt rhetoric and policy stances favorable to refugees, while others view refugees as a potential economic or security threat or a challenge to the asylum country's predominant identity and push for refugees’ rapid return. We argue that, despite material constraints in asylum countries, like those stemming from the level of economic development, domestic political contestation and differences shape refugee politics and associated outcomes. We further posit that the key element of those domestic political differences is not that leftist parties are systematically more sympathetic to refugees than rightist parties. Rather, our empirical analysis shows that, in the non-Western contexts that we study, parties that emphasize a religious identity shared with most refugees are more likely to view those refugees more favorably than parties that do not emphasize that religious identity or that emphasize a religious identity not shared with refugees. We build on moral foundations theory to explain why religion and politics matter and why rightist parties are not necessarily less favorable to refugees than leftist parties. We carry out a comparative study of party positions toward Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Turkey and toward Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and explain why party leaders’ choices regarding religion and politics shape refugee politics. While others have questioned the claim that leftists are more likely to favor refugees than conservatives, we contribute to the literature by specifying the conditions under which that is unlikely to be the case, and we develop a theoretically grounded explanation for that pattern.

Rationality of Irrationality: Political Determinants and Effects of Party Position Blurring. By Kyung Joon Han. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022. 244p. $80.00 cloth, $39.95 paper.

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LOCAL AND REGIONAL ELECTIONS IN SLOVAKIA IN 2022: THE IMPACT ON THE INTER-PARTY BALANCE AND STRUCTURING OF THE POLITICAL SPACE

The article analyzes local and regional elections in Slovakia in the context of identifying and systematizing the changes and trends in the political-party balance and structuring of the political space in this country. The author identifies the role of party blocs/coalitions, as well as the specifics of party representation in the councils/representative bodies of self-governing regions of Slovakia. The combinations of party blocs/coalitions of political parties participating in 2022 local and regional elections in Slovakia are also studied. The author states that the electoral choice of the Slovakian population remains quite personalized, since the tendency to personify the images of political parties is clearly preserved. Given this, the relationship between the electoral support of separate political parties in the analyzed election campaign is traced in accordance with their parliamentary or non-parliamentary positions. The study characterizes the results of the main participants of the election races in the regional dimension, as well as the role of local or subnational party projects. The researcher traces the structuring of the party space in Slovakia based on the regional differences of various regions of Slovakia (especially along the «west-east» line). In addition, the parameters of the ideological positioning of political parties, as well as the peculiarities of the representation of separate ethnic groups at local level are determined. It is revealed that (overcoming the threshold of inclusion and representation) Roma parties have become a political institution that represents the interests of their ethnic group on a par with «Hungarian» parties, which have been representing the interests of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia for a long time. Finally, particular attention is paid to the division of the participants of local and regional elections into «pro-Ukrainian» and «pro-Russian» ones, in particular in accordance with the newest spectrum of party-political structuring.

Climate Sceptics or Climate Nationalists? Understanding and Explaining Populist Radical Right Parties’ Positions towards Climate Change (1990–2022)

Populist radical right parties are often considered to be the most extreme opponents of climate protection in Western Europe. Others predict a ‘climate nationalism’ among populist radical right parties combining nativism with a pro-climate agenda. Based on a new data set on party positions on climate change, including 485 party manifestos – 76 from populist radical right parties – from the 1990s to 2022 in 10 Western European countries, we find that populist radical right parties are divided but generally less likely to speak out for climate protection than other parties, which rather contradicts the climate nationalism argument. We find that populist radical right parties only became more aware of the issue since 2019 in the face of the mass mobilizations of Fridays for Future and, to a lesser extent, when it became a visible issue within the party system. Thus, we argue that populist radical right parties are forced to talk about the climate when the issue is emphasized by organized actors.

Political Parties as Legal Entities: An Academic Debate

This paper aims to provide an academic brief on the status of political parties as legal entities amid debates on whether political parties stand as private or public legal entities. Based on doctrinal research, the results of the study conclude that although there is an impossibility to firmly place the position of political parties as public or private legal entities considering political parties do have two dimensions, namely private and public, the evidence shows that political parties are more appropriately positioned as legal entities under the public law based on three arguments. First, the party is an important and key institution for the success of democratic work. Second, the relationship between the party and the people is getting further apart, while the relationship between the political party and the state is getting stronger. Third, political parties receive the aid of public funding.
 Keywords: Political Party, Private, Public

Social democratic party positions on the EU: The case of Brexit

In recent years, social democratic parties have been confronted with the rise of second dimension issues. These issues often see social democratic parties facing a choice between competing portions of their own electorate. A particularly prominent second dimension issue is that of the EU: should social democratic parties take pro or anti-EU positions? I look at the case of the UK as an instructive example of this debate. I estimate a narrow counterfactual, simulating how the Labour Party’s vote share and seat count would have changed as its position on Brexit changes. I call this counterfactual narrow because I only consider the effect of these position changes on vote choice and turnout, and not any broader consequences. I run two simulations to compare the implications of pure proximity and proximity-categorisation models of vote choice. I generate seat predictions from the simulation results by using Uniform National Swing and Uniform Regional Swing. Broadly, I find that being pro-Remain clearly benefited the party in terms of votes, but that results are more mixed in terms of seats.

Politicization of Immigration and Language Use in Political Elites: A Study of Spanish Parliamentary Speeches

This study uses natural language processing (NLP) tools to analyze how politicians recreate the stereotype of immigrants in the Spanish Parliament. An interdisciplinary approach from computational linguistics and social psychology has been used to construct a variety of indices about content and linguistic styles. The analysis of 2,516 parliamentary interventions about immigration delivered between 1996 and 2016 by representatives of the two political parties that alternated in power during that period (conservative Popular Party and Spanish Socialist Party) shows that both the rhetorical strategy to present immigrants as “victims” or as a “threat” and the language style that politicians use reveal an interaction between the ideology of the party and the party's political position in government or in the opposition. Results also suggest some changes over time in the polarization and politicization of the debate about immigration.

The comparative meaning of political space: a comprehensive modeling approach

AbstractIn latent scaling applications, such as the positioning of political parties, differential item functioning (DIF) may occur because of measurement issues or because of substantive differences in the association between latent and manifest variables. While the first source of DIF has received considerable attention, the second has not, although it is of potential interest to comparative scholars. In this research note, we introduce a novel hierarchical Bayesian item response model that allows us to disentangle different sources of DIF. Drawing on the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES), we highlight how the same issues are unequally politicized across Western Europe, and how some issues are less ideologically determined than others. Our model can be adapted to alternate settings, allowing researchers to shine a light on variation in, e.g., ideology, issue politicization, or party competition.

How Does Party Position Change Happen? The Case of LGBT Rights in the U.S.

A partisan divide over LGBT rights has emerged in the U.S. Yet unlike other issues on which the parties have traded places or polarized, most of the change on gay rights has occurred within one party, the Democrats. How did this unusual change occur? LGBT rights was originally a fringe cause, rejected by most politicians in both parties. As gay rights activists slowly became more prominent in the Democratic Party, many politicians adapted, abandoning earlier positions informed by their personal backgrounds and state or district constituencies. Meanwhile, incorporating the religious right led most Republicans to maintain the anti-LGBT rights stand that was once common to both parties, even as public opinion shifted. The result was a partisan divide in this issue area that had consequences for policy. The role of adaptation by incumbents in producing it—contrary to some prominent models—is evident in both Congressional co-sponsorship and roll-call data. The growing party divide is also evident in platforms. These findings contribute to a broader understanding of how party position change occurs.

Intra-party heterogeneity and voter perceptions of party positions

Do voters correctly perceive left-right positions of political parties? This question received considerable attention in the literature in the past decades. Previous research has shown that most voters have somewhat ‘correct’ perceptions of where parties are located on a left-right dimension, but that both individual and party level factors influence how much those perceptions deviate from the real positions. This paper adds to this literature, relaxing the unitary actor assumption and introducing heterogeneity to the analysis. Using data from elite surveys to measure intraparty preference heterogeneity on two dimensions, I demonstrate that voters' misperceptions of party positions strongly increase the more heterogeneous the positions of party elites are on the economic dimension, but not on the sociocultural dimension, and that the effect size depends on how salient this dimension is for the party. The findings have implications for future research on mass-elite linkages, representation, as well as voting behavior.