Party Change and Political Personalization
Keyword(s):
Zero Sum
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The chapter presents an empirical cross-national analysis of the relationship between the two processes of party change and political personalization. It demonstrates that there is indeed a moderate negative correlation between partyness and personalization when we focus on what happens off-line in the more veteran democracies. It also explains why, in some cases, partyness and personalization will not be in zero-sum relationships. It then turns to the question of the causal direction of this relationship: does party decline cause personalization, or is it the other way round? While it makes sense that the two should interact, our argument is that decline in partyness occurred first and was in fact one of the causes of personalization.