Catherine de Vries

University of Oxford | OX · Department of Politics and International Relations

Populist movements, parties and leaders have gained influence in many countries, disrupting long-established patterns of party competition, impugning the legitimacy of representative institutions and sometimes actively weakening or coarsening government capabilities. By positing an acute contrast between the will of the people and established elite...

An accessible introduction to European politics using a coherent comparative and analytical framework. It presents students with the basic theoretical and empirical toolkit of social scientific researchers, and explains how an analytic approach can be used to understand both domestic and EU-level policy-making in Europe. It draws on cutting edge re...

Thsi chapter considers territory in European politics. The idea is that policy-making in Europe acts like a system of multilevel governance. Here, policy authority which exists at the national level, is increasingly being shared with institutions at the supranational European Union (EU) level and by regional governments at the subnational level. Th...

This chapter addresses the various concepts of political representation, such as substantive, descriptive, and symbolic. It then examines which institutions foster different types of representation. It presents two different visions of democracy: proportional and majoritarian. It considers what they imply for congruence and responsiveness. The chap...

This chapter introduces the proposed theoretical toolbox this book intends to use for the studying of democracy in Europe. The idea is that the analytical concepts created by this toolbox will prove useful for understanding the various aspects of democratic politics seen throughout Europe. The fundamental philosophy of this book is the idea that to...

This chapter explores how political systems across Europe actually make policy and also how they change policy. It examines in detail how coalitions are formed and looks at how coalitions function. The chapter uses the theoretical lens of the Veto Players theory to consider how the nature of governments, and parties within governments, affect the t...

This chapter looks at the changing nature of ideology in Europe. It also delves into the issue of voter preference and considers how that has changed over time. It is all too often assumed that voters, as well as parties, exist along a single ideological left-to-right continuum. However, the truth is that there more deviations from this continuum t...

This chapter explores policy outcomes by looking at a number of European countries. It considers some salient policy areas, including those that are decided primarily at the national level, for example health, and policies that are determined at the more macro, European Union (EU) level, for example trade. It also looks at policy areas that involve...

This chapter looks at competition between parties. First, the chapter outlines the ways in which party systems are described and categorized, in terms of the number of parties (in other words, fragmentation) and their ideological position (polarization). The chapter then addresses the theological models that aim to explain party competition. The ch...

This chapter looks at the nature and evolution of political parties in a number of European democracies. It analyses the important functions of political parties. It charts how they have developed over time. Starting with the social cleavage approach, the chapter addresses the origins of European party families and party systems. It then turns to t...

This chapter explores recent changes in European politics and looks to the future for European democracy as it stands now. The chapter explores the ongoing political change that can be seen within European countries and also at the European Union (EU) level. It aims to highlight four important debates about the state of democracy in Europe. These a...

This chapter starts off with an overview of the institutions that decide how citizens cast ballots, firstly, in elections, and secondly, directly for policy. The former is related to electoral systems and the latter to direct democracy. The chapter considers the implications of these institutions for party systems and political representation from...

This chapter examines the importance of law and the rule of law by looking at real-life situations through the lens of theoretical models that consider why people obey the law and how judges interpret the law. The chapter considers when and why citizens and elected officials follow the law. It then moves to the conditions under which this obedience...

This chapter considers executive branch politics in a number of European democracies. It addresses the nature of parliamentary democracy and compares it with other forms of democracy. For example, it looks at separation-of-powers systems using the principal–agent framework of Chapter 2. The chapter examines in detail the link between parties and in...

This chapter analyses how citizens in Europe vote across elections. Elections are an integral part of democracy as they allow citizens to shape collective decision-making. The chapter addresses the issue of trying to explain why people vote in the first place. It also looks at the inequality of turnout between citizens: why do some people just not...

A defining feature of liberal democracy is the respect for and protection of core civil liberties. Yet, major crises, such as wars, natural disasters and pandemics, can provide a pretext to undermine liberal democratic norms. This raises questions of whether citizens are willing to support policies that violate their civil liberties in a crisis and...

The recent rise of populist parties across Europe has attracted much attention. But is this a new phenomenon? In this article, we argue that populist parties can be seen as a type of challenger parties, that is, political entrepreneurs without government experience seeking to disrupt the dominance of mainstream parties. We discuss how ongoing chang...

Challenger parties are on the rise in Europe, exemplified by the likes of Podemos in Spain, the National Rally in France, the Alternative for Germany, or the Brexit Party in Great Britain. Like disruptive entrepreneurs, these parties offer new policies and defy the dominance of established party brands. In the face of these challenges and a more vo...

The link between individual perceptions of the economy and vote choice is fundamental to electoral accountability. Yet, while it is well-established that economic perceptions are correlated with voting behaviour, it is unclear whether these perceptions are rooted in the real economy or whether they simply reflect voters’ partisan biases. This artic...

Public opinion is increasingly at the heart of both political and scholarly debates on European integration. This essay reviews the large literature on public support for, and opposition to, European integration, focusing on conceptualization, causes and consequences: What is public support for European integration? How can we explain variation in...

This study examines the extent to which opposition parties engage in wedge-issue competition. The literature on wedge-issue competition has exclusively focused on the two-party system in the United States, arguing that wedge issues are the domain of opposition parties. This study argues that within multiparty systems opposition status is a necessar...

The mobilization of culturally rooted issues has altered political competition throughout Western Europe. This article analyzes to what extent the mobilization of immigration issues has affected how people identify with politics. Specifically, it analyzes whether voters’ left/right self-identifications over the past 30 years increasingly correspond...

This study suggests that performance voting is characterised by extensive individual heterogeneity. Most economic voting studies to date treat voters as rather homogeneous in their reactions to economic performance of incumbents. Yet, a large and well-established line of research from the American context demonstrates the conditional impact of poli...

This study addresses the dynamics of the issue space in multiparty systems by examining to what extent, and under what conditions, parties respond to the issue ownership of other parties on the green issue. To understand why some issues become part and parcel of the political agenda in multiparty systems, it is crucial not only to examine the strat...

Political scientists often describe party competition, political behavior or public preferences in left/right terms. Nevertheless, the usefulness of the concepts “left” or “right” is rarely explored. This study assesses whether the left/right continuum resonates with publics in developing Latin American democracies. Using data from the 2008 wave of...

In the midst of the economic crisis sweeping across the European continent, popular support for European integration has become a common theme in political discourse. This article revisits the debate regarding popular support for European integration. Although many journalists, politicians and pundits currently argue that the public is becoming inc...

What motivates parties to change their positions? Earlier studies demonstrate that parties change their position in response to environmental incentives, such as voter shifts. Yet, this work also suggests that parties differ in their responses. What accounts for this variation? We argue and empirically substantiate that differences in party organiz...

This article explores the extent to which European citizens are now Euro-ambivalent. Over the past decade, authors have argued that public opinion toward European integration has moved from a permissive consensus to a constraining dissensus. This suggests a clear-cut swing from mostly favorable to mostly unfavorable attitudes toward European integr...

This article reports on the 2010 Chapel Hill expert surveys (CHES) and introduces the CHES trend file, which contains measures of national party positioning on European integration, ideology and several European Union (EU) and non-EU policies for 1999−2010. We examine the reliability of expert judgments and cross-validate the 2010 CHES data with da...

In recent work, Bovens and Wille (2010, 2011) state that the Netherlands has turned into a ‘diploma-democracy’. The core of their argument is that the higher educated have come to dominate political processes in the Netherlands. While the effect of education on political and civic participation is well documented, Bovens and Wille make a longitudin...

In this paper we study differences between generations in the degree to which long-term and short-term factors affect party preferences in established and consolidating European democracies. Scholarly literature has shown that younger cohorts in Western Europe are less likely to be guided by social class, religion and left/right than older cohorts....

Theories of issue evolution and issue manipulation suggest that ‘political losers’ in the party system can advance their position by introducing a new issue dimension. According to these theories, this strategy of issue entrepreneurship, i.e. the attempt to restructure political competition by mobilizing a previously non-salient issue dimension, al...

During the 1980s and the 1990s, the elites of the two largest Dutch parties converged dramatically in debates on income redistribution, nuclear power and the overall Left–Right dimension, paving the way for the Dutch party system's polarization on immigration and cultural issues. Did the Dutch mass public depolarize along with party elites, and, if...

One of the most influential findings of the voting behavior literature of the past two decades was the realization that the clarity of the domestic institutional context influences the relationship between economic perceptions and incumbent vote. This article extends this "clarity of responsibility" argument beyond economics to another policy field...

Increasing politicization in EU member states about European issues can be expected to strengthen the impact of attitudes towards Europe on vote choice in European Parliament (EP) elections. At the same time this impact is likely to vary between voters and contexts as a function of political information. This study explores the role of political in...

Recent research has shown the rise of domestic contention over European integration. This paper examines the extent to which preferences over European integration influence domestic party support in 19 European Union (EU) member states in West and East-Central Europe (ECE). The analysis finds broad evidence of EU issue voting across the countries i...

This paper assesses the cross-national comparability of expert judgments of party positions. So far, most work in this area has focused on the cross-validation of different data sources with which party positions can be measured. This paper takes a novel approach and brings to bear data from a survey experiment performed in the 2010 Chapel Hill Exp...

Abstract will be provided by author.

Why do some new policy issues influence voters’ decisions at the ballot box while others do not? This study develops and tests arguments about the way in which supply-side factors, i.e. the behavioral characteristics of political parties, mediate the extent to which new and complex policy issues affect voting behavior. Specifically, it proposes a m...

This comparative study examines to what extent and under which conditions gender influences the use of negative campaigning in Western Europe. It advances existing research as this study is one of the few empirical examinations of party leaders’ use of negative campaigning in election campaigns and the conditioning effect of gender outside the US c...

This research note reports on the 2002 and 2006 Chapel Hill expert surveys (CHES), which measure national party positioning on European integration, ideology, and several European Union (EU) and non-EU policies. The reliability of expert judgments is examined and the CHES data are cross-validated with data from the Comparative Manifesto Project, th...

This research note reports on the 2002 and 2006 Chapel Hill expert surveys (CHES), which measure national party positioning on European integration, ideology, and several European Union (EU) and non-EU policies. The reliability of expert judgments is examined and the CHES data are cross-validated with data from the Comparative Manifesto Project, th...

This study develops and tests arguments about how political parties' electoral fortunes in national elections are influenced by voters' preferences regarding the European Union (EU). To date, there is increasing evidence demonstrating the impact of EU issues on vote choice in national elections - a process commonly referred to as EU issue voting. Y...

Preferences over jurisdictional architecture are the product of three irreducible logics: efficiency, distribution and identity. This article substantiates the following claims: (a) European integration has become politicized in elections and referendums; (b) as a result, the preferences of the general public and of national political parties have...

Do attitudes towards European integration influence vote choice in national elections — a phenomenon I refer to as European Union (EU) issue voting? Evidence concerning EU issue voting is thus far mixed. Some scholars conclude that an electoral connection exists between European and national politics, whereas others claim that European integration...

We take up a longstanding question within the field of European Union (EU) studies: What explains the variation in public support for European integration? There are two dominant explanations: the utilitarian self-interest and the national identity perspectives. The former viewpoint stresses that citizens are more likely to support European integra...

The 2005 French and Dutch referendum campaigns were characterized by an alleged disconnect between pro-European political elites and Eurosceptic masses. Past evidence regarding elite-mass linkages in the context of European integration has been conflicting. Whereas some scholars argue that political elites respond to the changing preferences of the...

This paper deals with political representation in E uropean Union (EU) politics. Specifically, it explores the triangular linkage be tween EU public policy, citizens' preferences and party positions regarding policy-ma king at the EU level. We address two central questions: First, to what degree do citizen s and parties hold congruent opinions abou...

The past fifteen years have seen a rise in skeptici sm towards the European Union (EU) among West European publics. One implication of this phenomenon has been the politicization of EU matters in domestic e lectoral politics. It is unclear whether EU issues have entered into the national politics o f the post-communist countries of East- Central Eu...

Abstract will be provided by author.

Abstract will be provided by author.

The idea that citizens reward or punish incumbents for past performance at election time is one of the central tenets of modern representative democracy. The core assumption of the retrospective voting model is that voters punish incumbents for unsatisfactory policy outcomes. Although this expectation has been widely tested, especially within the f...

Party leaders are the public face of the party and receive enormous media attention. Journalists and pundits often associate party leadership replacements with profound changes in both party program and electoral performance. Surprisingly, academic work has largely neglected the role of party leadership replacement on the positions and electoral sh...

Elections provide an important opportunity for voters to sanction governments for their performance. This paper contributes to the literature on how voters reward or punish governments for the state of the economy by testing three related propositions. The first is that, because individuals respond more strongly to negative information, deteriorati...