How Open Lists Undermine the Electoral Support of Cohesive Parties

How does ballot structure affect party choice? We argue that open lists undermine the electoral support of cohesive parties, to the benefit of internally divided parties. We conduct a survey-embedded experiment in the aftermath of the European migrant crisis, presenting German voters with real parties but fictitious politicians. A crossover design varies ballot type and exposure to candidate positions on immigration. We find that the internally divided Christian Democrats gain votes at the expense of the cohesive Alternative for Germany when open lists are used and candidate positions are known. For individuals who are equally attracted to both parties, switching is most likely if their immigration preferences lie near the midpoint between the two parties. Overall, our analysis establishes conditions under which ballot structure can affect the electoral performance of parties in general, and that of the populist right in particular.

Electoral support and militants’ targeting strategies

Militant groups that are in armed conflict with a government often coexist with political parties that have ethnic or ideological connections to them. In this article, we explore the extent to which electoral support received by militant associated opposition parties and nationally incumbent political parties influences subnational variation in militant attacks. We argue, and empirically demonstrate, that militants strategically target localities where the levels of electoral support for the opposition party and the nationally incumbent party are close in an effort to negatively influence the electoral performance of the incumbent party. To illustrate this dynamic we examine subnational data from 1995 to 2015 Turkish legislative elections and attacks organized by the Kurdish militants within the same time period. We also examine the impact of June 2015 legislative elections on militant attacks until the snap elections in November 2015. Our empirical examination shows that militants target localities where electoral support for the governing party and Kurdish opposition party is close. Moreover, increase in violence negatively influences the electoral performance of the governing party. However, it does not consistently have a significant influence on the opposition. The findings illustrate that militants strategically choose the location of their attacks based on electoral dynamics, and attacks can pose an electoral challenge to the governing party.

Walking the Walk or Just Talking the Talk? VMRO-BND’s Efforts to Become a Mass Party

Many populist radical right parties compete on a regular basis in the Bulgarian legislative elections. Among these, the VMRO–Balgarsko Natsionalno Dvizhenie (VMRO-BND, IMRO–Bulgarian National Movement) enjoys the greatest organizational stability and maintains a regular presence in politics and society despite volatile electoral performance. Using qualitative content analysis of official party documents (programs, statutes, and policy papers) and media reports, this article argues that the organizational stability of the VMRO-BND stems from its grassroots efforts to establish deep links in society. While its membership is limited, the local activities of the party between and during elections, and its network of loosely-affiliated organizations create a grandiose impression of presence across Bulgaria. Through this presence, VMRO-BND fosters a sense of belonging for its members which in turn supports the party’s goal of achieving a so-called “national cultural unity” and the preservation of Bulgarian traditions. Internally, VMRO-BND provides room for non-member participation and bottom-up initiatives from local activists, while remaining strongly centralized at the top around its leader, Krasimir Karakachanov. Overall, VMRO-BND reveals the importance populist radical right parties place on social presence, even when membership numbers are low.

Party-related primacy effects in proportional representation systems: evidence from a natural experiment in Polish local elections

We study the primacy effects that occur when voters cast their votes because a candidate or party is listed first on a ballot. In the elections that we analyzed, there are three potential types of such effects that might occur when voters vote for (1) the first candidate listed on the ballot in single-member district (SMD) elections (candidate primacy); (2) the first party listed on the ballot in open-list proportional representation (OLPR) elections (party primacy); or (3) the first candidate on a party list in OLPR elections (list primacy). We estimated the party primacy effect (2) and established that there was no interaction between (2) and (3). A party primacy effect is especially difficult to estimate because parties’ positions on ballots are typically fixed in all multi-member districts (MMDs) and it is impossible to separate the first-position “bonus” from a party’s normal electoral performance. A rare natural experiment allowed us to estimate the primacy party bonus between 6.02 and 8.52% of all votes cast for the 2014 Polish local elections. We attribute the large size of such bonus to the great complexity of voting in the OLPR elections, especially the much longer ballots, voting in many simultaneous elections, and ballot design as a booklet rather than a sheet.

One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand

Despite a considerable body of literature on Italian ethnoregionalist parties, scholars of nationalism and regionalism have overlooked southernist parties. This article aims to fill this lacuna by examining Italian southernist parties’ identity and electoral performance from 1945 to 2020. Firstly, it investigates southernist parties according to ideological positioning, autonomist or secessionist nature, and territorial area of origin. Then, by relying on official data, it explores the parties’ electoral performance in national, European, and regional elections. The main findings of the study show that, since the end of World War II, Italian southernist parties: a) have been characterized by a more autonomist rather than secessionist nature; b) have followed the typical patterns of the catch-all party; c) have performed better in regional elections. This article provides preliminary information on southernist parties, paving the way for further research on such political formations.

Electoral Performance of New Political Parties in Ukraine: The Context of Electoral Volatility at the Parliamentary Level (1998–2019)

This article is devoted to study and comparative analysis of the features and levels of support for new political parties during parliamentary elections in Ukraine, in particular the period 1998–2019. With this in mind, mainly based on the calculations of the indices of overall electoral volatility, intra-system electoral volatility and extra-system electoral volatility, we analyze the parameters of changes in electoral support (by voters) for political parties, in particular new ones, during the 1998–2019 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. In addition, we correlate overall, intra-system and extra-system electoral volatility, and present the correlation of overall electoral volatility in the sample of all political parties as the subjects of electoral processes in Ukraine and political parties elected to the national parliament (the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine). As a result, the study outlines two clusters of extra-system electoral volatility, which show the highest level of similarity, and calculates the dependence of the level of electoral volatility and stability of the party system in Ukraine. With this background, we conclude that electoral volatility in Ukraine is largely determined by the effect of party affiliation or desire to belong to the government or opposition, and is regulated by the special context of identity politics in this country.

A jelenlét nélküli jelen(lét) – a hazai pártszervezetek fejlettségének területi különbségei

Numerous studies draw a direct link between party institutionalization and democratic (re) consolidation. The level of organization of a given political movement can easily determine their subsequent electoral performance. Not just in Hungary, but within the wider Central-Eastern-European region, accessing data on party membership, branch offices, etc., is extremely challenging, therefore concluding or discovering party organizational strength is a critical research area. In this study I am making a bold attempt to unveil the social embeddedness of the most important political parties from the 2014 general elections to the latest EP elections (2019), by using the polling station table-seater delegates` presence as an indicator of local party presence itself. I assume that, if a given party is not able to delegate a single person to a certain polling station, they have no operating organizations at the grassroots level, therefore it indicates their lack of localization and extensive network. With simple quantitative methodologies, I was also seeking the relationship between electoral performance and party organizational presence locally.

Warrior candidates: Do voters value combat experience in postwar elections?

Electoral competition in postwar societies is often dominated by war veterans. The question whether voters actually reward candidates’ records of war service, however, remains open. We answer it using a unique dataset with detailed information on the records of combat service of nearly four thousand candidates in two cycles of parliamentary elections held under proportional representation rules with preferential voting in Croatia. Our analysis shows war veterans’ electoral performance to be conditional on the voters’ communities’ exposure to war violence: combat veterans receive a sizeable electoral bonus in areas whose populations were more exposed to war violence, but are penalized in areas whose populations avoided destruction. This divergence is particularly pronounced for candidates of nationalist rightwing parties, demonstrating the importance of the interaction between lived war experiences and political ideology in postwar societies.