The Cartel Party Thesis: A Restatement

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard S. Katz ◽  
Peter Mair
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Theoretical Evaluation ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Original Argument ◽  
Core Components

We restate and clarify the idea of the “cartel party,” a concept that has found considerable traction in studies of parties throughout the democratic world, including those far from the original research site and data on which the cartel model was based. The cartel party thesis holds that political parties increasingly function like cartels, employing the resources of the state to limit political competition and ensure their own electoral success. The thesis has been subject to varied empirical testing and to substantial theoretical evaluation and criticism. Against this background, we look again at the cartel party thesis in order to clarify ambiguities in and misinterpretations of the original argument. We also suggest further refinements, specifications and extensions of the argument. Following a background review of the original thesis, we break it down into its core components, and then clarify the terms in which it makes sense to speak of cartelization and collusion. We then go on to explore some of the implications of the thesis for our understanding of contemporary democracies and patterns of party organization and party competition and we identify a possible agenda for future research in party scholarship.

scholarly journals Prawo i Sprawiedliwość w polskim systemie partyjnym (przyczynek do dyskusji o systemotwórczej roli partii)

2018 ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Andrzej ANTSZEWSKI
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
The Status ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
The Government

Among the numerous functions of political parties, the role of creating the governance system is highly significant. It manifests itself in the ability of political parties to establish permanent relations with the other parties and in this way provides the essence of a party system. The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate the role the Law and Justice party (PiS) plays in the creation of the governance system. Since 2005, PiS has been one of the two dominant political parties struggling to win the parliamentary and presidential elections. In order to determine the scope of this party’s influence on the shape of the party system, their achievements in elections, parliament and Cabinet activity need to be analyzed. Such a quantitative analysis allows us to grasp PiS’s development trends in political competition. The paper discusses the reasons for their electoral success in 2005 as well as their defeat in 2007 and the aftermath of both these elections for the party’s competition to the government. The achievements of PiS confirm that this party has won the status of a party that structures the political competition, a status that has not been lost irrespective of the five elections at different levels that the party has lost. PiS has successfully adopted the postulates of the Left in terms of the economy and social issues, whereas it has maintained the image of a right-wing party in terms of the shape of the state and its moral foundations. PiS has managed to form an electorate that differs from other parties’ electorates in terms of its social and demographic properties as well as its political attitudes, which reinforces the position of PiS in the electoral struggle. Yet PiS has failed to establish a permanent coalition government. The elimination of Self-Defence (Samoobrona) and the League of Polish Families (LPR) from the Sejm has practically deprived PiS of any coalition potential, or has at least significantly reduced this potential. This, coupled with a continuously growing negative electorate, may turn out to constitute the main obstacle to PiS regaining power.

scholarly journals The Micro-Foundations of Party Competition and Issue Ownership: The Reciprocal Effects of Citizens’ Issue Salience and Party Attachments

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Neundorf ◽  
James Adams
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Reciprocal Effects ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Issue Ownership ◽  
Party Support ◽  
Micro Foundations

While previous research on the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue attitudes and their party support emphasize citizens’ issue positions, political competition revolves equally around issue salience – that is, debates over which issue areas political parties should prioritize. Using multi-wave panel survey data from Germany and Great Britain, this study analyzes the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue salience and their party support, and concludes that citizens’ issue priorities both influence and are influenced by their party attachments and, moreover, that these effects are linked to parties’ long-term associative issue ownership. This effect is strongest among supporters of a small issue-orientated niche party, the German Greens.

scholarly journals Spatial models of political competition with endogenous political parties

2007 ◽  
Vol 362 (1485) ◽  
pp. 1711-1721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Michel Schilperoord
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Spatial Models ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Policy Selection

Two important human action selection processes are the choice by citizens of parties to support in elections and the choice by party leaders of policy ‘packages’ offered to citizens in order to attract this support. Having reviewed approaches analysing these choices and the reasons for doing this using the methodology of agent-based modelling, we extend a recent agent-based model of party competition to treat the number and identity of political parties as an output of, rather than an input to, the process of party competition. Party birth is modelled as an endogenous change of agent type from citizen to party leader, which requires describing citizen dissatisfaction with the history of the system. Endogenous birth and death of parties transforms into a dynamic system even in an environment where all agents have otherwise non-responsive adaptive rules. A key parameter is the survival threshold, with lower thresholds leaving citizens on average less dissatisfied. Paradoxically, the adaptive rule most successful for party leaders in winning votes makes citizens on average less happy than under other policy-selection rules.

How Does May’s Law Work in Multi-dimensional Competition? Intra-party Opinion Structure in Catalonia

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Montserrat Baras ◽  
Oscar Barberà ◽  
Astrid Barrio ◽  
Juan Rodríguez-Teruel
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Competition

AbstractThis article explores how multi-dimensional competition party systems shape the intraparty opinion structure in political parties. The aim is to extend and test May’s law of ideological curvilinear disparity to multi-dimensional settings. The data are based on the case of Catalonia, a party system characterized by the relevant presence of non-state wide parties, where political competition is based on two main dimensions: the left right axis and the subjective national identity one. The paper shows that while the Catalan parties do fit with May’s law in the left-right axis, this is not the case in the national identity one. In addition, it further illustrates how the interaction between both axes affects party competition and internal opinion differences between leaders, activists and voters. The results attest the complexity of the intraparty opinion structures in multidimensional competition systems.

Validating and Improving Voting Advice Applications: Estimating Party Positions Using Candidate Surveys

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Andreadis ◽  
Heiko Giebler
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Additional Source ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Voting Advice Applications

AbstractLocating political parties correctly regarding different policy issues is not just crucial for research on parties, party competition, and many similar fields but also for the electorate. For the latter, it has become more and more important as the relevance of voting advice applications (VAA) has increased and as their main usage is to compare citizens’ policy preferences to the offer of political parties. However, if party positions are not adequately assigned, citizens are provided with suboptimal information which decreases the citizens’ capacities to make rational electoral decision. VAA designers follow different approaches to determining party positions. In this paper, we look beyond most common sources like electoral manifestos and expert judgments by using surveys of electoral candidates to validate and improve VAAs. We argue that by using positions derived from candidate surveys we get the information by the source itself, but at the same time we overcome most of the disadvantages of the other methods. Using data for the 2014 European Parliament election both in Greece and Germany, we show that while positions taken from the VAAs and from the candidate surveys do match more often than not, we also find substantive differences and even opposing positions. Moreover, these occasional differences have already rather severe consequences looking at calculated overlaps between citizens and parties as well as representations of the political competition space and party system polarization. These differences seem to be more pronounced in Greece. We conclude that candidate surveys are indeed a valid additional source to validate and improve VAAs.

Political Competition and One-party Dominance in Zambia

1969 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Minor Parties ◽  
National Congress ◽  
The One ◽  
Party Dominance ◽  
Ruling Party ◽  
Party State

This article concerns two important arenas of political competition in Zambia: on the one hand, between parties and, on the other, within the ruling party itself. Competition between political parties exists especially between the United National Independence Party (U.N.I.P.) and two small party rivals, the African National Congress (A.N.C.) and the United Party (U.P.). Many U.N.I.P. officials at various levels have looked forward to the establishment of a one-party state in Zambia, on the familiar grounds that minor opposition parties appeal to parochial loyalties: that they oppose constructive programmes irresponsibly and hamper their implementation: and that political opposition is a luxury which diverts time, energy, and money away from the important tasks of development. In pursuit of its objective of eliminating inter-party competition, U.N.I.P. has generally employed two different sets of tactics, based on different assumptions about the strength and potential of the two minor parties.

scholarly journals Institutionalization of transnationalizing political parties: the case of the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mari-Liis Jakobson ◽  
Tõnis Saarts ◽  
Leif Kalev
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
National Level ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
People's Party ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Transnational Migrants ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Party Institutionalization

AbstractWhile party institutionalization research has advanced notably in the recent years, the institutionalization of political parties that extend their organizations abroad (i.e. transnationalizing parties) has remained an academically uncharted territory. This article draws on party institutionalization literature and analyses the particularities of institutionalization in transnationalizing parties. The findings suggest that transnational institutionalization takes place simultaneously on multiple levels (local, national and transnational) and is distinctly interactive, placing crucial importance on the activities and responsiveness of both the central party organization as well as the extraterritorial branches. The internal dimensions of institutionalization can be notably affected by the territorially and temporally scattered nature of emigrant communities and by the sense of inclusion provided to the activists. The external dimensions of transnational institutionalization involve a wider variety of actors than institutionalization on the national level and can also be more challenging due to the more contingent socialization patterns and interest in politics of transnational migrants. Transnational institutionalization of political parties is relevant to the parties and their continuous electoral success, but also for transnational migrant communities and impact of their political participation.

scholarly journals Organized for Parliament? Explaining the Electoral Success of Radical Right Parties in Post-Communist Europe

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Werkmann ◽  
Sergiu Gherghina
Keyword(s):  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Electoral Performance

Over the last three decades a great deal of research has been carried out in an attempt to explain the electoral performance of radical right parties in Europe. Most approaches concentrate on demand-side determinants and have some limitations. We compensate for these shortcomings and focus on the context of party competition and supply-side determinants (consistency of ideological discourse, functioning party propaganda, the continuity of the leader in office and strong party organization) to explain the electoral success of radical right parties in post-communist Europe. We conducted our analysis at party level in nine radical right parties in four countries from Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania) between 1990 and 2014. The bivariate and multivariate (ordinal logistic regression) analyses draw on unique data collected from primary and secondary sources.

Public Choice Theory. A Textbook. Chapter 6. Public Choice under Representative Democracy: Political Competition

2003 ◽  
pp. 128-153
Author(s):  
R. Nureev
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Public Choice Theory

The specifics of pubic choice under representative democracy are considered in the sixth chapter of the textbook. Two definitions of representative democracy are distinguished. The concept of political competition is defined. The types of political parties and political systems are analysed. The model of two-party competition is characterized. The chapter also includes further readings, control tests and questions.

Memory, Party Politics, and Post-Transition Space: The Case of Poland

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 518-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Korycki
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Temporal Orientation ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Communist State ◽  
State Capture ◽  
Transition Space

In this work I analyze and interpret Polish political field as a field of memory. I make three claims. First, I claim that programmatic identities of Polish political parties are weak. Despite this weakness political competition remains fierce, because parties fashion enduring political identities. I identify three mainstream political identities of political actors in Poland, given by their temporal orientation and their judgment of communism. Second, I claim that the field of the political competition predicated on the turn to the past and on moral opprobrium is the particular achievement of the party that captured political power in Poland in 2015. Similarly to its 2005 electoral success, the party narrated the country’s main problem as communist state-capture. It claimed that (former-) communists and their post-dissident allies captured political, material, and symbolic levers of power. This way of presenting the problem polarized the field, casting political opponents as essential enemies, and casting the narrators as country’s saviors. Third, this achievement was possible because the party narrated communism as essentially and existentially anti-Polish: it presented it as equal to Nazism, it made it foreign, and it made it coincidental with Jewishness. It then launched such discursive “weapon” against its present-day opponents.

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