Single-party Governments Research Articles

In the gray zone: How representational deficit moderates the effect of openness on protest participation

This article investigates how the governmental status quo alters the effect of individuals’ openness as a predisposition for protest participation. We define the governmental status quo as individuals’ standing or position within the political system, contingent upon their party’s current status in government. Based on this, we clasify voters into three groups: Opposition voters, junior coalition partners’ voters (JCPV), and senior coalition partners’ voters (SCPV) or single-party government voters (SPGV). SCPV and SPGV are expected to have lower protest motivation due to their substantial governmental representation, whereas opposition voters, with lacking any governmental representation, are more likely to be motivated to protest. Nevertheless, given their fuzzy position that alleviates the effect of the representational deficit on their protest behavior, we argue that the protest participation of JCPV is more likely to be driven by their basic values belonging to the openness dimension. Statistical analyses based on data from the European Social Survey support our hypothesis, highlighting the stronger effect of stimulation, one of the components of the openness dimensions in Schwart's basic human values, for the JCPV compared to other voter categories.

Informal imposed hierarchies in world politics and internal instabilities in subordinate states: the Afghanistan and Iraq cases

In international relations, hierarchy is generally understood as the relational contract by which two states legitimately acknowledge their superior and subordinate ranks. Empirical studies, however, show that some states experience distinctive hierarchical patterns, such as military intervention and nation-building. This study calls them the ‘informal imposed hierarchy’ (IIH after this) because they all install favoured leaders, governmental structures and/or troops in target states without the consent of the target states’ population. Using state clusters from 1945 to 2003, we found that four sorts of states experienced IIHs: those having counter-hegemonic actors, signalling a move to the rival hierarchy, seeking an exit door from the current hierarchical system, and perceived to present new security risks (e.g. terrorism). IIH likely generates instability since it installs and protects illegitimate rulers in the target state. It can aggravate internal war in subordinate states with single-party governments or heterogeneous communities. In order to assess the model’s and the arguments’ explanatory power, the study selects the relevant universe cases. The next, it examines pre- and post-Soviet eras in Afghanistan and the 2001 and 2003 US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as control cases. These cross-cases illustrate the change of IIH’s motives over time and across hierarchies.

Conditional satisfaction: political support, congruence, and cabinet composition

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between citizen satisfaction with the functioning of democracy and ideological congruence. We focus on how this relationship may vary by government type, paying attention to the conditioning effects of coalition governments’ ideological make-up and individual-level education. Our analyses rely on harmonized survey data covering one million respondents in 28 countries over a 40-year period. We find limited evidence that the relationship between citizen satisfaction and ideological congruence is conditional on national government type. All coalitions are not, however, created equal. Comparing single-party governments to multi-party governments with different ideological compositions, we find striking differences, but only for the higher educated. While the negative relationship between citizen satisfaction and ideological incongruence is similar for lower-educated citizens in single-party and multi-party coalition settings (irrespective of cabinet composition), for the higher educated, the relationship weakens as a function of the ideological diversity of the coalition cabinet.

Malta’s Political Conundrum: Europe’s Leading Country for LGBTIQ Rights and the Ban on Abortion

Malta has become the world’s leading country for LGBTIQ rights while also being one of the few places in the world where abortion remains illegal under any circumstance. Building on studies which focus on Latin America, this article analyses why this small EU country has become socially liberal in many aspects while abortion remains taboo with a majority of the population holding anti-abortion views. First, we outline the Maltese political system, a two-party system where single-party governments have enjoyed absolute control over parliamentary business for 60 years and where the Catholic Church is obliged, under the Constitution, to teach what is right and wrong. We then analyze whether issue networks, framing and timing provide an adequate framework within which to explain this difference in public policy before concluding on the short-term prospects of Malta changing its ban on abortion, especially as political support remains for the ban to be incorporated into the constitution.

20. Yüzyıl Anıtlarının Devrilmesiyle Yıkılmaya Çalışılan Görsel Tarih

Her dönemin ve rejimin heykellerle ilişkisi, iktidarın toplumla, toplumun da bireyle ilişkisini açıkça ortaya koymaktadır. Modern insan, en yoğun biçimde 20. yüzyılda lider tasvirleri ve kahramanlık hikâyelerinden oluşan şehir heykellerini görmeye ve algılamaya başlamıştır. Bu araştırmanın inceleme alanı, özellikle yirminci yüzyıl sonrası döneme denk gelen aynı zamanda çoğunlukla tek partili yönetimlerin tek adam rejiminden hareketle yaptırıldıkları anlaşılan büyük boyutlu heykellere, değişen konjonktür ve iktidarı ele geçiren yeni rejimler sonrasında yapılan saldırıları ve tahribatları kapsamaktadır. Çalışma kapsamında ele alınan, yıkılan ve tahrip edilen anıtsal heykel örneklerinde tarihsel gerçekliğin, geçmişin izlerinin ve görsel tarihin yok edilmesi kaygısı açıkça gözlenmektedir. Araştırma nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden birisi olan doküman analizine uygun bir biçimde yapılmıştır. İlgili dijital arşiv kayıtlarından ve dokümanlardan ulaşılan eserler metaforik anlamlarıyla birlikte ideolojik özellikleri açısından ele alınıp değerlendirilmiş, araştırma sonucunda elde edilen veriler betimsel olarak yorumlanmıştır. Çalışmada, yıkılan anıtların mevcut gücü nasıl yansıttığı ve ideolojik bir araç olarak nasıl kullanıldığı göstergelere dayalı olarak incelenmiş ve mevcut durum değerlendirmesi yapılmıştır.

HASİP AHMET AYTUNA’NIN RAPORU IŞIĞINDA 20 ARALIK 1942 ERBAA-NİKSAR DEPREMİ VE TOKAT’TAKİ GELİŞMELER

İkinci Dünya Savaşı, Türkiye’de tek partili bir yönetimin egemen olduğu, yakın tarihin ülke ve insan kaynaklarında yarattığı tahribatın rehabilite edilmeye çalışıldığı bir süreçte, etkili olmuştur. Savaşın toplum yaşamı üzerindeki etkileri, Erzincan ve Erbaa’da meydana gelen büyük ölçekli depremler; merkezi yönetimin geniş kapsamlı organizasyon, bunu etkin biçimde toplumsallaştıracak mâlî kapasite ve insan kaynakları, altyapı ve ulaşım, organizasyonların uygulanmasında aktif rol oynayan personelin denetimi gibi ölçütler çerçevesinde sınandığı bir zamansallığı oluşturmuştur. Depremin akabinde Şükrü Saraçoğlu Hükümeti yaşanan felâketin, Erbaa, Niksar bölgesinde yarattığı olumsuzlukları gidermeye yönelik uygulama ve düzenlemeleri hayata geçirmiştir. Bu bağlamda ilkyardım, arama-kurtarma, iâşe, barınma, tedavi, vergilendirme, yeniden inşaa ve üretim alanlarında bölge sakinlerinin durumlarını iyileştirmeyi amaçlayan adımlar atılmıştır. VI. Dönem CHP Tokat Milletvekili Hasip Ahmet Aytuna 1942 Erbaa Depremi’nden sonra 1-10 Ocak 1943’te felâketin yaşandığı yerleşim yerlerini kapsayan bir inceleme gezisi gerçekleştirerek, hükümetin afet bölgesindeki olumsuzlukları rehabilite etmeye yönelik girişimleri ve sonuçlarını gözlemleme fırsatı bulmuştur. Tokat, Erbaa, Niksar ve Zile’de yurttaşlarla görüşen Aytuna, bir yandan felâketin boyutlarına tanıklık etmiş öte yandan sorunların önemli bir bölümünün savaş koşullarından kaynaklandığını saptamıştır. Aytuna yaptığı incelemeleri, görüşmeleri, gözlemleri ve değerlendirmelerini bir rapor haline getirerek Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi Genel Sekreterliği’ne sunmuştur. Rapor, yaşanan afetin ardından ortaya çıkan yıkımın istatistiki verilerini, iktidar ile yerel bürokrasinin aldığı önlemleri, bunların sahadaki etkilerini, eksikliklerini, tarımsal üretimdeki problemleri, vergilendirme politikasının yerel düzlemdeki yansımalarını, yolsuzlukları ve bunlara ilişkin olarak kendi değerlendirmelerini içermiştir. Aytuna’nın 21 sayfadan oluşan ayrıntılı raporu, savaşın belirleyici olduğu bir toplumsal çerçevede yaşanan doğal bir afet ekseninde; merkezi yönetim, yerel bürokrasi ve halk arasındaki ilişkileri anlamamızı sağlayan bir zemin yaratmıştır.

IMPACT OF NATIONWIDE ELECTORAL THRESHOLDS ON PARTY SYSTEM FRAGMENTATION AND DISPROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION IN GREECE AND TURKEY

Nationwide electoral thresholds (NETs) are known to secure a parliamentary majority for the largest party, reduce party system fragmentation, and prevent extreme, minor, or non-core group parties from entering parliament. By comparing Greece and Turkey, which have applied NETs since 1993 and 1983 respectively, this article investigates why some of these aims have not been achieved. Using time-series data since 1950, we show that neither country needed to introduce NETs to establish single-party governments. Rather, they were implemented primarily to prevent non-core groups from entering parliament as a party. This caused disproportional legislative representation, especially in Turkey. Although Turkey’s NET initially reduced the raw number of parties contesting elections, this effect weakened in the long run and, in contrast to the literature, increased party system fragmentation. Finally, extreme parties have benefitted from Greece’s fragmented party system since 2012 whereas electoral engineering in Turkey has failed to prevent non-core groups from passing the electoral threshold.

Preferences for single-party versus multi-party governments

The literature on comparative political institutions highlights a tradeoff between majoritarian/plurality and proportional/consensus models of democracy. The former arrangement is said to enhance having governing parties held accountable. The latter is said to promote representation of a range of views, with a coalition of multiple parties governing. A tradeoff may be that the representativeness of multi-party coalitions can make it difficult for voters to hold government accountable, while single-party governments that facilitate accountability might fail to represent a range of parties in government. The ability of voters to respond to such differences is, however, subject to some skepticism given that the public opinion literature finds serious limits on a person’s ability to know basic facts about political institutions, let alone have preferences for governments that reflect democratic norms of accountability and representativeness. We assess public preferences for single versus multi-party governments and find evidence of systematic preferences that suggests people may link democratic norms of accountability and representativeness to the governmental system that promotes the respective norm. Preferences are also associated with the party system that people are familiar with.

Republika Czeska: Wyrok Sądu Konstytucyjnego Republiki Czeskiej z dnia 12 grudnia 2017 r. w sprawie o numerze 11/17

The Mixed Member Proportional electoral system introduced in New Zealand in 1993 resulted in major changes to the political system. In a multi-party environment, government formation required cooperation between different political parties. Hence, single-party majority governments have been replaced by coalition governments, and support contracts emerged as a new form of an agreement made between parties in addition to or instead of the traditional coalition agreement. This book discusses coalition politics and government formation in New Zealand after 1993. It argues that support contracts, as an innovative form of cooperation between political parties in the government formation process question traditional government-opposition and minority government-majority government divides.

2021 Parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova – An attempt at post-election analysis

This article analyses the parliamentary elections held in the Republic of Moldova in 2021, as a result of which the right-wing party, formerly in opposition, won, and was able to form its own single-party government with a parliamentary majority, which has not happened in Moldova exactly 20 years – since 2001. In this article the basic positions of the “left” and “right” political camps in the Republic of Moldova before the elections are analysed; as well as the mechanics of the electoral campaign and the voting process in different socio-geographical profiles. In 2021 The Republic of Moldova, for the first time in many years, faced the phenomenon of “overturning elections”; understanding the mechanics of which contributes to the development of a much better political and electoral process in general. At the same time, despite the special nature of the 2021 elections, the electoral political process in the Republic of Moldova continues to show several fixed tendencies, such as the geographical polarization of Moldovan voters residing in the EU or Russia, and the overall objective decrease of interest in the electoral process in general, regardless of the degree of the political and social representation of the political parties represented in the elections.

Why Change a Winning Team? Explaining Post-Election Cabinet Reshuffles in Four Westminster Democracies

Incumbent prime ministers who win re-election often reshuffle their cabinet ministers. These post-election cabinet reshuffles have important implications for policymaking and present a puzzle: why would prime ministers alter the ‘winning team’ that has just received an electoral mandate? Existing literature has largely overlooked post-election reshuffles, so offers few compelling answers. At most, a plausible but under-theorised and untested conventional wisdom suggests that electoral success increases prime ministers’ authority over their ministers. This article thus provides the first systematic study of post-election cabinet reshuffles in single-party governments. It argues that re-elected prime ministers use a temporary increase in their authority to pre-empt future leadership challenges by moving or sacking cabinet rivals. Larger election victories should thus produce larger reshuffles. However, analysis of post-election cabinet reshuffles in four ‘Westminster’ democracies since 1945 shows no support for this expectation, suggesting that further work is needed to understand these important political events.

Going in circles? The influence of the electoral cycle on the party behaviour in parliament

AbstractMost analyses dealing with the interaction of parties in parliament assume their interests to be fixed between elections. However, a rational perspective suggests that parties adapt their behaviour throughout the legislative term. I argue that this change is influenced by incentives and possibilities to shape legislation and the need to distinguish oneself from competitors. While for government parties it matters whether they have to share offices, for opposition parties the influence on policy-making is important. By examining the sentiment of all parliamentary speeches on bill proposals from six established democracies over more than twenty years, I analyse institutional and contextual effects. The results show that single-party governments tend to become more positive towards the end of the legislative cycle compared to coalition governments. On the other hand, opposition parties under minority governments, or with more institutionalised influence on government bills, show a more negative trend in comparison to their counterparts.

An experimental investigation of voter myopia in economic evaluations

A prevalent assumption in the economic voting literature is that voters’ retrospective evaluations are based on very recent outcomes only, that is, they are myopic. I test this assumption by drawing on a population-based survey experiment from Turkey. Turkey presents a good opportunity to explore voters’ time horizons for economic voting: the long tenure of the same single-party government entailed periods of both good and poor performance, and its overall record to date has been better than its immediate predecessors. I find that voters can provide divergent assessments of incumbent’s performance in managing the economy over different time periods that are in line with the country’s macroeconomic trajectory. Moreover, voters’ evaluations of the incumbent’s performance during its entire tenure have a stronger effect on economic vote than their shorter-term evaluations, defying voter myopia. I provide evidence that long-term outcomes might weigh heavier in voters’ considerations than commonly assumed.

Calling referendums on domestic policies: how political elites and citizens differ

Most national level referendums in Europe since 1793 are initiated either by political elites or by citizens. It remains unclear why these two types of initiators call for referendums. This article aims to explain under what circumstances political elites and citizens call referendums on domestic policies. The analysis is conducted at country level using an original data set that covers 461 national level referendums in Europe between 1793 and 2019. It tests the influence of four institutional variables that in theory are expected to have a divergent effect for the two types of initiators. The experience with direct democracy increases the likelihood to have referendums called by elites and reduces the incidence of citizen-initiated referendums. More authoritarian countries and longer time passed from referendums in a neighboring country explain why political elites initiate referendums. Coalition governments are more prone to citizen-initiated referendums on domestic policies compared to single-party governments.

A Government Devoid of Strong Leadership: A Neoclassical Realist Explanation of Turkey’s Iraq War Decision in 2003

This study deals with Turkey’s Iraq War Decision that led up to the March 1 Parliamentary Motion Crisis in 2003 from the perspective of neoclassical realism, which analyzes the interaction between systemic and unit-level variables. The United States requested Turkey’s collaboration in the war against Iraq. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government initially sought a peaceful settlement but eventually decided to align with the United States. Systemic and structural factors made cooperation with the United States an imperative for Turkey, which may be classified as a secondary state in the regional context. While the domestic political environment was favorable for the Turkish government to reach such a decision, it was hindered by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT). In this framework, the study has two primary purposes. The first is to prove that in restrictive international environments where opportunities and threats are clear and the decision-making process is constrained by time, domestic divisions may matter in foreign policy and prevail over the systemic imperative, contrary to conventional expectations. The second is to demonstrate that in a restrictive international milieu, strong leadership, a factor underappreciated by neoclassical realists, is essential even for single-party governments, which are normally expected to have greater autonomy in democratic parliamentary systems, to formulate foreign policy.

1999’dan 2002 Genel Seçimlerine Giden Süreçte Türkiye’de Kritik Yeniden Saflaşma Ve Kritik Seçim Teorisi Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme

Seçimler, demokratik toplumlarda vatandaşların yönetime katılımının sağlanması ve hükümetin kurulması için önemli ve vazgeçilmez bir araçtır. Seçimler sonunda seçmenlerin oylarıyla bürokratik ya da siyasi görevleri üstlenecek ve iş başına gelecek kişiler belirlenir. Ancak seçimler, yalnızca bir seçme eylemi değildir zira bir sürecin parçasını da oluşturmaktadır. Dolayısı ile seçmenin oy verme davranışları çeşitli faktörlere göre değişirken; bu faktörlerin hangi çerçevede değiştiğinin anlaşılması seçmenlerin kritik yeniden saflaşmaları ve kritik seçimlerin ortaya çıkmasının anlaşılması için önemlidir. Kritik seçim teorisi, seçim dönemlerinde seçmenlerin süregiden bir durumu ani ve radikal bir biçimde değiştirecek yeniden saflaşmasını ifade eder. Kritik yeniden saflaşmalar ve kritik seçimler sonucunda seçime giren partilerin önceki seçimlere göre oyları artar veya oylarda radikal bir azalma yaşanır. Bu teoriye göre seçmenlerin oy verme davranışı oy verilen partiye duyulan memnuniyetsizlik, sosyo-ekonomik durum, dış politika, seçmen psikolojisi, lider etkisi veya seçim zamanlarında partilerin kullandıkları söylemler gibi birçok etmene göre değişebilmektedir. Türkiye’de 1999’dan 2002’ye giden süreçte ekonomik, siyasi ve toplumsal alanlarda gerçekleşen iç ve dış dinamikler, seçmenlerin oy kullanma tercihi üzerinde etkili olmuştur. Bu bağlamda bu makalede kritik yeniden saflaşma ve kritik seçim teorisi ışığında Türkiye’de 18 Nisan 1999 genel seçimlerinden 3 Kasım 2002 genel seçimlerine giden süreç, iç ve dış dinamikler çerçevesinde incelenmiştir. Çalışmada öncelikle kritik yeniden saflaşma ve kritik seçim teorisi üzerinde durulmuştur. Ardından Türkiye’de belirtilen süreçte iç ve dış dinamikler ayrıntılı olarak incelenmiştir. Bu çalışmada, seçimlerden başarılı bir sonuç alan Genç Parti ve Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi üzerinden bir değerlendirme sunulmuştur. Genç Parti’nin yükselişi ve Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi’nin koalisyon hükümetlerinin ardından tek parti hükümeti kurması konu bağlamında analiz edilmiştir. Çalışmada Türkiye’de 1999 ve 2002 genel seçimlerinin siyasi, ekonomik, sosyal yapısını iç ve dış dinamikler bağlamında çözümlemek, “kritik yeniden saflaşma” ve “kritik seçim” ile ilgili kavramsal ve metodolojik tartışmanın ana hatlarını oluşturmaktadır.

Rising Majoritarianism as Challenge For Democratic Governance - Turkey in Comparative Perspective

Introduction. In many countries, including EU members and their close neighbours, we can observe the so called democratic backsliding in the current decade. Political scientists have been discussing intensively the reasons behind this process. The proposed paper focuses on the rising phenomenon of majoritarianism which seems to contribute to the problems of democratic governance - particularly in the polarised and diverse societies in terms of the world outlook, beliefs and political sympathies -because of the dominance of a particular political and social group or groups in a political system. The aim of the article is to analyse different paths of development of majoritarianism in the 1990s and the 2000s and its impact on the political regime in the current decade. The case of Turkey as one of the “hardest" cases to indicate the phenomenon is compared to some selected states from Central Europe to verify the main hypothesis that the structural factors emerging within the historical process are behind the development of majoritarianism, which has been even strengthened in the current decade, including the pandemic period in 2020. Methods and materials . The author takes the qualitative approach. He uses the process-tracing method to investigate the development of majoritarianism in selected states and conducts the comparative analysis to identify the similarities and differences between Turkey and two Central European states - Hungary and Poland with reference to the analysed phenomenon. Results. At the turn of the 1990s and the 2000s a concentration of the party system, producing a decrease in the number of parties in the parliament and a rising party system polarization that strengthened the two largest parties and developed two ideological blocks resulted in the development of majoritarianism in the 2000s - mainly in Turkey and Hungary. It did not lead to the democracy decline at this time. In the second decade of the 21st century single-party governments (or coalition governments with one dominating party) sharing the majoritarian understanding of democracy have consolidated their power at the cost of the weakening of the opposition as well as have strengthened the executive - in relation to the legislature and judiciary. These processes have led to limitations in working of checks and balances system but also political and social pluralism due to increasing dominance of incumbents in political and social life of analyzed countries, particularly during the pandemic period. Discussion and conclusions . In Hungary and Poland the phenomenon of ma-joritarianism contributes so far to lowering the quality of democracy - in comparison with the Turkish situation reflecting rather the gradual change of the political regime to less democratic (i.e. a new type of authoritarianism).

Direct democracy, coalition size and public spending

AbstractThis article contributes to the literature on direct democracy and public spending in two ways. First, we explore how direct democratic institutions interact with a specific aspect of the representative system, the size of the governing coalition, to influence public spending. Second, based on newly collected data, we examine the relationship between three different direct democratic institutions, coalition size and public spending over the period from 1860 to 2015. Empirically, we find that initiatives increase the size of the public sector under single-party governments, but this positive relationship disappears as coalition size increases. In contrast, we find that financial referendums slow down the growth of public spending, while law referendums are not systematically associated with public spending. Finally, we find that the relationship between direct democratic institutions, coalition size and public spending does not change over time despite the long period under investigation.

Two-partyism Reloaded: Polarisation, Negative Partisanship, and the Return of the Left-right Divide in the Greek Elections of 2019

ABSTRACT The article examines the four electoral contests (municipal, regional, European, and parliamentary) that took place in Greece in 2019 through the prism of the growing polarisation that has dominated Greek political life since the early 2010s. It is argued that with these elections, the decade-long political cycle that began with the economic crisis came to its conclusion. The new party system resembles the pre-crisis one, featuring a return of two-partyism, single-party governments, and competition along the left-right dimension. However, the legacy of the crisis period remains present, as the ‘new’ two-party system continues to be characterised by high degrees of affective polarisation and negative partisanship.

Conditional Accountability for the Economy, Insecurity, and Corruption Across Latin American Party Systems

ABSTRACTThe association between how citizens perceive economic performance, insecurity, or corruption and how they evaluate the president varies systematically across Latin American countries and within them over time. In particular, while presidential popularity reflects these outcomes in the average Latin American country, survey data from 2006–17 confirm that the connection between government performance and presidential approval is generally stronger when unfragmented party systems or single-party majority governments make assessments of political responsibility easier. While these results suggest that the region’s citizens do not blindly blame the president for outcomes where political responsibility should be shared, they also remind us that there are many countries in the region where fragmented party systems weaken the conditions for effective political accountability.