Bridging Spatial and Saliency Theory: Party Size and Issue Selection in Campaigns

Chitralekha Basu

doi:10.1017/psrm.2019.2

Bridging Spatial and Saliency Theory: Party Size and Issue Selection in Campaigns

Political Science Research and Methods ◽

10.1017/psrm.2019.2 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 444-458 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Chitralekha Basu

Keyword(s):

Explanatory Power ◽

Policy Preferences ◽

Spatial Analyses ◽

Party Size ◽

Party Platforms ◽

Minor Parties ◽

European Data ◽

Joint Policy ◽

Saliency Theory ◽

Electoral Performance

AbstractI propose a unified explanation for parties' joint policy and emphasis decisions which bridges saliency theory and spatial analyses of party campaigns. Party platforms are anchored by the policy preferences of activists, core supporters and target voters, leading parties to disproportionately emphasize issues where their policies are popular with all key constituencies. However, which voters a party targets relates to its historical electoral performance (“party size”). Traditionally successful (“major”) parties emphasize issues where the policies preferred by activists and core supporters are generally popular, but smaller (“minor”) parties emphasize issues where their preferred policies may be unpopular but are distinctive. Using recent European data and various empirical strategies, I show that this account has significant explanatory power beyond existing party typologies and theories of issue selection.

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Subjective social class and individual preferences for redistribution

International Journal of Social Economics ◽

10.1108/ijse-06-2019-0377 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 47 (2) ◽

pp. 173-189

Author(s):

Anil Duman

Keyword(s):

Social Class ◽

Multilevel Models ◽

Explanatory Power ◽

Policy Preferences ◽

Content Type ◽

Preferences For Redistribution ◽

Class Status ◽

The Individual ◽

Subjective Social Class ◽

The Impact

Purpose The recent increase in economic inequalities in many countries heightened the debates about policy preferences on income distribution. Attitudes toward inequality vary greatly across countries and numerous explanations are offered to clarify the factors leading to support for redistribution. The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between subjective social class and redistributive demands by jointly considering the individual and national factors. The author argues that subjective measures of social positions can be highly explanatory for preferences about redistribution policies. Design/methodology/approach The author uses data from 48 countries gathered by World Values Survey and empirically tests the impact of self-positioning into classes by multilevel ordered logit model. Several model specifications and estimation strategies have been employed to obtain consistent estimates and to check for the robustness of the results. Findings The findings show that, in addition to objective factors, subjective class status is highly explanatory for redistributive preferences across countries. The author also exhibits that there is interaction between self-ranking of social status and national context. The author’s estimations from the multilevel models verify that subjective social class has greater explanatory power in more equal societies. This is in contrast to the previous studies that establish a positive link between inequality and redistribution. Originality/value The paper contributes to the literature by introducing subjective social class as a determinant. Self-ranked positions can be very relieving about policy preferences given the information these categorizations encompass about individuals’ perceptions about their and others’ place in the society.

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Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest?

International Organization ◽

10.1017/s0020818316000394 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 71 (S1) ◽

pp. S85-S108 ◽

Cited By ~ 91

Author(s):

Sungmin Rho ◽

Michael Tomz

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

International Political Economy ◽

Explanatory Power ◽

Economic Consequences ◽

Policy Preferences ◽

Self Interest ◽

Distributional Cues ◽

Trade Preferences ◽

Opposing Effects ◽

Personal Interests

AbstractThe dominant approach to the study of international political economy assumes that the policy preferences of individuals and groups reflect economic self-interest. Recent research has called this assumption into question by suggesting that voters do not have economically self-interested preferences about trade policy. We investigate one potential explanation for this puzzling finding: economic ignorance. We show that most voters do not understand the economic consequences of protectionism. We then use experiments to study how voters would respond if they had more information about how trade barriers affect the distribution of income. We find that distributional cues generate two opposing effects: they make people more likely to express self-serving policy preferences, but they also make people more sensitive to the interests of others. In our study both reactions were evident, but selfish responses outweighed altruistic ones. Thus, if people knew more about the distributional effects of trade, the correlation between personal interests and policy preferences would tighten. By showing how the explanatory power of economic self-interest depends on beliefs about causality, this research provides a foundation for more realistic, behaviorally informed theories of international political economy.

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Second-order effects or ideational rifts? Explaining outcomes of European elections in an era of populist politics

Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica ◽

10.1017/ipo.2020.27 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 50 (3) ◽

pp. 350-367

Author(s):

Piret Ehin ◽

Liisa Talving

Keyword(s):

System Design ◽

Electoral System ◽

Second Order ◽

Order Effects ◽

Far Right ◽

European Elections ◽

Party Size ◽

Eu Member States ◽

Level Data ◽

Electoral Performance

AbstractThis article seeks to enhance our understanding of the European Parliament (EP) elections in an era of populist and anti-European Union (EU) politics. Specifically, it aims to evaluate both the conventional second-order elections theory as well as an alternative approach that regards EP elections as an arena for conflict between liberal-democratic Europeanism and populist, extremist and euroskeptic alternatives. It does so by deriving a series of hypotheses from both approaches and testing these with party-level data from all EU member states in the context of 2019 EP elections. Our results challenge both explanations. Party size is a robust predictor of electoral performance in EP elections, and its effect is moderated by electoral system design. While large parties lost votes across the EU, their losses were more pronounced in countries where national legislatures are elected under plurality or mixed systems. We find no evidence of incumbent losses or electoral cycle effects. Party-level populism, extremism and euroskepticism did not systematically predict electoral performance but party ideology appears to have moderated the effects of incumbency and party size. Incumbency was associated with vote gain among populist and far-right parties but not other parties, and the effect of size also varied across party ideologies. In sum, these results suggest that vote fragmentation in the 2019 EP elections is partly explained by electoral system design, while it was not driven by the desire to punish political incumbents. Populist and far-right parties in power appear to be particularly immune to punishing behavior often associated with EP elections.

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If Winning Isn't Everything, Why Do They Keep Score? Consequences of Electoral Performance for Party Leaders

British Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s000712340800032x ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 38 (4) ◽

pp. 657-675 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

JOSEPHINE T. ANDREWS ◽

ROBERT W JACKMAN

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Party Leader ◽

Major Party ◽

Electoral Success ◽

Party Leaders ◽

Parliamentary Democracies ◽

Minor Parties ◽

The Government ◽

A Minor ◽

Electoral Performance

The premise that parties are fundamentally motivated by office-seeking is common, but surprisingly little attention has been paid to its empirical validity. We approach this issue by analysing how parties respond to their electoral performance. Casting party leaders as the embodiment of their parties, we then examine the degree to which the length of time party leaders retain their position hinges on their party's electoral success, defined with reference both to the party's share of legislative seats and to its presence or absence in government. Our analyses centre on six parliamentary democracies in which the government is always formed by one of the two major parties either alone or in coalition with a minor party (Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Ireland and New Zealand) in the years from 1945 through 2000. Results indicate that party leaders' risk of removal hinges substantially on their party's seat share and/or their party's presence in government. More specifically, we find that as the seat share of both major and minor parties increases, the chance that the party leader will be removed decreases. Likewise, if a major party loses its role in government, the chance that the party leader will be removed increases dramatically. Although presence in government has no significant impact on the tenure in office of party leaders of minor parties, the magnitude of the effect is indistinguishable from that for major parties. Beyond providing strong evidence that parties are at their core motivated by electoral performance, we also estimate the magnitude of the electoral imperative, at least as it pertains to party leaders.

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Political Knowledge and Enlightened Preferences: Party Choice Through the Electoral Cycle

British Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0007123405000153 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 35 (2) ◽

pp. 285-302 ◽

Cited By ~ 88

Author(s):

ROBERT ANDERSEN ◽

JAMES TILLEY ◽

ANTHONY F. HEATH

Keyword(s):

Explanatory Power ◽

Political Knowledge ◽

Election Campaigns ◽

Positive Interaction ◽

Individual Level ◽

Party Platforms ◽

Party Choice ◽

Electoral Cycle ◽

Electoral Cycles

This article adapts and tests the theory of enlightened preferences on two British electoral cycles: 1992–97 and 1997–2001. Using individual-level panel data, it extends previous work by explicitly incorporating the role of political knowledge. Its findings are generally very supportive of the theory. It is shown that knowledge of party platforms varies through both electoral cycles in a manner predicted by the theory; that is, it is highest immediately following election campaigns; these changes in political knowledge are closely mirrored by changes in the explanatory power of a model of party choice containing so-called ‘fundamental variables’ (i.e. socio-demographic and issue-related variables) as predictors. More specifically, fundamental variables do a much better job of accounting for party choice during election years than in mid-cycle. Finally, for all years of both panels a positive interaction is found between political knowledge and the ability of voters to match their issue preferences to party platforms.

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Why do politicians use Facebook and Twitter the way they do? The influence of perceived audience expectations

Studies in Communication and Media ◽

10.5771/2192-4007-2020-1-8 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 8-34

Author(s):

Ole Kelm

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Media Use ◽

Social Media Use ◽

Party Size ◽

Minor Parties ◽

The Way

Politicians’ social media use affects their relationship with citizens. For example, politicians are better evaluated when they communicate interactively. However, they mostly use social media to broadcast information to their audience. This study asks why politicians use Facebook and Twitter the way they do. The study contends that politicians want to satisfy their audiences’ expectations, to get favorable reactions and increase their visibility, and that politicians from different parties have different audiences who have different expectations for how politicians should communicate. Data from two surveys conducted among national (n = 118) and local (n = 859) German politicians show that politicians’ Facebook and Twitter communication is strongly oriented to their perceptions of their audiences’ expectations. The party size did not influence politicians’ Twitter communication, but their Facebook communication: Compared to politicians from major parties, politicians from minor parties communicate in more interactive ways via Facebook. In addition, politicians from minor parties perceive more strongly than their colleagues from major parties that their audience expects them to criticize other politicians or journalists.

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When Are Legislators Responsive to Ethnic Minorities? Testing the Role of Electoral Incentives and Candidate Selection for Mitigating Ethnocentric Responsiveness

American Political Science Review ◽

10.1017/s0003055420001070 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-17

Author(s):

PETER THISTED DINESEN ◽

MALTE DAHL ◽

MIKKEL SCHIØLER

Keyword(s):

Field Experiment ◽

Ethnic Minorities ◽

Racial Bias ◽

Candidate Selection ◽

Policy Preferences ◽

Electoral Incentives ◽

Local Politicians ◽

Selection For ◽

Electoral Performance

Previous studies have documented ethnic/racial bias in politicians’ constituency service, but less is known about the circumstances under which such ethnocentric responsiveness is curbed. We propose and test two hypotheses in this regard: the electoral incentives hypothesis, predicting that incentives for (re)election crowd out politicians’ potential biases, and the candidate selection hypothesis, stipulating that minority constituents can identify responsive legislators by using candidates’ partisan affiliation and stated policy preferences as heuristics. We test these hypotheses through a field experiment on the responsiveness of incumbent local politicians in Denmark (N = 2,395), varying ethnicity, gender, and intention to vote for the candidate in the upcoming election, merged with data on their electoral performance and their stated policy preferences from a voting advice application. We observe marked ethnocentric responsiveness and find no indication that electoral incentives mitigate this behavior. However, minority voters can use parties’ and individual candidates’ stances on immigration to identify responsive politicians.

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