Electoral support and militants’ targeting strategies

2021 ◽  
pp. 002234332110477
Author(s):  
Deniz Aksoy ◽  
David Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Opposition Party ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Incumbent Party ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
The Impact

Militant groups that are in armed conflict with a government often coexist with political parties that have ethnic or ideological connections to them. In this article, we explore the extent to which electoral support received by militant associated opposition parties and nationally incumbent political parties influences subnational variation in militant attacks. We argue, and empirically demonstrate, that militants strategically target localities where the levels of electoral support for the opposition party and the nationally incumbent party are close in an effort to negatively influence the electoral performance of the incumbent party. To illustrate this dynamic we examine subnational data from 1995 to 2015 Turkish legislative elections and attacks organized by the Kurdish militants within the same time period. We also examine the impact of June 2015 legislative elections on militant attacks until the snap elections in November 2015. Our empirical examination shows that militants target localities where electoral support for the governing party and Kurdish opposition party is close. Moreover, increase in violence negatively influences the electoral performance of the governing party. However, it does not consistently have a significant influence on the opposition. The findings illustrate that militants strategically choose the location of their attacks based on electoral dynamics, and attacks can pose an electoral challenge to the governing party.

Les députés et les partis politiques sortants profitent-ils d'un avantage électoral ? Une analyse des résultats électoraux au Québec

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 723-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariane Blais-Lacombe ◽  
Marc André Bodet
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Small Difference ◽  
Statistical Tools ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Incumbent Party ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Opposition Parties

AbstractUsing official electoral results from provincial elections since 1973, we evaluate the incumbency effect in Quebec by measuring the impact of a combination of characteristics related to candidates and political parties. We verify whether the presence of an incumbent candidate is necessary to ensure that the incumbent party benefits from an electoral advantage. We also compare the magnitude of the incumbency effect between governing and opposition parties. Making use of parametric multivariate statistical tools, we conclude that political parties benefit from an electoral advantage in Quebec. Except for ministers who make a small difference, simple Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) do not improve their electoral performance, while in some cases new candidates with incumbent parties perform better.

Social Origin Is No Destiny: Background, Institutionalization, and Electoral Performance of New Political Parties in Slovakia

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Rybář ◽  
Peter Spáč
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Social Origin ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
European Democracy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Entrepreneur ◽  
Party Institutionalization ◽  
Political Entrepreneurs ◽  
Electoral Performance

The existing research suggests that socially rooted new political parties are more likely to be reelected to parliaments than parties emerging without links to preexisting social groups. It is argued that the two groups face different prospects of institutionalization: Rooted parties are more viable because their links to preexisting societal groups contribute to a higher sustainability of their electoral support and stronger institutionalization. We assess the link between the origin of parties, their level of institutionalization, and their electoral performance in the context of Slovakia, a new Eastern European democracy. We add to the existing state of knowledge in three ways. First, we empirically assess the link between the social origin of parties and their level of institutionalization. We also provide rich empirical material on the intraparty processes resulting in various levels of institutionalization. Subsequently, we assess whether rooted parties record better electoral performance than political entrepreneur parties. Second, we provide some illustration of the fact that agential factors, especially the decisions and activities related to leadership contestation, directly impact both party institutionalization and electoral performance. Third, we show that developing the links to a sociostructurally well-defined electorate may be a viable strategy to secure a parliamentary relevance for a prolonged period of time for some political entrepreneurs. Our findings suggest that parties with different levels of institutionalization are able to secure reelection, and that their electoral performance is not directly linked to their social origins.

African Phoenix? Explaining the Electoral Performance of the Formerly Dominant Parties in Africa

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ishiyama ◽  
John James Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Dominant Parties ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Environmental Shocks ◽  
Electoral Performance

In this article we address the question: what explains the varying degrees of success of the formerly dominant political parties in African oneparty states following ‘democratic’ transition? Indeed, political liberalization and democratization pose strong environmental shocks to formerly dominant parties and radically change the environment in which these parties exist. Such parties are faced with great pressures to adapt to their new environment. Why are some more successful than others? To address this question, we examine the evidence from 22 sub-Saharan African countries over 53 legislative elections from 1990 to 2003. We find that the legacies of different previous regimes, party incumbency and (to some extent) the degree of ethnolinguistic fractionalization, impact on the relative electoral success of the formerly dominant parties.

The Impact of the Electoral System on Government Formation: The Case of Post-Communist Hungary

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
CSABA NIKOLENYI
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Coalition Formation Process ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

Conventional theories of government formation have assumed that the coalition formation process starts after legislative elections are over and the distribution of parliamentary seats becomes common knowledge. This perspective, however, ignores the important constraints that the formation of electoral coalitions may exert on the formation of the government. This article argues that the electoral system of Hungary provides very strong incentives for political parties to build electoral coalitions, which are also identified as alternative governments before the electorate.

scholarly journals “WOMEN's STRIKE”: THE PROBLEM OF ABORTION IN THE MIRROR OF POLITICAL STRUGGLE IN MODERN POLAND

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-510
Author(s):  
O.V. Timofeeva
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
The Past ◽  
Opposition Party ◽  
Abortion Legislation ◽  
The Impact

The article attempts to trace the impact that the "women's strike" had on the positions of forces in the issue of abortion in modern Poland. The author draws attention to the reaction to the Constitutional Court of Poland and its changes over the past period. The author discovers that only political parties that do not play a significant role in political life are willing to support the protesters on the women's agenda, and that a significant opposition party, as a result of the tightening of the abortion legislation, is coming to an understanding of the need to revise its program in relation to abortion.

Electoral Performance of New Political Parties in Ukraine: The Context of Electoral Volatility at the Parliamentary Level (1998–2019)

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-292
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Romanyuk ◽  
Vitaliy Lytvyn
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Electoral Volatility ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The Government ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
Levels Of Support

This article is devoted to study and comparative analysis of the features and levels of support for new political parties during parliamentary elections in Ukraine, in particular the period 1998–2019. With this in mind, mainly based on the calculations of the indices of overall electoral volatility, intra-system electoral volatility and extra-system electoral volatility, we analyze the parameters of changes in electoral support (by voters) for political parties, in particular new ones, during the 1998–2019 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. In addition, we correlate overall, intra-system and extra-system electoral volatility, and present the correlation of overall electoral volatility in the sample of all political parties as the subjects of electoral processes in Ukraine and political parties elected to the national parliament (the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine). As a result, the study outlines two clusters of extra-system electoral volatility, which show the highest level of similarity, and calculates the dependence of the level of electoral volatility and stability of the party system in Ukraine. With this background, we conclude that electoral volatility in Ukraine is largely determined by the effect of party affiliation or desire to belong to the government or opposition, and is regulated by the special context of identity politics in this country.

Germany: From Stable Coalition Camps to New Complexity

2021 ◽  
pp. 247-283
Author(s):  
Marc Debus ◽  
Holger Döring ◽  
Alejandro Ecker
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
First Century ◽  
Institutional Setting ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

This chapter aims at presenting the characteristics of cabinets in Germany, in particular for the cabinets formed since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The chapter covers two decades of coalition dynamics and an era that has led to significant changes in German politics in general and the German party system in particular. The electoral support for the two catch-all parties – Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) decreased in that time period, while the increased number of parliamentary parties and the increasing vote share for the smaller parties resulted in a more complex bargaining environment. We also discuss changes in the policy profiles of the parliamentary parties and how potential coalitions are discussed during election campaigns. The chapter provides first a brief overview on the institutional setting in which parties in Germany act and which influences the government-formation process, as well as the daily business of coalition governance. In a second step, we outline recent dynamics in the structure of the German party system. The final section summarizes the findings, considers if an overall trend in terms of changes in coalition governance exists in Germany, and discusses the impact of the parliamentary presence of a left- and a right-wing ‘pariah’ party—The Left and the Alternative for Germany—for coalition politics in Germany in the future.

Too Much Democracy? Primaries and Candidate Success in the 2006 Mexican National Elections

2010 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Bruhn
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
General Election ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Entry Requirements ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Electoral Performance

AbstractsDo primaries help political parties perform better in general elections, or do they undermine electoral performance by contributing to internal divisions and to the weakening of party organizations? This article examines the effect of holding a primary on the general election prospects of candidates, using cases from two of the three major parties in Mexico's 2006 national legislative elections. In both parties, primaries fail to systematically produce candidates with advantages in the general election, due largely to organizational deficits of the parties and low entry requirements for aspiring precandidates. Indeed, outside urban centers, where parties tend to be better organized, primaries actually seem to hurt party performance in subsequent general elections.

Elections in Poland 2001: electoral manipulation and party upheaval

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Millard
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Coalition Partner ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Party Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
Electoral Law ◽  
The Impact

The Polish parliamentary elections of 2001 took place in a context of fresh upheavals in the configuration of political parties. The architects of the new electoral law aimed to reduce the seats gained by the social democrats and increase their own. They succeeded in the first aim by a change of electoral formula, forcing the victorious social democratic electoral coalition to seek a third coalition partner. They did not achieve the second aim, as their own failures in government drastically reduced their electoral support and facilitated the breakthrough of populist formations. The result had implications for party development and the composition and workings of both parliament and government. While representation was enhanced by a parliament more accurately reflecting the voters’ choice, the impact appeared potentially harmful to Polish democracy as a whole.

The Politics of Welfare Privatization: The British Experience

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Taylor-Gooby
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
British Experience ◽  
New Policies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Roll Back ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
Tax Cuts

The 1980s Conservative government in Britain is committed to policies of welfare privatization for practical and ideological reasons-to facilitate tax cuts and to roll back the state. One problem this policy faces is that the most expensive and interventionist services are highly popular with voters from all parties. In this article, the author examines the extent to which recent privatization policies in welfare are influenced by conflict between the goals of achieving tax cuts and of maintaining electoral support, so that the outcome is a change in the form of state interventionism, rather than a rolling back of the welfare state. It also considers the impact of new policies designed to undermine the consensus across social groups and political parties of support for big-spending state services, which may facilitate reductions in the overall scope of welfare provision in future years.

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