Local Party Organization, Turnout and Marginality

1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Pimlott
Keyword(s):  
Local Elections ◽  
Organizational Impact ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Recent Discussion ◽  
Similar Comparison ◽  
Local Party

In a recent Note in this Journal (‘Does Local Party Organization Matter?’, III (1972), 381–3) I reported evidence which suggested that in local elections party organization could have a major impact.1 This conclusion was reached by comparing voting movements in a marginal Newcastle ward, Walkergate, where Labour organization was very weak in 1970 but strong in 1971, with changes in Newcastle as a whole. In this Note a similar comparison is made, with evidence drawn from a Conservative ward, Heaton, in 1972, which shows even more striking evidence of organizational impact. Recent discussion in this and other journals about ward marginality and turnout2 is considered in the light of this evidence.

Does Local Party Organization Matter?

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Pimlott
Keyword(s):  
Local Elections ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Local Election ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Local Party

Are local election campaigns just periodic acts of renewal, seasonal rites, or do they gain extra votes? Whatever may be true at general elections, low turnout is a reason for thinking that the scope for organization at local elections may be considerable.

Delinking National and Local Party Systems: New Parties in Japanese Local Elections

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Victor Leonard Hijino
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
National Level ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Chief Executives ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Intraparty Conflict ◽  
Local Party

Broader structural developments in Japan in the past two decades—decline of clientelist practices, partisan de-alignment, and decentralization—have dissolved traditionally close ties between national and local party systems, creating an environment conducive to the emergence of local parties. In this context, popular chief executives in four regions launched new parties. I trace how these parties emerged and how national parties reacted to them, from the appearance of the new-party leaders to the 2011 local elections. In comparing the four cases, two factors appear to shape their trajectories: the urbanness of their electoral environments and the responses of the two national parties at the local and the national level. In dealing with the new challengers, both the Liberal Democratic Party and Democratic Party of Japan experienced considerable intraparty conflict and defections, indicating a process of delinking between national and local party systems.

The Illicit Benefits of Local Party Alignment in National Elections

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oana Borcan
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Electoral Fraud ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Vote Count ◽  
Level I ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Transfers ◽  
Local Party

Abstract How do central politicians in young democracies secure electoral support at grassroots level? I show that alignment with local governments is instrumental in swaying national elections through, inter alia, electoral fraud. A regression discontinuity design with Romanian local elections and a president impeachment referendum in 2012 uncovers higher referendum turnouts in localities aligned with the government coalition—the impeachment initiators. Electoral forensics tests present abnormal vote count distributions across polling stations, consistent with ballot stuffing. The alignment effect, driven by rural localities, may explain the clientelistic government transfers found in this context and documented worldwide. (JEL D72, D73, H77)

How far right local party organizations develop

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 804-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonis A Ellinas ◽  
Iasonas Lamprianou
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Development ◽  
National Level ◽  
Organizational Outcomes ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
Local Party

The literature on far right parties emphasizes the importance of party organization for electoral persistence. Yet, a lot is still unknown about the organizational development of these parties. This article examines the microdynamics of organizational development and explores why some party organizations succeed and others fail. It focuses on the local rather than the national level and analyzes grassroots activities rather than party leadership, institutions, or members. To analyze organizational development, the article uses an original and unique data set of 3594 activities of the Greek Golden Dawn (GD) supplemented by interviews with the GD leadership and activists as well as with evidence from hundreds of newspaper reports. It uses this evidence to trace local party activism and to document variation in local organizational outcomes. To account for why some local party organizations succeed or fail, it suggests that, rather than solely following electoral logic, the organizational development of far right parties also relates to the way they respond to challenges from antifascist groups and state authorities.

scholarly journals Birds of a Feather or by Note? Ideological Nationalization of Local Electoral Manifestos in Belgium

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Van de Voorde ◽  
Nicolas Bouteca ◽  
Tom Schamp ◽  
Kristof Steyvers
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Regression Model ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
Ideological Dimension ◽  
Leftist Parties ◽  
Local Party

Until now, scholars trying to unravel the phenomenon of nationalization have seldom considered the local policy layer or the ideological dimension as their main subject. This paper, however, studies the ideological nationalization of Flemish local party branches. It applies the method of content analysis of electoral manifestos to the local elections and examines the programmatic overlaps between the party headquarter and its local branches. An innovative nationalization measure is introduced and subsequently included in an explanatory regression model. The results show that ideological similarities are ubiquitous and especially prevailing among leftist parties, in majority-participating party branches, and in large municipalities.

scholarly journals Quality of Life and Women’s Descriptive Representation: Female Emergence and Success in the 2018 Czech Local Elections

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Pavel Maškarinec
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Corporate Boards ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Local Party

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of quality of life, together with other factors, on female candidates̕ willingness to run for office and women’s descriptive representation in the 2018 Czech local elections. We found that the effect of some variables was different in the case of women’s emergence and success. While the share of female candidates was higher in larger cities with lower quality of life and less nationalized local party systems, women were much more successful in smaller cities with lower quality of life, less nationalized local party systems and a more strongly gendered context in the sense of previous female representation, both in city councils and on corporate boards of firms owned by the city. While the positive effect of size on women’s emergence can be explained with the larger city’s context which generates more access points for emergence of women candidates, the negative effect of size on women’s success was due to the desirability of office effect. Furthermore, the very small effect of previous female representation on the share of female candidates can be explained by the existence of an incumbency effect, which may also underlie the different influence of the representation of women in municipally-owned firms’ management. Finally, the negative effect of quality of life (at the level of both candidacy and representation) can also be linked with the desirability hypothesis. The drive to win representation and make decisions about the life of the community can be expected to be much stronger in municipalities with higher quality of life.

scholarly journals When the Party Decides: The Effects of Facial Competence and Dominance on Internal Nominations of Political Candidates

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 147470491773200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lasse Laustsen ◽  
Michael Bang Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Opinion Formation ◽  
Political Candidates ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Local Party

The facial traits and appearance of political candidates have been found to predict election outcomes across countries with different electoral systems and institutions. Research over the last decade has provided two different versions of this overall conclusion. First and most thoroughly studied, candidates who from their mere faces are evaluated as more competent get more votes on Election Day. Second, recent research finds that the ideological leanings of candidates and the voters they cater to also matter: Right-wing and conservative candidates receive more votes if they look more dominant, while liberal candidates lose votes when looking dominant and masculine. In this article, we investigate whether these patterns extend to candidate selection and support within parties as determined by party organizations. We test this through an original combination of naive respondents’ trait ratings of candidates in Danish local elections and these candidates’ positions on the ballot as decided by nomination processes within local party organizations. The results strongly support that the conclusions in previous studies extend to dynamics within the party among party members: Danish local party organizations tend to nominate facially competent candidates at the top of the ballot regardless of their ideological leaning. Moreover, liberal and conservative parties position dominant-looking candidates significantly different on the ballot with liberal parties being less likely to assign facially dominant candidates to top ballot positions. These results add important new insights about the underlying psychological processes causing appearance-based voting and relate to the ongoing discussion about the quality of public opinion formation.

Candidate selection and ethnic minority aspirants: Exploring the effect of party selectors’ biases in a PR system

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110415
Author(s):  
Sigrid Van Trappen
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
The Real ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Ethnic Biases ◽  
Local Party ◽  
Selection Of

This study examines whether ethnic majority party selectors’ ethnic biases (e.g. beliefs about the political traits of ethnic minority aspirants) impede the selection of ethnic minority aspirants in a proportional representation system. To this end, a quasi-experiment was conducted among local party chairs in Flanders (Belgium). The participants were asked to evaluate both a hypothetical ethnic minority aspirant and an ethnic majority aspirant. When the participants were negatively biased against the ethnic minority aspirant, the selection chances of the ethnic minority aspirant vis-à-vis the ethnic majority aspirant declined. Additionally, the quasi-experimental data were linked to an analysis of the real-life candidate lists composed by the participants for the 2018 local elections in Flanders. The participants’ ethnic biases could not predict the percentage of ethnic minority candidates on the real-life candidate lists. Instead, the presence of ethnic minority voters, aspirants and co-selectors determined the diversity of the lists.

Ghost-Hunting: Local Party Organization in Japan

Asian Survey ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 843-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Foster
Keyword(s):  
Party Organization ◽  
Local Party
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