scholarly journals How Voters Distort their Perceptions and Why this Matters

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea De Angelis
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
Perceptual Bias ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Perceptual Distortions ◽  
European Election ◽  
Election Studies

Voters’ ability to perceive political parties’ positions on policy scales is a precondition for a functioning and responsive electoral democracy. Appropriate measures of policy distance are thus key to addressing the link between political parties and the citizens. This chapter reviews the scholarship on ideal point estimation, identifying the main methodological and substantial implications for empirical studies involving issue scales. Next, the chapter applies two-stage Bayesian Aldrich-McKelvey scaling to European Election Studies data to find evidence of systematic perceptual distortions: right-wing voters perceive political parties as more progressive than they actually are, while knowledgeable voters perceive greater differences between parties. Perceptual bias is also shown to correlate with standard polarization measures based on perceived party positions.

scholarly journals How Voters Distort their Perceptions and Why this Matters

2019 ◽  
pp. 945-973
Author(s):  
Andrea De Angelis
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
Perceptual Bias ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Perceptual Distortions ◽  
European Election ◽  
Election Studies

Voters’ ability to perceive political parties’ positions on policy scales is a precondition for a functioning and responsive electoral democracy. Appropriate measures of policy distance are thus key to addressing the link between political parties and the citizens. This chapter reviews the scholarship on ideal point estimation, identifying the main methodological and substantial implications for empirical studies involving issue scales. Next, the chapter applies two-stage Bayesian Aldrich-McKelvey scaling to European Election Studies data to find evidence of systematic perceptual distortions: right-wing voters perceive political parties as more progressive than they actually are, while knowledgeable voters perceive greater differences between parties. Perceptual bias is also shown to correlate with standard polarization measures based on perceived party positions.

scholarly journals The Romanian Pension System Reforms: Evidences from Legislative Roll Call Analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
Claudiu Barbu
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Pension System ◽  
Pension Reform ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
Public Pension ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Public Pension System ◽  
The Right

AbstractThere are important differences between all Eastern European countries regarding the implementation of pension system privatization. The differences regarding the political configuration between the countries from Eastern Europe might be a possible explanation for the amount of diversity in this area. The ideology of political parties that form or sustain the government that implements the reform can also be an explanation, but this influence must be studied beyond the cliché that stipulates that the right-wing parties will support the public pension system reform and the left-wing parties will oppose it. Armeanu (2010a) showed that there are countries where privatization was supported by the centre-left coalitions that needed to overpass a strong opposition made by the right-wing parties. Using the Ideal Point Estimation technique within the voting sessions related to pension reform during the last three Romanian legislatures, we will explain the formation of pro and against coalitions regarding the pension reform from Romania during the privatization process of public pension system. We also test the hypotheses of the model presented by Armeanu (2010a, 2010b), model that predicts the behaviour of political parties based on the position they have on a two-dimensional space related to the costs of pension reform.

scholarly journals A Common Left-Right Scale for Voters and Parties in Europe

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Lo ◽  
Sven-Oliver Proksch ◽  
Thomas Gschwend
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Scaling Method ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Systematic Biases ◽  
European Election ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
Cross National

This article presents a scaling approach to jointly estimate the locations of voters, parties, and European political groups on a common left-right scale. Although most comparative research assumes that cross-national comparisons of voters and parties are possible, few correct for systematic biases commonly known to exist in surveys or examine whether survey data are comparable across countries. Our scaling method addresses scale perception in surveys and links cross-national surveys through new bridging observations. We apply our approach to the 2009 European Election Survey and demonstrate that the improvement in party estimates that one gains from fixing various survey bias issues is significant. Our scaling strategy provides left-right positions of voters and of 162 political parties, and we demonstrate that variables based on rescaled voter and party positions on the left-right dimension significantly improve the fit of a cross-national vote choice model.

Electoral Choice—Voter Demand and Party Supply

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Electoral Choice ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
European Election ◽  
Voting Decisions ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

This chapter examines the impact of the economic and cultural cleavages on Europeans’ voting choices over time. There is a strong and persisting influence of the economic cleavage on voting choices with little change after the 2008 financial crisis. There is also a growing importance of the cultural cleavage. In recent elections, the cultural cleavage outweighs the influence on the economic cleavage. The polarization of party positions on the cultural cleavage increases the influence of this cleavage, but the same pattern is not apparent for the economic cleavage. The salience of each cleavage also affects its weight in voting decisions. European voters and parties have realigned their positions so that both cleavages are now important for electoral choice. The analyses are based on the European Election Studies in 1979, 2009, and 2014.

scholarly journals Analysis of political orientation and left-right party labelling in the European Parliament

Dela ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 103-127
Author(s):  
Miha Nahtigal
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Roll Call Vote ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Liberal Position

This article explores the political parties in the 8th European Parliament on the basis of roll-call vote analysis. Besides the left-right divisions, we have also analysed the nationalist-globalist political cleavage. We have compared the resulting party positions with their left-right wing party labels. In addition, we have focused on inconsistencies and biased existing labels and the geopolitical interests connected with the current way of labelling. We have found out that the current way of left-right labelling privileges a globalist and liberal position, while some other political positions were not even represented. Finally, we have presented a new way of political labelling, which would also include a nationalist-globalist cleavage.

Dilemmas of Inclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafaela M. Dancygier
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Political Incorporation ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Equality And Diversity

As Europe's Muslim communities continue to grow, so does their impact on electoral politics and the potential for inclusion dilemmas. In vote-rich enclaves, Muslim views on religion, tradition, and gender roles can deviate sharply from those of the majority electorate, generating severe trade-offs for parties seeking to broaden their coalitions. This book explains when and why European political parties include Muslim candidates and voters, revealing that the ways in which parties recruit this new electorate can have lasting consequences. The book sheds new light on when minority recruitment will match up with existing party positions and uphold electoral alignments and when it will undermine party brands and shake up party systems. It demonstrates that when parties are seduced by the quick delivery of ethno-religious bloc votes, they undercut their ideological coherence, fail to establish programmatic linkages with Muslim voters, and miss their opportunity to build cross-ethnic, class-based coalitions. The book highlights how the politics of minority inclusion can become a testing ground for parties, showing just how far their commitments to equality and diversity will take them when push comes to electoral shove. Providing a unified theoretical framework for understanding the causes and consequences of minority political incorporation, and especially as these pertain to European Muslim populations, the book advances our knowledge about how ethnic and religious diversity reshapes domestic politics in today's democracies.

Activity of modern right-wing radical parties in the Czech Republic

2019 ◽  
pp. 164-173
Author(s):  
Tetiana Fedorchak
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Political Radicalism

The author investigates political radicalism in the Czech Republic, a rather heterogeneous current considering the structure of participants: from political parties to the extremist organizations. The peculiarity of the Czech party system is the existence, along with typical radical parties, of other non-radical parties whose representatives support xenophobic, nationalist and anti-Islamic statements. This is primarily the Civil Democratic Party, known for its critical attitude towards European integration, and the Communist party of the Czech Republic and Moravia, which opposes Czech membership in NATO and the EU. Among the Czech politicians, who are close to radical views, analysts include the well-known for its anti-Islamic position of the Czech President M. Zeman and the leader of the movement ANO, billionaire A. Babich. Voters vote for them not because their economic or social programs are particularly attractive to the electorate, but because of dissatisfaction with the economic situation in the state. Almost all right populist parties oppose European integration, interpreting it as an anti-national project run by an elite distorted by a deficit of democracy and corruption. Keywords: Czech Republic, right-wing radical political parties, European integration, nationalism.

How and Why the Populist Radical Right Persuades Citizens

2019 ◽  
pp. 813-837
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten ◽  
Scott Blinder ◽  
Lise Bjånesøy
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Large Share ◽  
The Past ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Established Democracies

The “populist radical right” is a contested concept in scholarly work for good reason. This chapter begins by explaining that the political parties usually grouped together under this label are not a party family in a conventional sense and do not self-identify with this category. It goes on to show how political science scholarship has established that in Europe during the past thirty or so years we have seen the rise of a set of parties that share a common ideological feature—nativism. The nativist political parties experiencing most electoral support have combined their nativist agenda with some other legitimate ideological companion, which provides deniability—a shield against charges that the nativist agenda makes the parties and their supporters right-wing extremist and undemocratic. The chapter goes on to explain that in order to make progress on our understanding of how and why the populist radical right persuades citizens, we need to recognize: first, that nativism is the only necessary ingredient without which the populist radical right loses its force; and second, that nativism in contemporary established democracies has tended not to persuade a large share of voters without an ideological companion.

scholarly journals When Does Income Inequality Cause Polarization?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jacob R. Gunderson
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
The Right ◽  
Issue Content

Scholars have long been concerned with the implications of income inequality for democracy. Conventional wisdom suggests that high income inequality is associated with political parties taking polarized positions as the left advocates for increased redistribution while the right aims to entrench the position of economic elites. This article argues that the connection between party positions and income inequality depends on how party bases are sorted by income and the issue content of national elections. It uses data from European national elections from 1996 to 2016 to show that income inequality has a positive relationship with party polarization on economic issues when partisans are sorted with respect to income and when economic issues are relatively salient in elections. When these factors are weak, however, the author finds no relationship between income inequality and polarization.

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