Veto Points Revisited: The Role of Party System Institutionalization in Welfare State Change

This article argues that the impact of veto points on a government's policy outcomes depends crucially on the degree of institutionalization of the party system. Specifically, the article claims that two dimensions of party system institutionalization – stability of relations between parties and between parties and voters – condition the ability of the opposition to block governments' policy plans through veto points. It showcases this argument by applying the method of causal process tracing to a comparative analysis of health policy reforms in Slovakia (2002–2004) and Hungary (2006–2008).

A New European Dataset and the Measurement of Party System Closure

The second chapter introduces the dataset of the book, defines its units of measurement, and operationalizes its key concepts. We discuss the method of creating our principal tool of analysis, the composite closure index. We reflect in detail on the question of how experiences accumulated through time can be taken into account when measuring stability. Finally, in a validation exercise, we also investigate whether our closure index could have been used to predict which democracies collapsed around the world between the two World Wars. With this exercise we also show that closure is a better proxy for party system institutionalization than the more traditionally used indicator, the electoral volatility index.

Size Does Matter

The eighth chapter looks into inter-temporal and cross-sectional differences in the effective number of parliamentary parties, and analyses the covariation between closure and fragmentation. The chapter allows us to revisit classical debates in comparative politics about the merits and vices of two- and multi-party systems. After showing how the inter-war and post-Cold War years were more fragmented than other periods, we find that concentrated systems tend to breed stability, and if they do not, then they often do not survive. And yet, there is only a moderate, far from deterministic, relationship between closure and fragmentation. In particular, we found that the recent proliferation of parties in the West poses a challenge to party system institutionalization.

The Logic of Inter-Party Competition and Cooperation

The first chapter lays the foundation for a cooperation-focused way of thinking about party politics. It provides reasons why its analysts should go beyond individual parties and consider blocs of parties. It introduces the concept of poles, as distinct from blocs, and builds a party system typology around them. The second part of the chapter elaborates the concept of party system closure, relating it to the wider notion of party system institutionalization, and identifies its three components: alternation, innovation, and access. The chapter ends by considering the most likely causes and most important political consequences of closure.

The Whole Is More than the Sum of the Parts

The seventh chapter establishes a theoretical distinction between the party- and the systemic-level analysis of party politics. We introduce new measures of party institutionalization, describe cross-temporal and cross-regional trends, and establish the degree of covariance between closure and party institutionalization. Even though there are many indications that high closure presupposes continuously existing, well-organized parties, we identify countries in which parties are highly institutionalized but the system is not, and cases where parties are relatively weak, but the system can be considered to be strong. The chapter shows how party institutionalization and closure (party system institutionalization) differ from each other. For the recent period, the former shows a steeply declining trend in Europe, while the latter is decreasing only marginally.

The Explanatory Model of Closure

This chapter provides a comprehensive explanatory model of party system closure. The model includes the variables analysed in the previous chapters (i.e. age and birth period of democracy, party institutionalization, parliamentary fragmentation, and polarization), with the addition of the degree of economic development, the type of electoral system (i.e. majoritarian or proportional), and the nature of the constitutional regime (i.e. presidential, semi-presidential or parliamentary). Then we ask the question: what would be the explanatory model of party system institutionalization had we operationalized it in terms of volatility rather than closure? We show that the determinants of closure are not identical with those of volatility. The latter is more a function of the behaviour of the citizens, the former is more a product of elite decisions. At the end of the chapter we place the factors responsible for closure into a causal chain.

Parties and Regime Change in Latin America

The importance of political parties has been at the heart of the debate about regime and regime change. Parties are essential actors for democratic politics. They can trigger transitions from and to democracy, polarize making democracies vulnerable to breakdown, or manage conflict to protect democratic institutions. However, not all parties or party systems are equal. The levels of fragmentation, polarization, and institutionalization in any given party and/or party system are key to understanding the rise, fall, and survival of democracy. In Latin America, the literature has focused, mostly, on party and party system institutionalization. In general, scholars agree that institutionalization fosters democracy. The organizational strength and embeddedness of political parties in society and the extent to which they interact regularly in stable ways, they argue, is key to the survival of democratic politics. There are instances, however, that suggest that this relationship is more problematic than the literature assumes. In contexts of crisis, highly institutionalized parties and party systems can be slow to adjust to new groups or demands and stiffen party leaders’ ability to respond to new issues. When facing a polarizing potential autocrat, for instance, high levels of party and party system institutionalization could hurt more than help democracy. They can reduce the ability of politicians to attract moderate voters from opposing parties, hinder their capacity to counteract antisystemic trends in order to lead opposition efforts, or limit the extent to which they can reach across the aisle to build ideologically diverse prodemocratic coalitions.