scholarly journals The Macro-Level Driving Factors of Negative Campaigning in Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsófia Papp ◽  
Veronika Patkós
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Multinomial Logit Model ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Negative Campaigning ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
Number Of Parties

Covering the largest sample of countries to date, this study examines the effect of three country-specific factors on the tone of electoral campaigns across Europe: electoral system disproportionality, party system fragmentation, and the polarization of the electorate. We use an original dataset of statements made by political actors during eighteen electoral campaigns in nine European countries. Our multinomial logit model suggests that increasing disproportionality slightly increases negativity, while thanks to parties competing on the same market, less polarized electorates invite more negative political campaigns. Finally, we find a U-shaped relationship between party system fragmentation and negativity: Increasing the number of parties, negativity decreases first, only to start increasing again once the party system becomes very fragmented. We explain this with parties altering their coalition strategies with the changing number of parties: Less fragmentation makes it more likely to having to step into coalition with the competitors, thus decreasing negativity, while in very fragmented systems, parties not needed to any potential coalitions become easy targets to negative campaign.

scholarly journals The impact of using proportional representation system on the fragmentation of the party system in Algeria. Applied to the elections of the National People’s Assembly (1997–2017)

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Mahmoud Mahgoub
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Effective Number ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Representation System ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of using proportional representation system on the fragmentation of the party system in the Algerian political system within the period from 1997 to 2017, in which Algeria has experienced five legislative elections regularly every five years by testing a hypothesis about adopting the proportional representation system on the basis of the closed list during the foregoing legislative elections has obviously influenced the exacerbation of the Algerian party system’s fragmentation, compared to other factors. Design/methodology/approach The essence of the theoretical framework of this study is to address the effect of the electoral system as an independent variable on the party system as a dependent variable. The starting point for that framework is to reassess the “Duverger’s law,” which appeared since the early 1950s and has influenced the foregoing relationship, and then to review the literature on a new phase that tried to provide a more accurate mechanism for determining the number of parties and their relative weight, whether in terms of electoral votes or parliamentary seats. This means that researchers began to use a measure called the effective number of parties (ENP) for Laakso and Taagepera since 1979. The study elaborates the general concepts of the electoral system and the party system. It used Laakso, Taagepera index of the “ENP” to measure the phenomenon of fragmentation party during the five legislative elections from 1997 to 2017 in Algeria. Findings The results of the study reveal that the proportional representation electoral system – beside other factors – had clear impacts on the fragmentation of the Algerian party system by all standards, whether on the level of the apparent rise in the number of the parties represented in the Algerian parliament from 10 parties in 1997 election to 36 parties in 2017 election or according to the index of Laakso and Taagepera (ENP). The average number of effective number of electoral parties in the five elections was around 7.66, and the average number of effective number of parliamentary parties in the five elections was around 4.39, which puts Algeria in an advanced degree of the fragmentation of the party system. Originality/value This study about the phenomenon of the fragmentation of the party system, which is one of the new subjects in the field of comparative politics – globally and in the Arab world. Hence, the value of this study aims to shed light on this mysterious area of science, the fragmentation of the party system in the Algerian political system during the period from 1997 to 2017.

scholarly journals Collapse and Re-Emergence of the Two-Party System in Greece

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-80
Author(s):  
Y. Kvashnin
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Crisis Recovery ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
The One

The article examines the Greek party system under the Third Republic and identifies the key trends in its development during the years of the “great recession” (2008–2016) and the subsequent post-crisis recovery. Economic and social cataclysms led to the political fragmentation, the decline of the once largest party PASOK, the rise of radical parties, both left and right wing. However, the period of political chaos was short-lived. As a result, Greece has come to a quasi-two-party system, similar to the one that functioned in the pre-crisis decades. The return to normalcy was partly caused by the failure of the anti-European agenda, which brought SYRIZA and Independent Greeks to power in 2015 on the crest of a populist wave. But there were other reasons. First, the revitalization of the bipartisan system was facilitated by a reinforced proportional electoral system, which gave 50 bonus seats to the leading party. Second, political competition is constrained by the conservatism of Greek society, its weak susceptibility to new ideas (liberal, «green», regionalist, etc.). Third, bipartisanship is cemented by widespread clientelistic ties between the largest parties and voters who receive public sector jobs and other benefits in exchange for their loyalty. Fourth, the lion’s share of media resources is concentrated in the hands of a small number of media moguls associated with the leading parties, and citizens receive rather scant information about smaller political actors. These factors contribute to political stability, but at the same time they limit political competition, which poses serious risks for the country.

scholarly journals Las reglas del juego político en Chile: incentivos y restricciones para la gobernabilidad

2009 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Informal Institutions ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
Para Determinar ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Rules Of The Game

RESUMEN: El propósito del artículo es explorar las instituciones y reglas del juego que rigen el comportamiento y las relaciones entre los actores políticos chilenos desde una perspectiva de gobernabilidad democrática. Se examina en qué forma las instituciones y reglas del juego –formales e informales– contribuyen positiva o negativamente a la gobernabilidad democrática en Chile. Se centrará la atención primero en las instituciones políticas de carácter formal y después, en las de carácter informal. Al examinar las instituciones de carácter formal se distinguirá a aquellas que se vinculan más estrechamente con la forma de gobierno, los mecanismos de pesos y contrapesos, el sistema electoral y el sistema de partidos. En las informales se repasarán brevemente aquellas más visibles: clientelismo, circuitos extrainstitucionales del poder y captura del Estado. El punto de partida para este análisis recoge la idea de que un criterio clave para determinar el nivel de la consolidación democrática en un país es el que resulta de una adecuación razonablemente cercana entre reglas formales y comportamientos y prácticas de los actores.ABSTRACT: The intention of this article is to explore the institutions and rules of the game that govern the behavior of and relations between Chilean political actors from a perspective of democratic governability. It examines the ways in which the institutions and rules of the game –both formal and informal– contribute positively or negatively to democratic governability in Chile. It first focuses its attention on formal political institutions and later examines those that are informal in nature. When examining formal institutions, a special emphasis is put on those most closely linked to the form of government, the mechanisms of weights and counterweights, the electoral system and the party system. The examination of informal institutions concentrates on the most visible such institutions: clientelism, extrainstitutional circuits of power and the capture of the State. The point of departure for this analysis is the idea that a key criterion for determining the level of democratic consolidation in a country is the relative fit between formal rules and the behavior and practices of political actors.

Presidentialism and legislative fragmentation: Beyond coattail effects

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grigorii V Golosov ◽  
Kirill Kalinin
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Short Term ◽  
System Properties ◽  
Presidential Regimes ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Impact

Using data from a nearly comprehensive set of the world’s electoral democracies, 1992–2014, this article empirically evaluates the impact of presidentialism upon legislative fragmentation. The analysis demonstrates that the impact is strong, consistent across a wide variety of political contexts, and conditioned by the type of presidential regime, the scope of presidential powers, electoral system effects, and essential party system properties. While much of the reasoning regarding the interplay between presidentialism and legislative fragmentation has been traditionally focused on short-term coattail effects of presidential elections, this study shows that these effects are real, but they are insufficient to make a significant impact upon the parameter of crucial importance for the functioning of presidential regimes: the number of parties in the legislature. The main impact of presidentialism is systemic, stemming from its tendency to restrict the number of parties to a limited set of viable competitors for the presidential prize.

Voting after the change: A natural experiment on the effect of electoral reform on party system fragmentation

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-286
Author(s):  
Pedro Riera
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
System Size ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Electoral Reforms ◽  
Number Of Parties

This article analyses the causal effect of the 1993 electoral reform in New Zealand on party system fragmentation using the ‘synthetic’ control method. Previous studies using cross-national evidence suggest that electoral reforms change the number of parties. However, they do not take into account possible endogeneity problems and usually focus on their short-term effects. Since the electoral system in use in this country before the change was first past the post (FPTP), I can create a ‘synthetic’ control democracy that had the same institutional framework but did not modify the rules of the game. The results indicate that the electoral reform produced the expected effects on party system size at the electoral level, but that these effects tended to disappear in the long run. In contrast, electoral system effects at the legislative level were larger and stickier over time.

Party System Linkage

2020 ◽  
pp. 102-131
Author(s):  
Lori Thorlakson
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
System Level ◽  
Fiscal Centralization ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Subnational Elections ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Social Cleavage ◽  
Cleavage Structure

This chapter examines two forms of integrated politics at the party system level, party system congruence and party system nationalization. Drawing on data from over 2,220 subnational elections in seven multi-level systems, it assesses three forms of party system congruence across the units of a multi-level system: similarity of the number of parties, electoral support, and similarity of the magnitude and direction of the electoral swing. Using the index of cumulative regional inequality (CRI), it measures the territorial concentration of party systems. The analysis shows that fiscal centralization and administrative interdependence predict integrated politics in the form of more congruent patterns of electoral support. There are limits to the institutional explanation. The electoral system and social cleavage structure are important explanations of variation in party system structures and territorial concentration.

scholarly journals Electoral Systems, Ethnic Heterogeneity and Party System Fragmentation

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lublin
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Multivariate Models ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Proper Account

Taking into proper account the geographic distribution of ethnic groups and the operation of electoral systems within individual countries reveals that the impact of ethnic diversity and electoral systems on the number of parties has been underestimated. Contrary to earlier findings, this study reveals that ethnic diversity spurs party proliferation in countries with both majoritarian and proportional electoral systems, though the effect is stronger in the latter. The insights gained here provide a theoretically derived measure of ethnic diversity that is useful for estimating its effect on specifically political phenomena and generating an improved holistic measure of the impact of electoral systems. More crucially, the results indicate that electoral system designers have a greater capacity to structure electoral outcomes. The results rely on multivariate models created using a new database with election results from 1990 through 2011 in sixty-five free democracies.

scholarly journals The Impact of Candidate Selection Rules and Electoral Vulnerability on Legislative Behaviour in Comparative Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge M. Fernandes ◽  
Lucas Geese ◽  
Carsten Schwemmer
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Selection Rules ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross System ◽  
Mixed Systems

Legislators are political actors whose main goal is to get re-elected. They use their legislative repertoire to help them to cater to the interests of their principals. In this paper, we argue that we need to move beyond treating electoral systems as monolithic entities, as if all legislators operating under the same set of macro-rules shared the same set of incentives. Rather, we need to account for within-system variation, namely, candidate selection rules and individual electoral vulnerability. Using a most different systems design, we turn to Germany, Ireland, and Portugal to leverage both cross-system and within-system variation. We use an original dataset of 345.000 parliamentary questions. Findings show that candidate selection rules blur canonical electoral system boundaries. Electoral vulnerability has a similar effect in closed-list and mixed-systems, but not in preferential voting settings.

Recruitment and Representation of Ethnic Minorities under Proportional Representation

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleh Protsyk ◽  
Konstantin Sachariew
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Party System ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Original Dataset

This article explores the effects that electoral rules, party ideologies, and structural characteristics of minority communities have on party system responses to the need of accommodating the country’s ethnic diversity. The article uses an original dataset on parliamentary representation in Bulgaria to analyze candidate selection practices of electorally successful political parties. The article’s findings highlight the need to qualify the academic discussion of beneficial effects of proportional representation (PR) electoral rules for minority representation. The authors report the failures of demographically large ethnic groups to secure close-to-proportional representation under Bulgaria’s choice of PR electoral system. The authors also identify costs in terms of reduced competitiveness and accountability that PR-facilitated electoral success of ethnic minority parties can impose on minority constituencies.

Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 672-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verónica Hoyo
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Political Context ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Fifth Republic ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Political Actors

Overall, elections in France take place in a two-round system (with the exception of the European elections), and although each different electoral arena has its own particular procedures, most promote majoritarian principles. This chapter analyzes the electoral system of the French Fifth Republic by focusing on the operation of these rules in the larger political context: including the interaction between the rules, the party system, and the main political actors that compete in them. It shows that the two-round majoritarian system has proven remarkably stable and has managed to survive both internal (a quick detour to proportional representation in 1986) and external challenges (rise of new parties, EU common rules on proportional representation).

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