scholarly journals Heading towards Collapse? Assessment of the Slovak Party System after the 2020 General Elections

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-50
Author(s):  
Alexandra Smolecová ◽  
Daniel Šárovec
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Individual Development ◽  
Cycle Period ◽  
Aggregation Index ◽  
General Elections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Number Of Parties

This article aims to analyse changes of the Slovak party system from 1992 to the last parliamentary elections of 2020. These elections were the eighth elections in the history of independent Slovakia. There are discussions about stability or instability of individual development stages of the party system. In the article, Attention is paid to changes in the distribution of forces within the development of the party system. In political science, various methods are used to measure the party system’s dynamics to determine the intensity of changes and the trends arising from them. This analysis is based on election results in each electoral cycle (period), which are being compared. Next part of the analysis is focused on the selected comparative indicators: Index of the Effective Number of Parties and Aggregation Index. These indices are chosen based on the criteria of classification of party systems. The results presented in the final part of the paper prove that several significant milestones in development of party system could be identified, as confirmed by the 2020 general elections – a major breakthrough in development trends.

Ewolucja systemu partyjnego i sceny politycznej w Bułgarii w latach 1990-2017 – od dwublokowości do wielopartyjności

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-300
Author(s):  
Marzena Czernicka
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Effective Number ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Political Scene

This article concerns the evolution of the party system and the political scene of Bulgaria after the system transformations. The foundations of this analysis are the results of the elections to the National Assembly in the years 1990-2017. In order to identify the type of the party system, official election results and the effective number of parties index (ENP) were used. This index was used to characterise the party system after 2001. Some conditions from communism time had an influence on the shape and kind of how the Bulgarian party system and political scene evolved after system transformation. Between 1990-2001 in Bulgaria, a two-block or two and a half-block party system existed. From 2001 it evolves in the direction of a multiparty system.

Federal and Subnational Elections in Russia: Coherence and Divergence in Electoral Outcomes

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-353
Author(s):  
Rostislav Turovsky ◽  
Marina Sukhova
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Strong Connection ◽  
Regional Parties ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Electoral Authoritarianism ◽  
Subnational Elections ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Regional Elections

Abstract This article examines the differences between Russian voting at federal elections and regional legislature elections, both combined and conducted independently. The authors analyse these differences, their character and their dynamics as an important characteristic of the nationalisation of the party system. They also test hypotheses about a higher level of oppositional voting and competitiveness in subnational elections, in accordance with the theory of second-order elections, as well as the strategic nature of voting at federal elections, by contrast with expressive voting during subnational campaigns. The empirical study is based on calculating the differences in votes for leading Russian parties at subnational elections and at federal elections (simultaneous, preceding and following) from 2003, when mandatory voting on party lists was widespread among the regions, to 2019. The level of competitiveness is measured in a similar way, by calculating the effective number of parties. The study indicates a low level of autonomy of regional party systems, in many ways caused by the fact that the law made it impossible to create regional parties, and then also by the 2005 ban on creation of regional blocs. The strong connection between federal and regional elections in Russia clearly underlines the fluid and asynchronic nature of its electoral dynamics, where subnational elections typically predetermine the results of the following federal campaigns. At the same time, the formal success of the nationalisation of the party system, achieved by increasing the homogeneity of voting at the 2016 and 2018 federal elections, is not reflected by the opposing process of desynchronisation between federal and regional elections after Putin’s third-term election. There is also a clear rise in the scale of the differences between the two. At the same time, the study demonstrates the potential presence in Russia of features common to subnational elections in many countries: their greater support for the opposition and presence of affective voting. However, there is a clear exception to this trend during the period of maximum mobilisation of the loyal electorate at the subnational elections immediately following the accession of Crimea in 2014–2015, and such tendencies are generally restrained by the conditions of electoral authoritarianism.

Crowded Space, Fertile Ground: Party Entry and the Effective Number of Parties

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Kselman ◽  
Eleanor Neff Powell ◽  
Joshua A. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Effective Number ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Number Of Parties

This paper develops a novel argument as to the conditions under which new political parties will form in democratic states. Our approach hinges on the manner in which politicians evaluate the policy implications of new party entry alongside considerations of incumbency for its own sake. We demonstrate that if candidates care sufficiently about policy outcomes, then the likelihood of party entry shouldincreasewith the effective number of status quo parties in the party system. This relationship weakens, and eventually disappears, as politicians’ emphasis on “office-seeking” motivations increases relative to their interest in public policy. We test these predictions with both aggregate electoral data in contemporary Europe and a data set on legislative volatility in Turkey, uncovering support for the argument that party system fragmentation should positively affect the likelihood of entry when policy-seeking motivations are relevant, but not otherwise.

The Number of Parties and Party System Nationalization in an Integrated Analytical Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 662-681
Author(s):  
Grigorii V. Golosov
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Direct And Indirect Effects ◽  
Effective Number ◽  
Regional Parties ◽  
Methodological Tool ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Number Of Parties

This study develops a methodological tool for integration of research on party system fragmentation and party system nationalization. The method is built by decomposing a standard indicator of fragmentation, the effective number of parties, into individual-party components (effective size scores), and weighting them by nationalization scores, which allows for disaggregating the number of parties into two distinct components, the effective numbers of national and regional parties. As a result, it becomes possible to assess the influences of substantively important factors upon the components of the number of parties and the overall level of fragmentation in a methodologically consistent, quantifiable way. In addition, the proposed framework of analysis differentiates between direct and indirect effects upon party system fragmentation. A preliminary empirical test on a sample from 90 countries demonstrates that the proposed framework for analysis allows for achieving a rich and nuanced understanding of the factors of party system fragmentation.

Parties and party system change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lise Storm
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
System Change ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Mena Countries ◽  
Coalition Structures ◽  
Measure Change ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Arab Spring

This chapter examines parties and party system change across the MENA countries since December 2010. The discussion begins with a brief overview of party systems in the region on the eve of the Arab Spring, thereby providing a quick introduction to the selected cases as well as a benchmark against which to measure change. Party system change is determined via indicators such as the effective number of parties, party system fragmentation, electoral volatility and the entry of new parties into the system. The analysis of the indicators of party system change is coupled with a discussion of empirical data on the political environment during and in the immediate aftermath of the elections, including issues such as regime classification, rotation of power, coalition structures, prohibited parties, and societal cleavages. The author explains how - despite the fact that some old regimes fell and elections were held - the traditionally dominant or hegemonic political parties stayed preeminent in a number of MENA countries. Finally, this chapter shows what party system change tells us about the prospects for democracy some five years after the outbreak of the Arab Spring.

A Statistical Model for Party-Systems Analysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturas Rozenas ◽  
R. Michael Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Index Value ◽  
Party Vote Shares ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Index Measure

Empirical researchers studying party systems often struggle with the question of how to count parties. Indexes of party system fragmentation used to address this problem (e.g., the effective number of parties) have a fundamental shortcoming: since the same index value may represent very different party systems, they are impossible to interpret and may lead to erroneous inference. We offer a novel approach to this problem: instead of focusing on index measures, we develop a model that predicts the entire distribution of party vote-shares and, thus, does not require any index measure. First, a model of party counts predicts the number of parties. Second, a set of multivariate t models predicts party vote-shares. Compared to the standard index-based approach, our approach helps to avoid inferential errors and, in addition, yields a much richer set of insights into the variation of party systems. For illustration, we apply the model on two data sets. Our analyses call into question the conclusions one would arrive at by the index-based approach. Software is provided to implement the proposed model.

Analysis of the Association Between Political Change in Local Government and Municipal Financial Condition in Spain During the Great Recession

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-128
Author(s):  
José L. Zafra-Gómez ◽  
Antonio M. López-Hernández ◽  
Juan Montabes ◽  
Ángel Cazorla
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Financial Condition ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Constituent Elements ◽  
Gains And Losses

The political influence on the financial condition of local government has been examined in various studies in the academic literature. However, no clear relationship has yet been established between such political factors and the constituent elements of financial condition sustainability in the context of the recent Great Recession. The aim of this study is to evaluate the dimensions of electoral size, defined for the chapter's purposes as the effective number of parties, and of transfer (i.e., how electoral gains and losses are related to the configuration of the party system) using a series of aggregate indices. Once these indicators are obtained, they are related to various indicators of financial condition for five Spanish cities. The results obtained show that financial condition either worsened or presented little change in the different cases considered and that various scenarios of aggregate volatility during the study period were detected.

Are Less-Involved Voters the Key to Win Elections?

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo De Sio
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
The Political ◽  
Level Of Involvement ◽  
General Elections ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior ◽  
Interest And Knowledge

The literature highlights how different individual levels of political interest and knowledge matter for political attitudes and behavior. A logical-quantitative voting model is thus proposed for a two-party system, based on voters' left—right ideological positions and their degree of political involvement. The model hypothesizes that although more involved voters generally behave in accordance with their ideological orientation, those who are less involved do not. Moreover, the latter tend to be more undecided and therefore likely to be more strongly influenced by campaign activities. This model is then applied to survey data regarding the 2001 Italian general elections. Results confirm the hypotheses and show that the most competitive area is ideologically a narrow centrist area for very involved citizens, becoming wider as the level of involvement decreases. Separate analyses are carried out for different geopolitical areas of the country, with results fitting the political history of these areas.

District Magnitude, Economic Performance, and Party-System Fragmentation in Five Latin American Countries

1997 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL COPPEDGE
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Party System ◽  
Initial Level ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Simultaneous Equations ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
Country Specific

This article makes a fresh start in the attempt to explain the number of parties in party systems. It develops a simultaneous equations model to differentiate between the psychological and mechanical effects of district magnitude on party-system fragmentation. Both effects are statistically significant and approximately equal. However, neither effect is very large in comparison to underlying patterns of politicization, which are argued to be reflections of the number of political cleavages in society. These cleavages predispose each party system to converge toward a country-specific effective number of parties within 5 elections, regardless of the initial level of fragmentation, barring outside disturbances. Major devaluations may act as such disturbances, but the evidence so far is inconclusive. The analysis is based on new data from 62 elections in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela, supplemented by 30+ additional elections in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Uruguay for the exploration of economic impacts.

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