Party manifestos in newer party systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-313
Author(s):  
Annabella España-Nájera
Keyword(s):  
El Salvador ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Research Note ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Party Manifestos ◽  
Party System Institutionalization ◽  
Method Of Production

This research note analyses the role that party manifestos play in El Salvador and Guatemala, two newer democracies. In recent elections, the importance of manifestos has increased in both systems. This study examines this development. It explores the ‘ why’s’ (purpose) and ‘ how’s’ (the method of production) of party manifestos to learn more about the internal workings of parties and their relationship with society. The findings from this study suggest that in new democracies, international party assistance programmes can play a crucial role in making manifestos relevant. Whether manifestos enhance democracy in the long term, however, depends on party system institutionalization. These results point to an opportunity for research in new and younger party systems.

scholarly journals Party System Institutionalization and Government Formation in new Democracies

2016 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Savage
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Party System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
Data Set ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Dominant Parties ◽  
Party System Institutionalization

Party systems provide the essential structure of the coalition bargaining environment. Stability in party systems ensures the presence of regularities that can be observed in government formation, but most empirical research focuses on established democracies. In new democracies, party systems are less institutionalized, which means that interactions between parties can be unpredictable and has significant implications for coalition formation. This article presents the first study of coalition formation in new democracies that employs an empirical design comparable to that of the leading research on Western Europe. The author uses a new data set of potential coalitions in Central and Eastern Europe to examine three explanations for government formation that arise when party systems are weakly institutionalized. The results show first that incumbency is a disadvantage for governments in new democracies when formation occurs postelection. This disadvantage is due to high levels of electoral volatility caused by policy failure and clientelistic practices. Incumbents are advantaged when formation takes place midterm, as weak party system institutionalization leads to an inchoate pattern of interaction between opposition parties, which therefore fail to provide a viable alternative. Second, the presence of former dominant parties influences government formation by stifling the development of programmatic competition. Instead, programmatic competition is subjugated to contestation based on historical enmities. And third, established parties collude to exclude new parties from coalition formation—a possible indicator that a party system is becoming more institutionalized. The article provides new insights into the importance of routinized and stable political practices and institutions.

scholarly journals Party System Institutionalization, Party Collapse and Party Building

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Mainwaring
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Good For ◽  
Party System Institutionalization ◽  
Over Time

This essay reviews five important recent books on party system institutionalization, party collapse and party building. The first section analyses broader lessons about party system institutionalization derived from these books. What have we learned about how party system institutionalization varies over time and space and about its causes? All five volumes underscore the difficulty of institutionalizing democratic party systems in contemporary Asia, Africa and Latin America. At the same time, they demonstrate that there have been some successful cases of party building and party system institutionalization. In all three regions, variance across countries is great. The three books on Latin America show that sharp conflict and programmatic differences are good for institutionalization, partially countering earlier arguments about the perils of polarization. Across regions, erstwhile authoritarian ruling parties have sometimes helped to forge institutionalized party systems under competitive regimes. The rest of the essay analyses the three single-authored books in some detail and provides brief overviews of the two edited volumes.

Translating Social Cleavages into Party Systems: The Significance of New Democracies

2002 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub Zielinski
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Social Cleavages ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Social Cleavage

This article focuses on new democracies in Eastern Europe and addresses two questions about the translation of social cleavages into political oppositions. The first question concerns the translation of preexisting cleavages: does the evolution of new party systems influence the politicization of social conflicts? The second question concerns the translation of new social cleavages, that is, cleavages that emerge once a party system freezes: can a new social cleavage be politicized? To answer these questions, the article integrates a formalization of social cleavage theory with a game-theoretic model of a new party system. The first result is that translation of preexisting cleavages depends on which parties survive the early rounds of electoral competition. In fact, depending on which parties survive, the axis of political conflict can shift by 90 degrees. This implies that party systems in new democracies should be seen as important founding moments, during which political actors determine the long-term axes of political conflict. The second result is that once a party system freezes, the politicization of a new social cleavage is difficult. Indeed, it is possible that a new social cleavage will remain politically dormant. In the context of Eastern Europe, this result suggests that political salience of class conflict is likely to be low because competitive elections and political parties predate the entrenchment of propertyowning classes.

scholarly journals Electoral coordination and party system institutionalization

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 570-580
Author(s):  
Ignacio Lago ◽  
Mariano Torcal
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Government Performance ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Lower House ◽  
Electoral Cycles ◽  
Party System Institutionalization

A new theoretical development for examining the institutionalization of party systems is proposed in this article. We build on electoral coordination theories to disaggregate volatility into the vote transfers that occur between or towards parties that are in equilibrium (which we call endogenous volatility) and those that are not (exogenous volatility). The former captures accountability, and the latter reflects the number of voters who are not acting in accordance with the existing equilibrium in the party system. Exogenous volatility measures the institutionalization of party systems. We also show that endogenous volatility depends on government performance, while exogenous volatility is a function of institutional openness. The empirical evidence comes from an original data set that includes 448 electoral cycles in lower-house elections in 66 countries between 1977 and 2011.

Size Does Matter

2021 ◽  
pp. 169-189
Author(s):  
Fernando Casal Bértoa ◽  
Zsolt Enyedi
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Effective Number ◽  
The West ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Party System Institutionalization ◽  
Concentrated Systems

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.

Institutionalization and De-institutionalization in Post-communist Party Systems

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 422-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsolt Enyedi ◽  
Fernando Casal Bértoa
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The West ◽  
Electoral Volatility ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
East West

This article is part of the special cluster titled Parties and Democratic Linkage in Post-Communist Europe, guest edited by Lori Thorlakson, and will be published in the August 2018 issue of EEPS In an article written in 1995 titled “What Is Different about Postcommunist Party Systems?” Peter Mair applied the method that he called “ ex adverso extrapolation.” He matched his knowledge of the process of consolidation of party systems in the West with what was known at that time about Eastern European history, society, and the emerging post-communist party politics. Considering factors such as the existence of fluid social structures, the weakness of civil society, or the destabilizing impact of the so-called triple transition, his article predicted long-term instability for the region. In the present article, we evaluate the validity of Mair’s predictions, thereby also contributing to a lively debate in the current literature about the scale and nature of East–West differences and about the trajectories of the two regions. Going beyond the identification of cross-regional similarities and differences, we also differentiate between individual party systems, establish subgroups, and describe changes across time. Using four major dimensions (i.e., party system closure, party-level stability, electoral volatility, and fragmentation), the article finds that Mair’s predictions were largely, though not in every detail, right. Ironically, however, we also find that changes in the West tend to match over time the trajectory of the East.

scholarly journals The congealing of a new cleavage? The evolution of the demarcation bloc in Europe (1979–2019)

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-333
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Emanuele ◽  
Bruno Marino ◽  
Davide Angelucci
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Eu Integration ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Main Dimension ◽  
Long Term Trend

AbstractOver recent years, a new transnational conflict has been deemed to be structuring political conflict in Europe. Several scholars have posited the emergence of a new ‘demarcation’ vs. ‘integration’ cleavage, pitting the ‘losers’ and ‘winners’ of globalization against each other. This new conflict is allegedly structured along economic (free trade and globalization), cultural (immigration and multiculturalism), and institutional [European Union (EU) integration] dimensions. From an empirical viewpoint, it is still a matter of discussion whether this conflict can be interpreted as a new cleavage, which could replace or complement the traditional ones. In this context, the European Parliament (EP) elections of 2019 represent an ideal case for investigating how far this new cleavage has evolved towards structuring political competition in European party systems. In this paper, by relying on an original dataset and an innovative theoretical and empirical framework based on the study of a cleavage's lifecycle, we test whether a demarcation cleavage is structuring the European political systems. Moreover, we assess the evolution of this cleavage across the 28 EU countries since 1979 and the role it plays within each party system. The paper finds that the demarcation cleavage has emerged in most European countries, mobilizing over time a growing number of voters. In particular, this long-term trend has reached its highest peak in the 2019 EP election. However, although the cleavage has become an important (if not the main) dimension of electoral competition in many countries, it has not reached maturity yet.

The Development of the Party System Agenda in Western Europe

2019 ◽  
pp. 52-70
Author(s):  
Christoffer Green-Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Health Care Education ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Party Manifestos ◽  
Issue Attention ◽  
High Level ◽  
In The Beginning

This chapter provides an overview of the general patterns that the following chapters on particular issues aim to explain. The development after 1980 should be seen in a more long-term perspective in which the decline of class politics has led not only to an expansion of the party system agenda as seen by the substantial growth in the length of party manifestos, but also to a more complex agenda on which more issues receive substantial attention. This development matches the idea of party politics becoming more issue-based. In terms of issue attention, traditional left–right related issues such as the economy, labour, and business, but also defence and foreign policy have seen declining attention, but they have not disappeared from the agenda. Other issues such as health care, education, crime and justice, and to a more limited extent, immigration have gained attention. Attention to the environment grew considerably in the beginning of the period, but then declined somewhat again. Attention to social policy has remained stable at a high level throughout the period, whereas European integration has remained an issue with limited attention.

scholarly journals Party System Institutionalization, Accountability and Governmental Corruption

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra Schleiter ◽  
Alisa Voznaya
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
The World ◽  
Institutional Features ◽  
Party System Institutionalization ◽  
Democratic Elections

Why do repeated elections often fail to curb governmental corruption, even in full democracies? While much of the comparative literature on corruption focuses on the institutional features of democracies, this article argues that party system institutionalization is an additional and neglected factor in explaining why corruption may persist in the context of democratic elections. Under-institutionalized party systems impede accountability. They compromise the capacity of voters to attribute responsibility and undermine electoral co-ordination to punish incumbents for corruption. These expectations are tested by combining a controlled comparative study of eighty democracies around the world with an examination of the causal process in a case study of Panama. The findings suggest that party system institutionalization powerfully shapes the scope for governmental corruption.

From Thaw to Deluge: Party System Collapse in Venezuela and Peru

2007 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry A. Dietz ◽  
David J. Myers
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
System Change ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
Sequential Process ◽  
System Collapse ◽  
Personal Authority ◽  
Party System Institutionalization

AbstractWhat conditions facilitate party system collapse, the farthest-reaching variant of party system change? How does collapse occur? Numerous studies of lesser types of party system change exist, but studies of party system collapse are rare. This study draws on the existing literature and the cases of party system collapse in Venezuela (1988–2000) and Peru (1985–95) to advance some answers to the important questions about the phenomenon. The study posits three conditions that predispose political party systems to collapse: the presence of an acute or sustained crisis that questions the ability of system-sustaining political parties to govern; extremely low or extremely high levels of party system institutionalization; and the emergence of an anti-establishment figure with the desire and personal authority to generate a viable alternative to the established party system. The study also posits a three-election sequential process during which collapse takes place.

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