Christopher Williams

University of Arkansas at Little Rock | UALR · Department of Political Science

Do parties respond to voters’ preferences on European integration in elections to the European Parliament? In this article, we argue that political parties do respond to voters’ Euroskeptic attitudes, but that party type conditions responsiveness. In particular, we posit that larger parties are more responsive and that governing parties are less re...

This study examines those factors that influence the issuance of reasoned opinions within the European Union’s ‘Early Warning System’. It is posited that greater aggregate public Euroskepticism results in the issuance of more reasoned opinions. This expect- ation is tested using data derived from the European Parliament, the Commission’s platform f...

Do non-mainstream parties respond to other non-mainstream parties’ owned issues? Whereas a great deal of extant research has examined the owned issues of non-mainstream parties and when mainstream parties take on these issues, little research has been done to explore when non-mainstream parties expand their issue focus to include the owned issues o...

When mainstream parties accommodate radical-right parties, do citizens grow more concerned about immigration? Based on a rich literature, we argue that challenger parties’ ability to affect mainstream party positions, particularly on immigration, is associated with greater public salience of immigration and voter positivity towards challengers exis...

Background Research regarding party behavior has often be understood through one of two models, (1) the Downsian proximity model, which supposes parties will change positions in order to be most competitive, and (2) the issue salience model, which understands parties to emphasize issues on which it is more competitive. Objectives This study produc...

Green parties have been quintessential issue owners since their founding. In recent national and European elections, however, these parties have begun to emphasize additional issues. This article seeks to understand when the greens expand their issue focus to talk about economic issues. It develops a theory of issue expansion which posits that the...

This study examines why Americans have positive or negative affect towards the US federal government. Specifically, it draws on existing theoretical and empirical research regarding individual attitudes towards the European Union, examining the effect of ethnocentrism on American attitudes towards the federal government. Relying on this existing re...

Recent research has shown that mainstream political parties shift their positions on European integration in response to threats from niche parties. Whether or not this strategy affects the electoral fortunes of mainstream parties remains unclear, however. Drawing on both spatial and issue competition models of party competition, this study examine...

Recent decades have seen growing polarization amongst political parties. This growing polarization is contrary to the expectations of the classic Downsian model which suggests parties, particularly in a two-party system, will converge on the center. This study seeks to build a model explaining increasing party polarization and public extremism. It...

This study tests the relationship between public attitudes regarding the European Union and unilateral adoption of legal acts by the European Commission (i.e. directives and regulations). Relying on theories of policy responsiveness, as well as legislative gridlock, we present two hypotheses with competing expectations regarding the effect of publi...

Do political parties in the United States respond to public opinion when writing their official party platforms? Current research suggests a clear linkage between public opinion and party positions, with parties responding to public preferences, and public opinion responding to party messages. Drawing on existing research regarding the saliency/iss...

Objective: Democratic governance requires that policy outcomes and public demand for policy be linked. While studies have shown empirical support for such a relationship in various policy domains, empirical evidence also indicates that the public is relatively unaware of policy outputs. This raises a puzzle: why do policy outputs influence public a...

Do political parties in the United States respond to public opinion when writing their official party platforms? Drawing on existing research regarding the saliency/issue competition model of party position-taking, this study posits that when a larger percentage of the public views a particular issue area as important, political parties will discus...

Research has suggested that the EU's 'Early Warning System' (EWS) has grown increasingly politicized, with elites in member state parliamentary chambers issuing reasoned opinions through the EWS in order to appeal to voters who hold negative attitudes towards the European Union, and thus, increase the likelihood of reelection. At the same time, ver...

Do far-left political parties influence the level of Euroskepticism among mainstream political parties within that same party system? This study seeks to address this question by building on previous work that has examined the effect of both far-left and far-right Euroskeptic parties on mainstream party positions regarding the EU. We theorize that...

Do parties respond to voters’ preferences on European integration in elections to the European Parliament (EP)? Following recent research that shows political party responsiveness to Euroskeptic attitudes during EP elections is conditioned by party characteristics, this article seeks to understand how party unity on European integration affects par...

Scotland’s future within the European Union (EU) played a prominent role in the 2014 independence referendum. The story goes that latent supporters of independence voted to stay within the UK to maintain EU access. Defeated, Scottish leaders declared the referendum a once-in-a-life-time event only repeated if conditions substantially changed. With...

Scotland’s future within the European Union (EU) played a prominent role in the 2014 independence referendum. The story goes that latent supporters of independence voted to stay within the UK to maintain EU access. Defeated, Scottish leaders declared the referendum a once-in-a-life-time event only repeated if conditions substantially changed. With...

This study tests the relationship between public attitudes regarding the European Union and unilateral adoption of legal acts by the European Commission (i.e. directives and regulations). Competing theories regarding the effect of public attitudes towards the EU on policy-making activity in the European Commission are presented, resulting in compet...

This study examines why Americans have positive or negative affect towards the U.S. federal government? Specifically, it draws on existing literature regarding individual attitudes towards the European Union, and examines the effect of both individual utilitarian concerns, and exclusivity of identity on American attitudes towards the federal govern...

Does partisan dealignment affect party responsiveness to public attitudes? Specifically, when " catch-all " parties have more or fewer identifiers, are they more or less responsive to the public's left-right position, and public attitudes regarding European integration. In recent decades, we have seen partisan identification among the publics of de...

Does partisan dealignment affect party responsiveness to public attitudes? Specifically, when “catch-all” parties have more or fewer identifiers, are they more or less responsive to the public’s left-right position, and public attitudes regarding European integration. In recent decades we have seen partisan identification among the publics of democ...

Do public attitudes concerning the European Union affect the speed with which member states transpose European directives? It is posited in this article that member state governments do respond to public attitudes regarding the EU when transposing European directives. Specifically, it is hypothesized that member state governments slow transposition...

Do far left political parties influence the level of Euroskepticism among mainstream parties within that same party system? This paper seeks to understand whether far left parties influence the positions of mainstream parties regarding the EU. Building on previous work that examined the effect of far left Euroskeptic parties on mainstream party pos...

Does the European Council in its policy agenda priorities respond to public opinion? If so, does it follow European-wide public opinion or does it follow the public opinion of the country which is holding the Council Presidency? Previous research on the link between legislative output of the EU and the preferences for EU policies by the public sugg...

How well can voters place the positions of parties in salient policy domains? Much of the literature on issue congruence assumes that the democratic linkage works well as long as voters and parties are reasonably close in their policy position. In order for the democratic linkage to work, political parties must take policy positions that are inform...

Amicus curiae activity represents the primary form of democratic input into the federal judiciary. We add to the scholarly understanding of this most important means of interest-group activity by examining the factors that influence the number of amicus curiae briefs filed in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. We employ a theoretical framework t...