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The consequences of supply gaps in two‐dimensional policy spaces for voter turnout and political support: The case of economically left‐wing and culturally right‐wing citizens in Western Europe
Abstract
Parties with left‐wing positions on economic issues and right‐wing (i.e., authoritarian) positions on cultural issues have been historically largely absent from the supply side of the policy space of Western European democracies. Yet, many citizens hold such left‐authoritarian issue attitudes. This article addresses the hypotheses that left‐authoritarian citizens are less likely to vote, less satisfied with the democratic process and have lower levels of political trust when there is a left‐authoritarian supply gap. Using data for 14 Western European countries from the European Social Survey 2008 in the main analysis, it is shown that left‐authoritarians are less likely to vote and exhibit lower levels of satisfaction with democracy and political trust. A supplementary analysis of national election studies from Finland before and after the electoral breakthrough of the left‐authoritarian True Finns Party in 2011 indicates that whether left‐authoritarians participate less and believe less in the efficacy of voting is contingent on the presence of a strong left‐authoritarian party. This study illuminates how constrained party supply in a two‐dimensional policy space can affect voter turnout as well as political support, and has broader implications for the potential further rise of left‐authoritarian challenger parties.
... traditionalist-conservative stances (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Lefkofridi, Wagner, and Willmann 2014;Steiner and Hillen 2021), no party in Germany has yet been successful in establishing itself in this spectrum. Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek (2023) therefore concluded that the prospects for a party positioned accordingly could be promising. ...
... Given the left-conservative supply gap in Germany that no party has managed to address successfully (Norris and Inglehart 2019), despite evident demand from the voters' side (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Steiner and Hillen 2021), BSW appears to have a promising starting point. The European Parliament elections 2024 showed that the BSW has a significant voter potential, especially in Eastern German states. ...
... While she does not strongly appeal to voters with a fixed ideological stance, the BSW appears to be successful, particularly on issues where, as our analysis shows, the radical right AfD also resonates. Socio-economic issues, which are a key focus of a left-wing economic party (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek 2023) are potentially less salient to the BSW electorate. Further research is necessary to explore whether these issues might hold greater relevance for certain segments of the electorate that have switched or might consider switching to this new party. ...
The 2024 European Elections not only saw increased vote shares for the radical
right but also debuted the recently launched Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht
(BSW) with an impressive 6.2% vote share. Before the German federal
election 2025, the parliamentary group held ten seats in German parliament
and was led by former THE LEFT politician Sahra Wagenknecht.
Wagenknecht’s long-term anti-immigration stance suggests the emergence
of a new left-authoritarian platform. This research delves into the demand for
BSW and its left-authoritarian agenda within Germany. Leveraging individuallevel
data analysis, we investigate the structural factors influencing
preferences for Wagenknecht’s new party. Our findings show that those
expressing scepticism towards immigration and weapon supplies to Ukraine
are predicted to be more likely to support BSW. Most importantly, this study
finds that one’s perception of party leader Wagenknecht is the driving force
behind BSW support. By examining the electoral potential of BSW under
Wagenknecht’s leadership, this study provides crucial insights into the
evolving dynamics of German politics and the ramifications of this new
entrant on the political spectrum.
... While she aligns with her previous party's left-leaning socioeconomic views-advocating for redistribution and social welfare-she diverges by taking a more restrictive stance on immigration, calling for reduced immigration and stricter asylum laws (Herold and Otteni 2024;Steiner and Hillen 2024;Thomeczek 2024a). This especially appeals to voters who can be described as "leftauthoritarians," meaning they hold left-wing socioeconomic views but lean right on sociocultural issues (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Lefkofridi et al. 2014). This positions the BSW uniquely within the German political landscape, as no major party currently occupies this policy space (Steiner and Hillen 2019). ...
... This protest hypothesis is particularly relevant for new parties, which can serve as vehicles for dissatisfied voters, especially when they adopt anti-party and anti-establishment rhetoric, offering an alternative approach to politics (Bélanger 2017;Lago and Martínez 2011). Furthermore, research has shown that left-authoritarian voters often experience political dissatisfaction due to a lack of representation (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Steiner and Hillen 2019). Given that the BSW and Wagenknecht have expressed strong opposition to the federal government, even calling for "showing them the red card" (BSW 2024a) and signaling antiestablishment sentiments, the BSW is likely to attract individuals who are politically discontent. ...
... These voters support greater state intervention in the economy, including redistribution and higher taxes on the wealthy, placing them on the left of the socioeconomic spectrum. At the same time, they hold authoritarian views, favoring stricter immigration controls, aligning them with more conservative or right-wing positions on sociocultural issues (e.g., Hillen and Steiner 2020;Lefkofridi et al. 2014;van Der Brug and van Spanje 2009). Although research shows that these attitudes are positively correlated (Malka et al. 2019), and a significant number of European voters hold such views (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Lefkofridi et al. 2014), this voter segment remains underrepresented (Hakhverdian and Schakel 2022;van Der Brug and van Spanje 2009). ...
A new party has entered the German political landscape: The Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). After years of debate that her former party, The Left, had become “too liberal,” one of Germany’s most prominent politicians, Sahra Wagenknecht, founded her new party in January 2024. The BSW is described as blending socioeconomic leftist and sociocultural conservative positions, potentially attracting voters by positioning itself as a “left-authoritarian” party. Additionally, the BSW holds pro-Russia stances and anti-elitist sentiments. The party made a significant impact in 2024, achieving 6.2% in the European elections and securing third place in the state elections of Saxony and Thuringia. This raises the question: What underlying factors are drawing individuals to support the BSW? Using wave 26 of the German Longitudinal Election Study Panel, which includes the BSW, this article compares intended vote choice within Germany to actual votes cast in the 2024 European elections. Drawing on theories related to policy considerations and protest motivations in supporting new parties, three key findings emerge: First, left-authoritarian and pro-Russia attitudes are positively associated with support for the BSW. Second, populist attitudes and dissatisfaction with the federal government also drive individuals toward the BSW. Third, this might, however, be largely overshadowed by a strong impact of the favorability toward Sahra Wagenknecht.
... Second, we argue that we should expect the relationship between anti-immigrant attitudes and political participation to be stronger among leftist and centrist citizens than among rightist citizens, since there is a lack of anti-immigrant parties and anti-immigrant policies among established parties on the left and the center of politics (e.g. Hillen and Steiner, 2020;Van der Brug and Van Spanje, 2009). This makes it more difficult for leftist and centrist anti-immigrant citizens to find political outlets for their anger against immigrants and immigration, which makes it even more likely that fear and anxiety-and political inaction-will prevail in this group. ...
... While the economic dimension came to structure the West European party-systems along the ideological conflict between a socialist and social-democratic left and a conservative/liberal right, mobilization along the more recent cultural dimension is structured along "libertarians" supporting individual freedoms and cultural diversity, and "authoritarians" that value law and order, social hierarchy, and cultural conformity. Importantly, the cultural dimension incorporates intensified conflicts between supporters and opponents of immigration and European integration (Hillen and Steiner, 2020;Kentmen-Cin and Erisen, 2017). These conflicts have, in recent years, come to dominate the cultural dimension (Lancaster, 2022a(Lancaster, , 2022b. ...
... Although earlier studies have shown that left-authoritarian views are widespread, very few West European political parties represent these citizens on the cultural dimension, that is, being both economically left and culturally nationalist/authoritarian. This has led to a general left-authoritarian supply deficit in West European politics (Hakhverdian and Schakel, 2022;Hillen and Steiner, 2020;Lefkofridi et al., 2014;Van der Brug and Van Spanje, 2009). This absence of viable political alternatives is likely to have generated political discontent among left-authoritarian citizens. ...
This article investigates the relationship between anti-immigration attitudes and political participation in European democracies. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002-2018), we first show that a participation gap between pro-and anti-immigrant citizens exists for all types of political participation, even though the gap in voting is relatively small. The analyses also show that leftist and centrist anti-immigrant citizens participate less than leftist and centrist pro-immigration citizens, whereas their right-leaning counterparts participate almost as much in politics as do right-leaning pro-immigrant citizens. The observed participation gap points to the fact that there is a reservoir of anti-immigrant leftist and centrist citizens potentially waiting to be mobilized in many European countries.
... However, others argue that European integration does not constitute a full-fledged axis of party competition on its own (e.g., Marks et al., 2006), and that it is subsumed under the vertical cultural conflict (Kriesi et al., 2006). 2 Yet, some authors argue that contemporary Western European party competition is shaped by unidimensional dynamics (e.g., van der Brug & van Spanje, 2009). (RRPs), which can associate either economic right or relatively left-of-centre positions with authoritarian stances (e.g., Hillen & Steiner, 2020;Wahl, 2020); 'left-authoritarians', which couple economic left and authoritarian positions (e.g., Lefkofridi, Wagner, & Willman, 2014); and 'freemarket cosmopolitans', with their economic right and libertarian posture (De Sio & Lachat, 2020). ...
... For context, at this time the former main party of the Greek centre-left was moving to the centre also in light of the bailout agreement signed by the Papandreou government just months before this election (Sotiropoulos, 2014). The ranking order on the right-hand side also highlights interesting findings, which especially resonate with the well-known differentiation internal to the radical right chiefly with regards to the economy (e.g., Hillen & Steiner, 2020;Wahl, 2020). Indeed, due to their different economic and cultural positions that emerges from the two-dimensional graphic representation, the radical right bloc is differentiated between relatively more leftist (ANEL and LAOS) and right-wing (XA) formations, whilst the main centre-right party in ND appears as overall markedly right-of-centre due to its economic and cultural right-wing positions, as expected. ...
... Left-right semantics in two-dimensional political spaces.already mention the existence of both economic and non-economic, or cultural, left-right positions (e.g.,van der Brug & van Spanje, 2009;Hillen & Steiner, 2020). ...
Most of the existing indexes measuring parties’ left-right positions through Manifesto Project (MARPOR) data, including the ‘RILE’, share a partially or fully inductive nature and an underlying assumption of left-right unidimensionality. However, as the structure of party competition in contemporary Western Europe has been recently moving away from traditional ‘left-libertarian/right-authoritarian’ patterns, the inductive and unidimensional characteristics of such instruments may hinder the quality of their measurements. In this article, I introduce and develop a new left-right instrument, which is wholly deductive and relies on an explicit linkage with theoretical sources in the conceptualisation of economic and cultural left and right as the basis for the subsequent index operationalisation through the justified selection of MARPOR items. After deriving the individual deductive economic and cultural left-right scores and employing them in the mathematical formalisation of a synthetic left-right measure to be compared with existing unidimensional instruments, I perform a comparison between the new left-right index and the RILE. Both instruments are empirically tested on a dataset made covering the 20-year period between 1999 and 2019 in 16 Western European countries, for a total of 72 elections and 474 party-election combinations. More specifically, the statistical probes take the form of rank correlation analyses between the election-specific left-right rankings of each index and those provided by the external benchmark of the “Chapel Hill Expert Survey” (CHES). Results are mixed and indicate that, whilst more traditional patterns of competition seem to still apply across the board in pre-Great-Recession years, the new left-right index is a more valid measure of parties’ left-right positions both in the ‘turbulent times’ of the 2010s and in the vast majority of the areas across the region. This is especially true in Southern Europe, for which the RILE is known to be particularly problematic. Hence, this work calls for further discussion on the different patterns of Western European party competition across space and time, as well as differentiated and context-specific deductive left-right measurement.
... Research has revealed that low-income voters often hold left-authoritarian attitudes, combining left-wing economic with right-wing authoritarian cultural positions (Häusermann & Kriesi, 2015;Kitschelt & Rehm, 2014;Oesch & Rennwald, 2018). These voters face challenges in finding a party that aligns with their views on both dimensions and, therefore, tend to vote for the party that represents them on only one dimension (Hillen & Steiner, 2020). Because the electoral choices of these voters are often determined by issue salience (Lefkofridi et al., 2014;Spies, 2013), and given the increasing prominence of cultural issues, these voters tend to base their votes on their right-wing cultural attitudes (Gidron, 2022;Hillen & Steiner, 2020), leading them to support (extreme) right-wing parties. ...
... These voters face challenges in finding a party that aligns with their views on both dimensions and, therefore, tend to vote for the party that represents them on only one dimension (Hillen & Steiner, 2020). Because the electoral choices of these voters are often determined by issue salience (Lefkofridi et al., 2014;Spies, 2013), and given the increasing prominence of cultural issues, these voters tend to base their votes on their right-wing cultural attitudes (Gidron, 2022;Hillen & Steiner, 2020), leading them to support (extreme) right-wing parties. As a result, this dynamic creates intra-party heterogeneity on socio-economic preferences within right-wing parties. ...
A growing body of literature shows that the preferences of poorer groups in society are less well represented than the preferences of the rich. This paper scrutinises one possible explanation of inequality in representation: that politicians hold biased perceptions of what citizens want. We conducted surveys with citizens and politicians in four countries: Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and Germany. Citizens provided their preferences regarding concrete policy proposals, and then politicians estimated these preferences. Comparing politicians’ estimates with the actual preferences of different social groups, the paper shows that politicians’ perceptions are closer to the preferences of the richer than to those of poorer people for issues that matter most for economic inequality: socio‐economic issues. Further, we find that especially right‐wing politicians tend to think about the preferences of richer societal groups when estimating the preferences of their partisan electorates on socio‐economic matters.
... Es liegt daher nahe, im BSW den Versuch zu sehen, eine bestehende Repräsentationslücke im deutschen Parteiensystem zu schließen. Wähler:innen mit Einstellungen, die sich ökonomisch links der AfD und CDU/CSU einordnen, bei gesellschaftspolitischen Themen jedoch eher diesen Parteien zuneigen, könnten durch das BSW erreicht werden (allgemeiner hierzu: Hillen und Steiner 2020). ...
... Gegeben der notorischen Unterschätzung des Nichtwähleranteils in Umfragen ist dies eine kleine Fallzahl in den Daten. Es deutet aber erneut darauf hin, dass das BSW manche Personen zur Wahl motiviert, die sich vorher nicht ausreichend repräsentiert fühlten (Hillen und Steiner 2020). ...
Zusammenfassung
Das Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) hat sich trotz seiner erst kürzlichen Gründung bereits zu einem relevanten Akteur im deutschen Parteiensystem entwickelt. Der vorliegende Beitrag liefert eine umfassendere Betrachtung der BSW-Wählerschaft, basierend auf Paneldaten der GLES. Durch die Verwendung von Paneldaten ist es nicht nur möglich die aktuellen Einstellungen der BSW-Anhänger:innen zu beschreiben, sondern auch deren Veränderungen im Zeitverlauf zu verfolgen. Die Analyse zeigt drei wesentliche Punkte: (1) Das BSW bekommt insbesondere Zulauf von ehemaligen Linken-Anhänger:innen sowie von Wähler:innen, die sich nach der Bundestagswahl 2021 von den etablierten Parteien abgewendet haben und zwischenzeitlich mit der AfD sympathisierten. Die Gründung des BSW und das Absinken der AfD in den Umfragen hängen somit zusammen. (2) Das BSW schließt eine Repräsentationslücke im deutschen Parteiensystem. Die jetzigen BSW-Anhänger:innen unterschieden sich schon vor mehreren Jahren – als die Gründung des BSW nicht zur Debatte stand – von den anderen Befragten, selbst wenn man für früheres Wahlverhalten kontrolliert. Dies gilt insbesondere für die Einstellungen zur Regulierung von Zuwanderung. (3) Die BSW-Anhänger:innen zeigten auch früher schon kritische Einstellungen zur (repräsentativen) Demokratie (niedrige Demokratiezufriedenheit und hoher Populismus). Insgesamt legen die Ergebnisse den Schluss nahe, dass das BSW über eine distinkte Wählerschaft verfügt, was zur weiteren Etablierung im deutschen Parteiensystem beitragen sollte.
... Es liegt daher nahe, im BSW den Versuch zu sehen, eine bestehende Repräsentationslücke im deutschen Parteiensystem zu schließen. Wähler:innen mit Einstellungen, die sich ökonomisch links der AfD und CDU/CSU einordnen, bei gesellschaftspolitischen Themen jedoch eher diesen Parteien zuneigen, könnten durch das BSW erreicht werden (allgemeiner hierzu: Hillen und Steiner 2020). ...
... Gegeben der notorischen Unterschätzung des Nichtwähleranteils in Umfragen ist dies eine kleine Fallzahl in den Daten. Es deutet aber erneut darauf hin, dass das BSW manche Personen zur Wahl motiviert, die sich vorher nicht ausreichend repräsentiert fühlten (Hillen und Steiner 2020). ...
Das Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) hat sich trotz seiner erst kürzlichen Gründung bereits zu einem relevanten Akteur im deutschen Parteiensystem entwickelt. Die Forschung nähert sich der Frage, welche Wähler:innen durch das BSW mobilisiert werden. Die Datengrundlage hierfür war bislang jedoch dünn und basierte auf Querschnittsdaten. Dieser Beitrag liefert eine umfassendere Betrachtung der BSW-Wählerschaft basierend auf Paneldaten der GLES. Durch die Verwendung von Paneldaten ist nicht nur möglich die aktuellen Einstellungen der BSW-Anhänger:innen zu beschreiben, sondern auch deren Veränderungen im Zeitverlauf zu verfolgen. Die Analyse zeigt drei wesentliche Punkte: (1) Das BSW bekommt insbesondere Zulauf von ehemaligen Linken-Anhänger:innen sowie von Wähler:innen, die sich nach der Bundestagswahl von den etablierten Parteien abgewendet haben und zwischenzeitlich mit der AfD sympathisierten. (2) Das BSW schließt eine Repräsentationslücke im deutschen Parteiensystem. Die jetzigen BSW-Anhänger:innen haben sich schon immer von den Wähler:innen anderer Parteien unterschieden. Dies zeigt sich insbesondere bei den Einstellungen zur Regelung der Zuwanderung. (3) Die jetzigen Anhänger:innen des BSW zeigten auch früher schon kritische Einstellungen zur (repräsentativen) Demokratie (niedrige Demokratiezufriedenheit und hoher Populismus). Insgesamt legen die Ergebnisse den Schluss nahe, dass das BSW über eine distinkte Wählerschaft verfügt, was zur weiteren Etablierung im deutschen Parteiensystem beitragen sollte.
... There is much variety in the choice of measures, and many studies do not explicitly discuss why the measures they use are chosen. Most studies tend to include some variety of issues related to immigration, authoritarianism, law-and-order and moral traditionalism, for example abortion or homosexuality (Flanagan & Lee, 2003;Heath et al., 1994;Oskarson & Demker, 2015;Stubager, 2008Stubager, , 2010Tilley, 2005). 1 Some also include European integration (Hillen & Steiner, 2020;Kriesi et al., 2008;Oesch & Rennwald, 2018), while others argue that this is a separate dimension (Bakker et al., 2012;Rohrschneider & Whitefield, 2012, p. 69). Importantly for our purposes, many of the referenced studies leave out environmentalism, while others include it in the second dimension (Flanagan & Lee, 2003;Hooghe et al., 2002;Stubager, 2010). ...
... If it is dropped or subsumed into a broader second-dimension index, we are unable to discover potential representation gaps for this issue. For instance, Hillen and Steiner (2020) conclude that there is a left-authoritarian representation gap in Western Europe whereby, in a two-dimensional space, many voters are located in the left-authoritarian quadrant, while few parties offer this ideological profile. One could imagine similar representation gaps which could be discovered by studying environmentalism as a distinct phenomenon. ...
Environmental issues are an important aspect of party competition and voters’ political preferences. Yet political behaviour research often considers environmental attitudes as a component of a broader ‘second‐dimension’ and either subsumes it into this or omits it. Using data from the 5th wave of the European Values Study, we demonstrate through factor analysis that environmentalism loads as a separate dimension across Western Europe, that environmentalism has somewhat different social predictors, and that it has important associations with party preference that differ from those of other second dimension issues. Our findings have crucial implications. Firstly, not accounting for environmentalism in studies of political behaviour misses an important part of the picture. Secondly, subsuming environmentalism into a broader “cultural” dimension may lead to incomplete conclusions about both social predictors and the electoral consequences of political attitudes and values. Thus, allowing for a separate environmental dimension opens up novel perspectives on political representation in Western democracies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
... Political grievances such as distrust and dissatisfaction with democracy have been shown by various studies to predict voting for populist, far-right, and left-authoritarian parties in general (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Rooduijn 2018;Wuttke, Schimpf, and Schoen 2023) as well as support for AfD and BSW (Bieber, Roßteutscher, and Scherer 2018;Hansen and Olsen 2022;Jandura, Marcinkowski, and Anicker 2024;Jankowski 2024). ...
In light of the BSW's rapid initial success, a debate about the party's voter base emerged, raising the question whether the BSW emerges as a new competitor to the AfD and potentially draws support from it. Our article contributes to this debate by examining AfD and BSW voters in Thuringia, focussing in-depth on culturally conservative and far-right views as well as various political grievances. Drawing on data from a representative survey, our study shows that AfD voters in Thuringia mirror the typical profile of radical right voters in other European countries. In contrast, the results for BSW voters contradict previous findings. Anti-immigrant attitudes, as well as other views from the broader spectrum of far-right ideology are not significantly associated with BSW support. Furthermore, political grievances are only to a very limited extent the driving factor for BSW support. Therefore, we conclude that BSW does not represents a new competitor for the AfD in Thuringia.
... So wechselten bei den Bundestagswahlen 2013 und 2017 jeweils Hunderttausende Wähler, insbesondere in Ostdeutschland, von der Linken zur AfD (Hilmer & Gagné, 2018 (Marks et al., 2006;Norris & Inglehart, 2019;Dassonneville et al., 2024;Debus & Wurthmann, 2024 Thomeczek et al., 2024a) Demnach lassen sich vier Quadranten politischer Ausrichtungen ausmachen. Ein (1) rechtskonservativer Quadrant, in welchem CDU, CSU und AfD positioniert sind, ein (2) rechtsliberaler Quadrant, welchen die FDP besetzt, ein (3) linksliberaler Quadrant mit Linken, SPD und Bündnis 90/Die Grünen sowie ein (4) linkskonservativer Quadrant, in welchem das BSW durch Expertinnen und Experten verortet wird. 1 Dass in diesem links-konservativen Spektrum, in welchem das BSW positioniert wird, durchaus eine politische Repräsentationslücke vor Gründung der Partei bestand, haben eine Reihe von Studien, auch mit Blick auf Deutschland, dokumentieren können (Hillen & Steiner, 2020;Steiner & Hillen, 2021;Rosset & Kurella, 2021). Es ist kein Zufall, dass Wagenknecht in ihrem Buch Die Selbstgerechten -das sowohl als Abrechnung mit ihrer damaligen Partei, Die Linke, als auch mit der deutschen Politik insgesamt verstanden werden kann -dieses Repräsentationsdefizit wie folgt beschreibt: "Wertkonservativ und zugleich links zu sein ist kein Widerspruch. ...
Zusammenfassung
Das deutsche Parteiensystem hat sich seit Gründung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Jahr 1949 als vergleichsweise stabil in seiner Konfiguration erwiesen. Veränderungen westeuropäischer Parteiensysteme schlugen sich, mit wenigen Abweichungen, im Regelfall auch im deutschen Parteiensystem nieder. Ebenso weisen die meisten westeuropäischen Parteiensysteme in ihrer Zusammensetzung eine Reihe beachtlicher Gemeinsamkeiten auf, die auch schon früh als solche beschrieben worden sind (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967).
... So wechselten bei den Bundestagswahlen 2013 und 2017 jeweils Hunderttausende Wähler, insbesondere in Ostdeutschland, von der Linken zur AfD (Hilmer & Gagné, 2018 (Marks et al., 2006;Norris & Inglehart, 2019;Dassonneville et al., 2024;Debus & Wurthmann, 2024 Thomeczek et al., 2024a) Demnach lassen sich vier Quadranten politischer Ausrichtungen ausmachen. Ein (1) rechtskonservativer Quadrant, in welchem CDU, CSU und AfD positioniert sind, ein (2) rechtsliberaler Quadrant, welchen die FDP besetzt, ein (3) linksliberaler Quadrant mit Linken, SPD und Bündnis 90/Die Grünen sowie ein (4) linkskonservativer Quadrant, in welchem das BSW durch Expertinnen und Experten verortet wird. 1 Dass in diesem links-konservativen Spektrum, in welchem das BSW positioniert wird, durchaus eine politische Repräsentationslücke vor Gründung der Partei bestand, haben eine Reihe von Studien, auch mit Blick auf Deutschland, dokumentieren können (Hillen & Steiner, 2020;Steiner & Hillen, 2021;Rosset & Kurella, 2021). Es ist kein Zufall, dass Wagenknecht in ihrem Buch Die Selbstgerechten -das sowohl als Abrechnung mit ihrer damaligen Partei, Die Linke, als auch mit der deutschen Politik insgesamt verstanden werden kann -dieses Repräsentationsdefizit wie folgt beschreibt: "Wertkonservativ und zugleich links zu sein ist kein Widerspruch. ...
Zusammenfassung
Die Parteigründung rund um Sahra Wagenknecht sorgt für kontroverse Debatten, nicht nur in Deutschland, sondern auch auf europäischer Ebene. Die zentrale Frage lautet: Zu welcher Parteienfamilie könnte das BSW im europäischen Kontext gehören? Während nationale Parteien oft klar in ein ideologisches Raster passen, ist diese Zuordnung bei Wagenknechts Formation besonders schwierig. Sie bewegt sich in einem Spannungsfeld zwischen links-ökonomischen und national-konservativen Positionen, was zum Beispiel eine klare Eingliederung in die bestehenden Strukturen des Europäischen Parlaments (EP) erschwert.
... So wechselten bei den Bundestagswahlen 2013 und 2017 jeweils Hunderttausende Wähler, insbesondere in Ostdeutschland, von der Linken zur AfD (Hilmer & Gagné, 2018 (Marks et al., 2006;Norris & Inglehart, 2019;Dassonneville et al., 2024;Debus & Wurthmann, 2024 Thomeczek et al., 2024a) Demnach lassen sich vier Quadranten politischer Ausrichtungen ausmachen. Ein (1) rechtskonservativer Quadrant, in welchem CDU, CSU und AfD positioniert sind, ein (2) rechtsliberaler Quadrant, welchen die FDP besetzt, ein (3) linksliberaler Quadrant mit Linken, SPD und Bündnis 90/Die Grünen sowie ein (4) linkskonservativer Quadrant, in welchem das BSW durch Expertinnen und Experten verortet wird. 1 Dass in diesem links-konservativen Spektrum, in welchem das BSW positioniert wird, durchaus eine politische Repräsentationslücke vor Gründung der Partei bestand, haben eine Reihe von Studien, auch mit Blick auf Deutschland, dokumentieren können (Hillen & Steiner, 2020;Steiner & Hillen, 2021;Rosset & Kurella, 2021). Es ist kein Zufall, dass Wagenknecht in ihrem Buch Die Selbstgerechten -das sowohl als Abrechnung mit ihrer damaligen Partei, Die Linke, als auch mit der deutschen Politik insgesamt verstanden werden kann -dieses Repräsentationsdefizit wie folgt beschreibt: "Wertkonservativ und zugleich links zu sein ist kein Widerspruch. ...
Dieses Open-Access-Buch liefert einen detaillierten Einblick in die Entstehung und Entwicklung des Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht – Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit (BSW). Das BSW wird dabei mit Blick auf seine Position im Parteienwettbewerb Deutschlands und Europas verortet. Ferner analysieren Wagner und Wurthmann den Parteiorganisationsaufbau und Prozesse innerparteilicher Mitbestimmung. Abschließend werden die Wahlergebnisse des BSW dargestellt und hinsichtlich der aus ihnen erwachsenen Implikationen beleuchtet.
... Parties such as SPD, Greens, and The Left occupy the left-liberal quadrant, while the CDU, CSU, and AfD are situated in the right-conservative quadrant, with the FDP representing the right-liberal segment. Despite consistent electoral demand for a party combining left-wing economic policies with traditionalist-conservative values (Hillen and Steiner, 2020;Rosset and Kurella, 2021;Steiner and Hillen, 2019), the left-conservative quadrant has long remained unclaimed by any major political force (Wagner et al., 2023). ...
The emergence of the left-authoritarian Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) has profoundly disrupted the German party system. Within a remarkably short time frame, the BSW has achieved significant electoral success, prompting a lively debate concerning the political origins of its voter base. A central question remains: to what extent can the BSW attract supporters from other parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) or Social Democrats (SPD)? This study employs recent data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) panel to investigate voter flow dynamics and the issues motivating shifts towards the BSW. Our findings reveal that while the BSW struggles to attract core AfD supporters, the party has been notably more effective in appealing to recent AfD supporters. Overall, opposition to Ukraine support is the single most important issue that drives voters towards BSW.
... The mechanisms for this decline in liberal internationalism have not been uncovered in this study, but previous studies may offer some guidance. Prior studies have established a close correlation between attitudes towards various facets of globalization, including trade, migration and economic integration (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Vries 2018). Steiner and Harms (2020) posit that globalization might serve as a potent symbol encapsulating broad shifts in economic, social and political realms, which individuals generally perceive either positively or negatively. ...
This study investigates the link between non-liberal attitudes and adverse exposure to market disturbances during the 2008 global financial crisis, drawing from the premise that anti-liberal sentiments among Western voters stem from economic distress. We delve into three facets of liberal ideology in a Swedish sample: economic liberalism, liberal multiculturalism and liberal internationalism. Using variation in crisis exposure within identical twin pairs, comprehensive longitudinal economic data and detailed survey responses, we find no significant shift in economic or multicultural liberal attitudes with different crisis exposures. However, exposure to increased unemployment risk significantly lowered support for liberal internationalism, increasing scepticism towards global governance and multilateral cooperation.
... First is the unequal distribution of political space between parties, which does not mirror that of the masses. It has been noted that parties with left-wing positions on economic issues and, at the same time, right-wing positions on sociocultural issues have been historically lacking in Western Europe (Hillen and Steiner 2020). The second piece of evidence concerns the division of issue representation competency between parties. ...
This chapter theorizes the causes behind mass-elite discrepancies (MED) grounded in two key analytical pillars of the book: critical junctures and elite agency. Based on a meta-analysis, the chapter begins by providing a systematic review of causal factors that have proven significant in explaining MED. It reveals that research has so far neglected the historical factors behind MED, despite the fact that the political dimensions where MEDs appear are intrinsically historical. With this in mind, the chapter draws on historical institutionalism to explain different MED contents, structures, and timings. In developing the core theoretical framework, the chapter first examines the political cleavage literature and simultaneously adapts it to a broader international context. Subsequently, the chapter elaborates a novel theoretical framework suggesting that the salient MEDs observed in numerous global examples result from elites' deliberate actions or inactions during a critical juncture. The events occurring during the critical juncture cast a long shadow, as the political dynamics crystallized during this period tend to be path-dependent due to three mechanisms: elites’ opponent marginalization, self-selection, and socialization.
... Thus, concerns related to globalization processes transform both the economic and cultural dimensions of the political space (Kriesi et al., 2008). To the extent that governments cannot adequately respond to these concerns, specific groups of citizens may experience structural legitimacy gaps in terms of their substantive representation (Hillen and Steiner, 2020;Hakhverdian and Schakel, 2022). ...
Democratic legitimacy is essential for democratic stability, as democracies rely on citizen support to survive. However, perceived legitimacy gaps can also be an important catalyst for change and potential democratic renewal, begging the question when challenges to legitimacy become problematic for democratic survival. Easton distinguished between citizen support for political authorities and the political system, and argued that if support for political authorities declined, such declining support could either be resolved by the current political authorities changing course, or by citizens electing new political authorities at the next elections. However, if dissatisfaction with political authorities would not be resolved, lacking support had the potential to eventually “spill-over” and undermine support for the political system as a whole. In most empirical research on legitimacy, the assumption is that such “spill-over” is visible only if declining levels of political trust and satisfaction with democracy start to undermine support for democracy as a political system. In this paper, we argue that “spill-over” can also manifest in a different way: through the politicization of political support. When politics is no longer (only) about substantive policy decisions, but rather (increasingly) about the system itself, agreement on the rules of the game, or even on democracy as “the only game in town”, is no longer self-evident. In this paper we further develop our theoretical argument about the connection between legitimacy and politicisation, and argue that European democracies appear to experience growing politicization of political support, in terms of the association of political support with citizens’ substantive issue positions and voting behaviour. The paper demonstrates empirical evidence of such politicization of political support in 17 European democracies with European Social Survey data from 2002–2022. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of the politicization of political support for democratic stability and renewal.
... Disagreements also included the reaction towards the invasion, as Wagenknecht, rejects blaming Russia for the conflict in Ukraine (Wondreys 2023;Arzheimer 2023;Hartleb and Schiebel 2023) and has been a supporter of peace negotiations -at the expense of Ukraine and the loss of territorial integrity (Arzheimer 2023;Hartleb and Schiebel 2023). Preliminary analyses suggest that the establishment of such a left-authoritarian party would be able to fill a political space that has so far been unoccupied in German political party space (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek 2023). When examining the findings for left-wing economic parties, significant effects are only evident in the case of the Greens whose stance is explicitly pro-NATO and supportive of weapons deliveries. ...
... A recent publication shows that Wagenknecht is evaluated more positively among left-authoritarian voters in Germany compared to voters not holding such attitudes . From a strategic point of view, appealing to these voters could be promising, as no party in Germany combines cultural conservativism with an economic left-wing stance (Hillen and Steiner 2020;Hillen 2019, 2021). According to the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (Bakker et al. 2019), there are K several parties with a similar left-authoritarian profile in Europe. ...
Germany’s relatively stable party system faces a new left-authoritarian challenger: Sahra Wagenknecht’s Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) party. First polls indicate that for the BSW, election results above 10% are within reach. While Wagenknecht’s positions in economic and cultural terms have already been discussed, this article elaborates on another highly relevant feature of Wagenknecht, namely her populist communication. Exploring Wagenknecht’s and BSW’s populist appeal helps us to understand why the party is said to also have potential among seemingly different voter groups coming from the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and far left Die Linke, which share high levels of populist attitudes. To analyse the role that populist communication plays for Wagenknecht and the BSW, this article combines quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative analysis covers all speeches (10,000) and press releases (19,000) published by Die Linke members of Parliament (MPs; 2005–2023). The results show that Wagenknecht is the (former) Die Linke MP with the highest share of populist communication. Furthermore, she was also able to convince a group of populist MPs to join the BSW. The article closes with a qualitative analysis of BSW’s manifesto that reveals how populist framing plays a major role in this document, in which the political and economic elites are accused of working against the interest of “the majority”. Based on this analysis, the classification of the BSW as a populist party seems to be appropriate.
... According to Downs (1957) and in line with spatial proximity models, individuals vote for parties with the least distance between their own and the party's positions. However, this poses a problem for left-wing authoritarian voters because they lack representation in Western European party systems, such as that of Germany (Lefkofridi et al. 2014;Hillen and Steiner 2020). This means that although voters may want to vote for parties closest to them, left-authoritarians are forced to prioritise one dimension over the other, as there is only a limited number of parties that can be classified in the left-authoritarian quadrant in Europe (Norris 2019). ...
The prospect of a new party can significantly change political landscapes. In Germany, a potential new party is currently being widely discussed—Sahra Wagenknecht may splinter off from her party, The Left, to form a new radical party in Germany. Above all, Wagenknecht is known for her anti-immigration stance and could potentially bridge the gap between the right and left by forming a left-authoritarian party. What does the demand for such a left-authoritarian party look like in Germany? To explore this, we examined individual-level data to understand the structural factors that cause people to rate Wagenknecht higher than her current party, The Left. The results indicate that Wagenknecht is preferred over The Left by individuals who are more socioculturally right-wing, critical of migration, and dissatisfied with democracy. These findings provide valuable insights into the electoral potential of a potential left-authoritarian party led by Wagenknecht.
... These conditional effects matter even more when considering that those citizens with stronger redistribution preferences are also generally more politically dissatisfied, meaning that they are differently mobilised by established and non-established RWPs. With these findings, the analysis can shed light on when and why RWPs can attract different segments of society and speak to recent contributions that have shown an increasing interest in why support for right-wing populists also stems from the economic left (Busemeyer et al., 2021;Hillen and Steiner, 2020). ...
As anti-establishment parties, right-wing populists (RWPs) have been successful in attracting the politically discontent. This article shows how this appeal of RWPs asymmetrically affects citizens on the economical left and right. Building on previous work, the analysis examines how anti-establishment status conditions not only the effect of political disaffection, but also the effect of redistribution preferences on RWP support. A multilevel analysis using nine waves of the European Social Survey and a composite anti-establishment measure reveals that where RWPs are more established, strong pro-redistribution preferences drive voters away from these parties even more than voters are attracted to them based on political distrust. Political distrust more than outweighs the countervailing effect of pro-redistribution preferences only where RWPs are less established. There, pro-redistribution voters are a particularly suitable target as they are also more politically dissatisfied. These findings help to understand when and why RWPs can attract different segments of society.
... New parties can emerge where there is programmatic space to occupy (Hillen & Steiner, 2020;Hino, 2012;Ignazi, 1992;van de Wardt & Otjes, 2021) and such exclusive fit between parts of the electorate and a challenger party helps the latter to survive in the long run (Adams et al., 2006;March & Rommerskirchen, 2015;Rochon, 1985). Thus, many challenger parties make programmatic offers not covered by other parties (van de Wardt et al., 2014), and this appears to help challenger parties thrive (e.g., Mauerer et al., 2015;Spoon & Klüver, 2019;Wagner, 2021), or at least helps voters already inclined to vote against the mainstream decide on a specific challenger (Bosch & Durán, 2019;Hobolt & Tilley, 2016). ...
What makes some challenger parties succeed and others fail? Existing research on party‐level factors finds that it is essential for parties to close a representational gap. However, this condition cannot be sufficient. For each successful challenger, there are many others proclaiming a similar message but going unheard. Hence, we argue that, instead of only to the messages, more attention should be paid to parties’ abilities to communicate their messages effectively.
Using an original dataset on 74 challenger parties in five countries in a similar political and economic situation (during the post‐2008 economic crisis), we show that communication is key for electoral success. In particular, we show that challenger parties can win over voters by, on the one hand, harnessing the prominence of a well‐known personality (a locomotive ) and by, on the other hand, establishing a means of contacting voters which bypasses the traditional news media and amplifies their message (like a megaphone ). But this megaphone only works if it amplifies a message that fills a representational gap (here: an anti‐austerity message) – only then do parties benefit. Furthermore, we provide evidence for the widespread but unproven claim that populism helps challenger parties succeed, but this, too, depends on whether parties are able to contact voters on a large scale.
By including three crucial aspects of communication (sender, channel, and message), we can explain a large share of the high variability in challenger party success.
... In other words, in the two-dimensional space that currently defines the political conflict in Western Europe (van der Brug and van Spanje 2009; Thomasssen 2012), RLP voters would be clearly located in the area where left-wing economic orientations intersect with liberal socio-cultural attitudes. The evidence we found points to RLPs relying to a much greater extent on those with left-libertarian attitudes than on the so-called 'left-authoritarian' voter (Lefkofridi et al. 2014;Hillen and Steiner 2020). ...
A certain type of citizen holds technocratic views. They favour pragmatic problem solving through scientific and technical expertise, and reject party politics for being harmful to the common good. Yet, empirical evidence on the ideological profile of these citizens is fragmented and inconclusive. Using an original survey in Western Europe, Australia and the United States, we test predictions about the left−right alignment of citizens with technocratic attitudes on the economic and cultural dimensions of politics. We argue that technocracy is not antithetical to ideology and that citizens holding technocratic attitudes are not immune to ideological positions. Findings show that technocratic citizens are more economically left‐wing than mainstream voters, contrary to common associations of technocracy with neoliberal economic principles. However, they are more centrist than populists. This highlights that, in addition to a representational challenge, technocracy mounts an ideological challenge to party‐based representative democracy. In times of cumulative crises, which put democracies under stress with demands for competence and effectiveness, these findings offer insights about the appeal of alternative forms of representation.
While the psychological dispositions that underlie conspiracy thinking are well researched, there has been remarkably little research on the political preferences of conspiracy believers that go beyond self‐reported ideology or single political issue dimensions. Using data from the European Voter Election Study (EVES), the relationship between conspiracy thinking and attitudes on three deeper‐lying and salient political dimensions (redistribution, authoritarianism, migration) is examined. The results show a clear picture: Individuals with economically left‐wing and culturally conservative attitudes tend to score highest on conspiracy thinking. People at this ideological location seem to long for both economic and cultural protection and bemoan a “lost paradise” where equalities had not yet been destroyed by “perfidious” processes of cultural modernization and economic neoliberalism. This pattern is found across all countries and holds regardless of socioeconomic characteristics such as education and income. While previous research has found that belief in conspiracies tends to cluster at the extremes of the political spectrum, our analysis opens up a more complex picture, showing that conspiracy thinking is not merely related to extremist orientations, but to specific combinations of political attitudes.
Seminal models in political economy imply that rising economic inequality should lead to growing public demand for redistribution. Yet, existing empirical evidence on this link is both limited and inconclusive – and scholars regularly doubt it exists at all. In this research note, we turn to data from the International Social Survey Programme's (ISSP) Social Inequality surveys, now spanning the period from 1987 to 2019, to reassess the effect of rising inequality on support for redistribution. Covering a longer time series than previous studies, we obtain robust evidence that when income inequality rises in a country, public support for income redistribution tends to go up. Examining the reaction across income groups to adjudicate between different models of how rising inequality matters in a second step, we find that rising inequality increases support for redistribution within all income groups, with a marginally stronger effect among the well‐off. Our results imply that insufficient policy responses to rising inequality may be less about absent demand and more about a failure to turn demand into policy, and that scholars should devote more attention to the latter.
There is a broad consensus that the ideological space of Western democracies consists of two distinct dimensions: one economic and the other cultural. In this Element, the authors explore how ordinary citizens make sense of these two dimensions. Analyzing novel survey data collected across ten Western democracies, they employ text analysis techniques to investigate responses to open-ended questions. They examine variations in how people interpret these two ideological dimensions along three levels of analysis: across countries, based on demographic features, and along the left-right divide. Their results suggest that there are multiple two-dimensional spaces: that is, different groups ascribe different meanings to what the economic and cultural political divides stand for. They also find that the two dimensions are closely intertwined in people's minds. Their findings make theoretical contributions to the study of electoral politics and political ideology.
The chapter is dedicated to expanding our conceptual understanding of mass-elite policy preference discrepancy (MED). It utilizes comprehensive meta-analysis results, revealing an explosive growth in MED publications over the past decade, largely driven by research on Western Europe. This trend is closely related to the key policy domains or issue areas where MED has been identified, reflecting the trajectories of Western European party politics. The chapter then shows that adopting a global perspective significantly broadens the range of policy areas and issues where MED is observed, often reflecting the distinct domestic and international environments within which party competition occurs. Additionally, by extending our focus to various world regions, we can uncover previously overlooked variations in the structure and timing of MED. The global-level variations in specific MED content, structure, and timing revealed in this chapter become the central focus of the subsequent theoretical and empirical chapters.
Many scholars have argued that policymaking in Western democracies is biased toward high-income citizens, thereby violating fundamental ideals of political equality. However, studies have paid less attention to other potential sources of unequal representation besides income. In this study, we compare the role of income with that of education. Using an original data set of policy changes and public preferences spanning 43 countries, we find that both produce unequal policy representation. We also find some support for the hypothesis that income and education provide distinct advantages and primarily affect economic and socio-cultural policy, respectively. At the same time, educational inequalities are larger and more robust, producing a bias toward cosmopolitan socio-cultural policy. These findings underline the importance of separating the economic and cultural sources of unequal representation. In addition, they reinforce the role of education as a key dividing line in the politics of established democracies.
Voters across Europe have become increasingly polarised on both ends of the political spectrum in the last decade. While radical right parties were able to mobilise voters on their salient topics, radical left parties were only sporadically successful. In this article, we analyse why radical left parties fail to benefit from increasing polarisation by examining their potential voter base. Radical left individuals should have a lower incentive to participate in elections to change the status quo because of their suspicion towards authorities in general and the government more specifically. Instead, they should engage in status quo -busting grassroots activities to enforce revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, change. Our hypotheses are put to an empirical test by relying on data from the European Social Survey. We include respondents from 17 Western European countries from five rounds of the European Social Survey. The results have important implications for our understanding of the demand side of the political extremism wave.
This comprehensive and comparative book makes clear what party families are and, in doing so, helps categorise and make sense of parties in different countries. It describes the ideology of the families in Western Europe as well as classifying political parties accordingly. Furthermore, the book examines who the party families’ supporters are in terms of their social background and political values. What role do class, education, and religion play in the 21st century?
Finally, the book provides a discussion of the degree to which the concept of party families is still meaningful in the 21st century and how it needs to be studied comparatively and comprehensively. Is party family still valid as a conceptual device to classify and compare parties across countries in Western Europe?
This text will be of key interest to scholars, students, and practitioners working in the field of political behaviour, political parties and party politics, policy studies, and more broadly comparative and European politics.
Available here: https://www.routledge.com/Party-Families-in-Western-Europe/Langsaether/p/book/9781138336964
This Element documents long-term changes in the political attitudes of occupational groups, shifts in the salience of economic and cultural issues, and the movement of political parties in the electoral space from 1990 to 2018 in eight Western democracies. We evaluate prominent contentions about how electoral contestation has changed and why support for mainstream parties has declined while support for challenger parties has increased. We contribute a new analysis of how the viability of the types of electoral coalitions assembled by center-left, center-right, radical-right, and Green parties changes over these decades. We find that their viability is affected by changes over time in citizens' attitudes to economic and cultural issues and shifts in the relative salience of those issues. We examine the contribution these developments make to declining support for mainstream center-left and center-right coalitions and increasing support for coalitions underpinning radical-right and Green parties.
Which classes vote for radical-left parties (RLPs) in Western Europe? Previous research indicates that RLPs are strong among production workers and socio-cultural professionals, though not necessarily among both at the same time. Starting from the observation that these two classes take opposite stances on cultural issues, we trace variation in class voting back to RLPs’ positions on the cultural dimension. Combining voter-level data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018) with information on the positions of 23 RLPs from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, we report robust evidence of a libertarian versus authoritarian class trade-off: RLPs with less libertarian positions receive relatively less support from socio-cultural professionals and relatively more support from production workers. These findings add to evidence that class voting varies with party positions. Ours is the first study to demonstrate this for RLPs, showing how, in the early 21st century, cultural positions matter for class voting.
In recent decades, governments in many Western democracies have shown a remarkable consensus in pursuing fiscal austerity measures during periods of strained public finances. In this paper, we show that these decisions have consequences for political polarization. Our macro-level analysis of 166 elections since 1980 finds that austerity measures increase both electoral abstention and votes for non-mainstream parties, thereby boosting party system polarization. A detailed analysis of selected austerity episodes also shows that new, small and radical parties benefit most from austerity policies. Finally, survey experiments with a total of 8,800 respondents in Germany, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom indicate that the effects of austerity on polarization are particularly pronounced when the mainstream right and left parties both stand for fiscal restraint. Austerity is a substantial cause of political polarization and hence political instability in industrialized democracies.
The rise of the knowledge economy has led to a bifurcation between prosperous, often urban, areas and “left‐behind” regions. While the literature has started to analyse the political implications of these developments for electoral behaviour and socio‐cultural attitudes, the structuring of social policy preferences by place remains unclear. Distinguishing between an economic (booming‐declining) and a geographic (urban–rural) dimension, I argue that differences in material self‐interest and ideological predispositions explain spatial divides in support for different types of social policies. Combining original survey data on voters' preferences with municipal‐level data in Germany, I show that general support for social policy is higher in declining than in booming regions. However, social investments (e.g., active labour market policies) are preferred over consumption policies (e.g., unemployment benefits) in booming and, to a smaller degree, in urban than in declining and rural regions. These findings contribute to a bigger discussion on compensating “left‐behind” regions. Die zunehmend wissensbasierte Wirtschaft hat zu einer Zweiteilung zwischen wohlhabenden, oft städtischen Gebieten und «abgehängten» Regionen geführt. Während die politischen Auswirkungen dieser Entwicklungen auf das Wahlverhalten und die soziokulturellen Einstellungen zunehmend analysiert werden, bleibt die Strukturierung sozialpolitischer Präferenzen nach Regionen unklar. Ich unterscheide zwischen einer wirtschaftlichen (Aufschwung‐Abschwung) und einer geografischen (Stadt‐Land) Dimension und argumentiere, dass Unterschiede im materiellen Eigeninteresse und in den ideologischen Einstellungen die räumlichen Unterschiede in der Unterstützung verschiedener Arten von Sozialpolitik erklären. Durch das Kombinieren von Umfragedaten mit Daten auf kommunaler Ebene in Deutschland zeige ich, dass die allgemeine Unterstützung für Sozialpolitik in ökonomisch rückläufigen Regionen höher ist als in boomenden Regionen. Allerdings werden soziale Investitionen (z.B. aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitik) in boomenden – und zu einem geringeren Masse in städtischen – Regionen gegenüber konsumtiven Maßnahmen (z.B. Arbeitslosengelder) bevorzugt; gegenteilig zu ökonomisch rückläufigen und ländlichen Regionen. Diese Ergebnisse tragen zu einer breiteren Diskussion über den Ausgleich für «abgehängte» Regionen bei. L'essor de l'économie du savoir a entraîné une bifurcation entre des zones prospères, souvent urbaines, et des régions « déconnectées ». La structuration des préférences en matière de politique sociale en fonction du lieu reste floue. En distinguant deux dimensions (boom économique – décroissance, et urbain – rural), je soutiens que les différences d'intérêt matériel et les prédispositions idéologiques expliquent les divisions spatiales dans le soutien à différents types de politiques sociales. En combinant des données d'enquête avec des données au niveau communal en Allemagne, je montre que le soutien général à la politique sociale est plus élevé dans les régions en déclin économique que dans les régions en plein essor. Toutefois, les politiques d'activation sont préférées aux mesures de consommation (par exemple, les allocations de chômage) dans les régions en plein essor, et dans une moindre mesure dans les régions urbaines. Ces résultats contribuent à un débat plus large sur la compensation pour les régions « déconnectées ».
Previous studies have shown that economic and political experiences influence the level of satisfaction with democracy; however, they fail to explain whether these experiences have the same effect for everyone, whether there is interindividual variance and where these differences might be rooted. In this article, we investigate these roots of interindividual variance and base our argument on the observation that early experiences in school are formative and influence the effect of economic and political experiences on satisfaction with democracy. We analyze an original representative dataset on the German population to test how school experiences, more precisely equal treatment in school, interact with economic and political experiences in later life and thereby influence satisfaction with democracy. We find that school experiences play a significant role here. Voting for the governing parties especially increases satisfaction with democracy if respondents were treated equally in school. Similarly, past experiences of unemployment in particular decrease people’s levels of satisfaction with the political system if they were not treated equally in school. The findings highlight that early experiences made in school can have a relevant influence on satisfaction with democracy in later life.
West European party systems have undergone a systematic realignment of party policy positions over the past several decades. The traditional economic cleavage that initially structured many of these systems is still important, and economic issues continue to define voters’ interests and needs. In addition, a new cultural cleavage has emerged, consisting of issues dealing with social equality, diversity, morality, and related topics. Using the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys (CHES) from 2006 to 2019, we track the evolution of party positions on both cleavages over time. These analyses show the emergence of far-right parties across Western Europe and their policy evolution over time. Far-right parties now generally represent centrist views on economic policy combined with starkly conservative positions on the cultural cleavage. We discuss the implications of these patterns for parties and voters in European party systems.
Some observers argue that right-wing populist parties improve representation because they speak for groups that are otherwise under-represented. In that sense, populist parties might prove beneficial for democracy. However, we lack empirical studies that support this claim. In this paper, we undertake a first step to fill this research gap. We analyse whether the electoral success of right-wing populist parties increases opinion congruence between citizens and members of parliament. Looking at the case of Germany, we will examine whether the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which first entered parliament in 2017, led to higher congruence between MPs and citizens. In our analyses, we use two waves of the GLES candidate study conducted in 2013 and 2017 and match those to representative surveys of the population. We use twelve items to measure opinion congruence before and after the AfD entered parliament. The analyses show that overall congruence has increased partly because AfD-parliamentarians’ views on migration compensate for the previous over-representation of more liberal positions of established parties. However, beyond immigration, congruence between the AfD parliamentarians and survey respondents is not particularly high.
The rise of the radical right fundamentally changes the face of electoral competition in Western Europe. Bipolar competition is becoming tripolar, as the two dominant party poles of the twentieth century – the left and the centre-right – are challenged by a third pole of the radical right. Between 2000 and 2015, the radical right has secured more than 12 per cent of the vote in over ten Western European countries. This article shows how electoral competition between the three party poles plays out at the micro level of social classes. It presents a model of class voting that distinguishes between classes that are a party's preserve, classes that are contested strongholds of two parties and classes over which there is an open competition. Using seven rounds of the European Social Survey, it shows that sociocultural professionals form the party preserve of the left, and large employers and managers the preserve of the centre-right. However, the radical right competes with the centre-right for the votes of small business owners, and it challenges the left over its working-class stronghold. These two contested strongholds attest to the co-existence of old and new patterns of class voting. Old patterns are structured by an economic conflict: Production workers vote for the left and small business owners for the centre-right based on their economic attitudes. In contrast, new patterns are linked to the rise of the radical right and structured by a cultural conflict.
The right-left dimension is ubiquitous in politics, but prior perspectives provide conflicting accounts of whether cultural and economic attitudes are typically aligned on this dimension within mass publics around the world. Using survey data from 99 nations, we find not only that right-left attitude organization is uncommon, but that it is more common for culturally and economically right wing-attitudes to correlate negatively with each other, an attitude structure reflecting a contrast between desires for cultural and economic protection vs. freedom. We examine where, among whom, and why protection-freedom attitude organization outweighs right-left attitude organization, and discuss implications for the psychological bases of ideology, quality of democratic representation, and the rise of extreme right politics in the West.
Citizen-elite congruence has long been considered an important yardstick for the quality of democracy. The literature on citizen satisfaction with democracy, however, has reduced congruence almost exclusively to one of its components, policy congruence. Just as citizens are considered to have positions on policy issues, there is growing scholarly interest in the preferences they have about the process of representation. Yet studies inquiring into the impact of the divergent preferences that citizens and elites have regarding the representational process thus far have been few and their results inconclusive. Combining new, unique data from the 2014 Belgian Election and Candidate Studies, we seek to address this lacuna. Our findings indicate that we cannot understand citizen satisfaction without also taking process into account—even as the policy gap has the greater effect. They should be of interest to scholars of democracy, those concerned about citizen disengagement from politics, and political practitioners.
What are the consequences of globalization for the structure of political conflicts in Western Europe? How are political conflicts organized and articulated in the twenty-first century? And how does the transformation of territorial boundaries affect the scope and content of political conflicts? This book sets out to answer these questions by analyzing the results of a study of national and European electoral campaigns, protest events and public debates in six West European countries. While the mobilization of the losers of the processes of globalization by new right populist parties is seen to be the driving force of the restructuring of West European politics, the book goes beyond party politics. It attempts to show how the cleavage coalitions that are shaping up under the impact of globalization extend to state actors, interest groups and social movement organizations, and how the new conflicts are framed by the various actors involved.
Do political institutions affect citizen satisfaction with democracy? If so, how? Using cross-sectional survey data for eleven European democracies together with data on the type of democracy in which individuals live, we demonstrate that the nature of representative democratic institutions (measured by Arend Lijphart's consensus-majority index of democracies) mediates the relationship between a person's status as part of the political minority or majority and his or her satisfaction with the way the system works. Specifically, we find that (1) the losers of democratic competition show lower levels of satisfaction than do those in the majority and (2) losers in systems that are more consensual display higher levels of satisfaction with the way democracy works than do losers in systems with majoritarian characteristics. Conversely, winners tend to be more satisfied with democracy the more a country's political institutions approximate pure majoritarian government.
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 data from the Comparative Manifesto Project and the 2009 European Elections Studies survey, and explore basic trends on party positioning since 1999. The dataset is available at the CHES website.
Previous authors have found greater political support among electoral winners than losers, but they define winners and losers at a single time point, and employ a dichotomous categorization that neglects possible variations within each group. This study considers both the past history of winning or losing and the impact of ideological distance from the government on a political support indicator – satisfaction with democracy. Using a multilevel model covering thirty-one countries, the authors show that the relationship between winner/loser status and satisfaction with democracy has a marginal dynamic nature and a policy content. Among present losers, previous experience of victory assuaged dissatisfaction, while among those presenting a consolidated ‘winning’ record, only high ideological proximity to the current government boosted political support.
Citizens can face a difficult electoral decision when no party even broadly represents their views. In Western Europe, this applies to those citizens with left-wing preferences on economic issues and traditional/authoritarian preferences on socio-cultural issues. There are many voters with such ‘left-authoritarian’ views, but few parties. Hence, the former often have to choose between parties that only match their views on one of these two ideological dimensions. This study shows that whether these citizens privilege economic or socio-cultural congruence in their electoral preferences depends on the issues they are concerned about. In general, it is found that left-authoritarians privilege economic concerns and therefore prefer parties that are left-liberal. These findings have implications for our general understanding of electoral choice and of changing patterns of political competition in Western Europe.
Kriesi et al. announced the birth of a new cleavage in contemporary Western Europe, one dividing the winners and losers of globalisation. Their studies in 2006 and 2008 contain analyses of party positions in six countries, based on the contents of editorial sections of newspapers. This article challenges the main conclusion of Kriesi et al. by demonstrating − on the basis of two expert surveys − that party positions are mainly structured by one dimension. The structure detected by Kriesi et al. in their analysis of parties is not found, except concerning voter positions. A consequence of this article's findings is that large groups of citizens are not represented by any parties, in particular those who are left-wing on socio-economic issues and right-wing on cultural issues. The article in its conclusion discusses possible causes for the differences between these findings and those of Kriesi et al., and the implications of these findings for democratic representation.
This study addresses the as yet unaddressed question of the nature of the effects of religiosity and authoritarianism upon endorsement of abstract democratic values. Findings obtained through the analyses of structural equations show that, despite the unsettled political and security atmosphere, Israelis believe in democratic values to a considerable extent. Furthermore, findings do not fully support the theoretical expectation that religiosity is likely to decrease support for democratic values; namely, in and of itself, religiosity has a negligible impact on endorsement of democratic values. Yet again, analyses lend credence to theory on authoritarianism—the negative effect of religiosity on endorsement of democratic values results from the mediation of authoritarianism. These findings are understood and discussed with regard to theoretical implications. The major conclusion, then, in contrast to existing assumptions regarding religiosity and negation of democracy linkage, is that religiosity cannot be considered the sole direct root cause of negation of democracy.
© 2003 Cambridge University Press Attitudes towards the political system have often been assumed to be stable attributes that are not easily influenced by short-term forces. We examine the extent to which attention to media coverage, campaign activity and electoral outcomes can mobilize support for the political system in the context of an election campaign. Using pre-election and post-election survey panels from the United States, Britain and New Zealand, we find only small shifts in aggregate measures of system support. However, we find that there are significant shifts in system support at the individual level that can be explained by status as election winners, attention to the media, particularly serious news coverage and economic perceptions. The results have implications for the debate over measures of system support such as trust, cynicism and efficacy. EU Fifth Framework Programme; Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
© 2008 Cambridge University Press Advocates of proportional representation (PR) often cite its potential for increasing citizen involvement in politics as one of PR's fundamental advantages over plurality or first-past-the-post systems. The assumption is that plurality electoral systems distort the translation of votes into seats, discouraging and alienating small party supporters and other political minorities. In contrast, PR systems are believed to provide greater opportunities for representation which are assumed to instil greater efficacy and increase participation. We examine this theory linking institutions to electoral participation across a diverse set of countries using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Using a multi-level approach we find evidence consistent with the expectations about the negative influence of disproportional systems on political minorities. Voters are also likely to have stronger partisan preferences in PR systems, which enhances political efficacy and increases voter participation. The effects of PR, however, are not all positive; broad coalitions, which are likely to be a feature of these systems, reduce political efficacy.
This book explains the contrasting strategies and their electoral fortunes of social democratic parties in the major European democracies in the 1970s and 1980s. Going beyond approaches that focus on the influence of class structure and political economic institutions, The Transformation of European Social Democracy analyses the party's competitive situation in the electoral arena, the constraints and opportunities of party organisation, and the role of ideological legacies to explain the strategic choices social democratic parties have made and the electoral results they have achieved. Far from being doomed to decline, social democracy's success depends on its ability to transform its political message and to construct new electoral coalitions.
How does the degree to which European citizens see themselves represented by political parties relate to their willingness to participate in an election? We argue that the closer citizens are to the parties running in an election in terms of the socio-economic left-right conflict and the European integration policy dimension, the more likely they participate in elections to the European Parliament. The analysis, which is based on the 2009 and 2014 European Election Studies datasets, indicates that the ideological left-right distance between citizens and parties mattered for participation in both EP elections under study. Moreover, the European integration dimension has become relevant for citizens’ turnout decision over the course of the European economic and sovereign debt crisis, but only in countries that are part of the Eurozone. These findings have implications for the nature of European elections and representative democracy on the European level, and indicate that missing policy responsiveness can lead to lower voter turnout.
This paper disentangles the relationship between election outcomes and satisfaction with democracy. As the first comparative study to employ a measure of satisfaction immediately before and after elections, we can be unusually confident that any changes we observe are attributable to election outcomes. Following previous work, we affirm that voting for parties that win more votes, more legislative seats, and more cabinet seats boosts satisfaction with democracy. In addition, we demonstrate for the first time that voters are sensitive to deficits in representation; satisfaction with democracy decreases when one’s party’s seat share falls short of its vote share.
In this article, we argue that authoritarianism will be associated with reduced political interest and participation to a greater extent among those who identify with the left rather than the right because left-leaning politics—which challenges the status quo—threatens more instability and flux. Using data from the United States, we provide evidence for this first hypothesis. Using multinational European data, we also provide support for a second hypothesis that this interaction would be more evident in “Westernized” contexts, where the traditional left-right difference is clearly defined, than in Eastern European countries, where its meaning is less distinct; and we conceptually replicate the authoritarianism results using a measure of support for “conservation” values favoring security, conformity, and tradition. Together, these results suggest that the lower visibility of left-wing authoritarianism relative to its counterpart on the right may be due in part to greater withdrawal from politics among lef...
Voters with lower socio-economic status are now consistently overrepresented among the radical right electorate. According to the ‘new winning formula’, many radical right parties increasingly move to the left on socio-economic issues to cater to these voters. This study tests a crucial assumption underlying this formula: whether radical right parties with socio-economically left-leaning positions actually attract more working class voters. By mapping class characteristics of the electorate of 10 radical right parties at three time points (based on surveys) against these parties' positions on the economic dimension (according to experts), this study shows that the ‘class gap’ - the extent to which class indicators predict voters' propensity to vote for the radical right - is significantly larger for socio-economically leftwing parties.
In the first comparative study of multidimensional government-citizen policy congruence, this article shows that citizens are less satisfied with democracy when their views differ from that of the government on policy dimensions beyond the general left-right axis. Satisfaction is reduced by a government that deviates on European integration and redistribution and partly also on social lifestyle, immigration and environmental protection. Furthermore, this analysis identifies the level of political interest as central moderator of this relationship. Satisfaction of citizens with stronger interest in politics suffers more when there is a politically distant government. Combining data from the 2010 Chapel Hill Expert Survey and two waves of the European Social Survey, the analysis builds on information on citizen-government policy congruence of some 45,000 citizens and 31 governments in 15 Western and Central Eastern European countries. The article brings a multidimensional perspective to the study of policy congruence between citizens and governments in a time when the preference structure of parties and citizens has become increasingly complex.
This paper analyses how disaffection with the EU influenced individuals' likelihood of turning out to vote and of casting a vote for a Eurosceptic party in the 2014 EP elections, and how these relationships were moderated by the Eurosceptic partisan supply of each country. We argue that the degree to which political parties oppose European integration, as well as the ideological leaning of Eurosceptic parties, should influence both the likelihood of disaffected citizens turning out to vote, and their likelihood of voting for a Eurosceptic party. Our empirical findings show that, in the presence of a party that is strongly opposed to European integration, disaffected citizens are more likely to turn out to vote and to vote for a Eurosceptic party provided that this party also shares their ideological leaning in the left-right dimension. These results indicate that Eurosceptic parties are important actors for the politicization of the European integration conflict and for the Europeanization of EP elections, but, at the same time, they suggest that opposition to European integration is subordinate to the traditional left-right conflict.
Many studies have found that political discontent and populist voting are positively related. Yet, an important shortcoming of these studies is that they interpret the correlation between these two phenomena as evidence that existing feelings of political discontent contribute to the support for populist parties. We argue that there is also a causal effect in the opposite direction: Populist parties fuel political discontent by exposing their supporters to a populist message in which they criticize the elite. Our study links individual level data on political discontent of voters to the populist message of the party they intend to vote for, employing various operationalizations of populism. Based on a 6-wave panel study from the Netherlands (2008–2013), we conclude that political discontent is both cause and consequence of the rise of populist parties. Our findings imply that the effect of political discontent on populist voting has been overestimated in many previous studies.
Ideological congruence is an important and popular measure of the quality of political representation. The closer the match between the preferences of the public and those of elected elites, the better representative democracy is thought to function. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to the effects of ideological congruence on political judgment. We address this gap by examining whether citizens use egocentric or sociotropic judgments of congruence to evaluate democratic performance. Using a variety of congruence measures, we find that citizens are unmoved by sociotropic congruence; however, our analyses provide clear evidence that egocentric congruence boosts citizen satisfaction, especially among political sophisticates. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the study of ideological congruence and political representation.
The use of wedge issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and immigration has become standard political strategy in contemporary presidential campaigns. Why do candidates use such divisive appeals? Who in the electorate is persuaded by these controversial issues? And what are the consequences for American democracy? In this provocative and engaging analysis of presidential campaigns, Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields identify the types of citizens responsive to campaign information, the reasons they are responsive, and the tactics candidates use to sway these pivotal voters. The Persuadable Voter shows how emerging information technologies have changed the way candidates communicate, who they target, and what issues they talk about. As Hillygus and Shields explore the complex relationships between candidates, voters, and technology, they reveal potentially troubling results for political equality and democratic governance. The Persuadable Voter examines recent and historical campaigns using a wealth of data from national surveys, experimental research, campaign advertising, archival work, and interviews with campaign practitioners. With its rigorous multimethod approach and broad theoretical perspective, the book offers a timely and thorough understanding of voter decision making, candidate strategy, and the dynamics of presidential campaigns.
Political parties are essential linkage mechanisms between citizens and the political system. We know less, however, about the question how this mechanism operates. While some authors assume it is sufficient that parties offer citizens ideological options about the way society should be governed, others indicate that parties provide strong ties to the political system by offering stable identities like party membership. In this analysis of the European Social Survey cumulative file (five waves, 2002–2010), we investigate the relation between party membership, closeness to a political party and trust in political institutions. While party membership is declining, its relation with political trust is limited. We do not find any indication that the decline of party membership could have a substantial effect on levels of political trust. Feeling close to a political party is more strongly related to political trust, even controlling for political interest. Results indicate that in most European societies levels of party closeness are stable. We conclude that political parties function as a linkage mechanism between citizens and the state, but that there is no reason to attribute a privileged role to formal party membership, as feeling close to a political party has a stronger linkage effect.
A variety of evidence from many countries suggests that low status and low education predispose individuals to favor extremist, intolerant, and transvaluational forms of political and religious behavior. The evidence includes reports from surveys concerning differential attitudes among the various strata towards democratic values, including civil liberties for unpopular political groups, civil rights for ethnic minorities, legitimacy of opposition, and proper limits on the power of national political leaders; psychological research on the personality traits of different strata; data on the composition and appeal of chiliastic religious sects; and materials bearing on the support of authoritarian movements. The factors operating to support this predisposition are all those which make for a lack of "sophistication," a complex view of causal relations, and heightened insecurity, both objective and subjective. These findings suggest that the success of the Communist Party among those of low status in poorer nations is positively related to its authoritarian character.
This study advances our understanding of "cross-pressures," a concept recognized in the earliest studies of American voting, but for which empirical evidence and theoretical development has been sorely lacking. Although the current consensus suggests that political cross-pressures are of little, if any, consequence for political participation, I find that people whose networks involve greater political disagreement are less likely to participate in politics. Two social psychological processes are suggested to account for this effect. First, those embedded in cross-cutting social and political networks are, as a consequence, more likely to hold ambivalent political views, which in turn discourage political involvement. Second, social accountability pressures in cross-cutting networks discourage political participation; the inherently controversial nature of politics is perceived to pose threats to the harmony of social relationships.
In a recent article, Michael Laver has explained ‘Why Vote-Seeking Parties May Make Voters Miserable’. His model shows that, while ideological convergence may boost congruence between governments and the median voter, it can reduce congruence between the party system and the electorate as a whole. Specifically, convergence can increase the mean distance between voters and their nearest party. In this article we show that this captures the reality of today's British party system. Policy scale placements in British Election Studies from 1987 to 2010 confirm that the pronounced convergence during the past decade has left the Conservatives and Labour closer together than would be optimal in terms of minimising the policy distance between the average voter and the nearest major party. We go on to demonstrate that this comes at a cost. Respondents who perceive themselves as further away from one of the major parties in the system tend to score lower on satisfaction with democracy. In short, vote-seeking parties have left the British party system less representative of the ideological diversity in the electorate, and thus made at least some British voters miserable.
Although the over-representation of working-class members among the electorates of Extreme Right Parties (ERPs) in Western Europe is well documented, previous studies have usually explained this pattern as a result of this voter group's changing political preferences. In contrast to these studies, this article argues that it is not the changing political preferences of the working class that lead them to vote for ERPs, but changes in the supply side of party competition that have caused the re-orientation of these voters from left-wing parties toward the extreme right. Differentiating between an economic and a cultural dimension of party competition, it is shown that both the policy options offered by parties to voters as the salience of the two issue-dimensions have changed dramatically over the last three decades. While the salience of economic issues as well as of party system polarization among these issues have declined in most Western European countries, the very opposite trend can be identified for non-economic issues, including the core issues of ERPs (for example, immigration, and law-and-order). These changes on the supply side of party competition cause working-class voters to base their vote decisions solely on their authoritarian, non-economic preferences and not – as in the past – on their left-wing economic demands. The theoretical assumptions are tested empirically with data from the Eurobarometer Trend File for the period from 1980 to 2002. In contexts where the economic dimension is more polarized or more salient than the cultural dimension, the positive impact of being a member of the working class on the vote decision for an ERP is significantly reduced.
This book shows that many ordinary people today are highly susceptible to hate literature and are psychologically disposed to embrace antidemocratic, facist policies. Many of our biggest problems, seemingly unrelated, are found to have common authoritarian roots. This book gives insight into how authoritarian minds are created and how they operate, and how their failings and vulnerabilities produce submission and aggression. A search for authoritarians on the left finds very few. Instead, studies reveal a strong concentration of authoritarians among religious fundamentalists and conservative politicians. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)(jacket)
Much of the literature on political representation provides empirical evidence that elections successfully link the policy preferences of citizens to the policy preferences of their representatives in parliament and to public policy. However, most of these studies are based on the congruence on the left–right dimension rather than on specific issues. Using empirical data from the Netherlands we show that on specific issues elections seem to fail as an instrument to connect the policy preferences of a large part of the electorate to the policy positions of their representatives because these issues are poorly related to the left–right dimension.
This article examines citizens who combine liberalism on one of two major issue dimensions with conservatism on the other, assessing whether they are less politically engaged than “consistent” liberals and conservatives and whether this relationship has strengthened over time with elite polarization. It also explores the contributions of cross-pressures, partisanship, and alienation to contemporary ideological differences in political engagement. This article departs from most existing research by defining ideology two dimensionally. Using the 1984-2008 American National Election Studies, it finds that culturally conservative, economically liberal Americans and to a lesser extent culturally liberal, economically conservative Americans are less engaged in elections than “consistent” liberals and conservatives. Different factors explain these differences with liberals and conservatives, but cross-pressures do not demobilize either “two-dimensional ideologue.” Over time, the increased involvement of liberals and conservatives has produced a growing ideological gap in political engagement.
This article approaches the question of turnout by focusing on the benefits term in the classic equation through an examination of the relationship between the quality of the choice environment, ideological proximity and participation in 28 democracies. Using data from the CSES (Comparative Study of Electoral Systems), I find that electoral contexts that feature choice-rich environments, measured both at the individual level by ideological proximity and the contextual level by the coverage of the ideological continuum, are associated with a higher probability that any single voter will participate in an election. These findings hold in the presence of individual and institutional controls, and are confirmed using both robust standard errors and against estimated variance in individual over-reporting of turnout.
From Stokes's (1963) early critique on, it has been clear to empirical researchers that the traditional spatial theory of elections is seriously flawed. Yet fully a quarter century later, that theory remains the dominant paradigm for understanding mass-elite linkage in politics. We present an alternative spatial theory of elections that we argue has greater empirical verisimilitude.
Based on the ideas of symbolic politics, the directional theory assumes that most people have a diffuse preference for a certain direction of policy-making and that people vary in the intensity with which they hold those preferences. We test the two competing theories at the individual level with National Election Study data and find the directional theory more strongly supported than the traditional spatial theory. We then develop the implications of the directional theory for candidate behavior and assess the predictions in light of evidence from the U.S. Congress.
According to modernisation theory, electoral participation should become less important in modern democracies. “Modern” citizens feel more capable of handling their own political affairs, thus they will decide for themselves when and how to get involved in political action, and consequentially will not automatically cast their vote. This view has in recent years often been rephrased into the expectation that electoral turnout in Western societies will decrease. However, this expectation is at odds with current knowledge about the development of the most important individual characteristic associated with electoral participation — i.e. the level of education — thus giving rise to a “puzzle of turnout”. This chapter addresses the turnout puzzle and provides an alternative explanation of varying turnout figures: the political context of the election. The political context (polarisation, degree of alienation and of indifference) is shown to account for trends and fluctuations in turnout in the six European democracies for up to 40 years.
Keywords: turnout, political involvement, puzzle of turnout
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/politicalscience/9780199273218/acprof-0199273219-chapter-3.html?q=Bernhard|Wessels#acprof-0199273219-chapter-3
We examine the effects of voting for the winners and losers of presidential and congressional elections on political trust. On the basis of survey and electoral data for 1972 and 1996, we argue and demonstrate empirically that presidential winner–loser status systematically affects citizens' trust in government. We find that voters for the losers of the presidential contest show lower levels of trust. Moreover, we find that voting for the congressional winners does not attenuate this effect. Political trust is highest among voters who voted either for both the presidential and congressional winners or the presidential winner and congressional losers; trust is lowest among those who voted for both the presidential and congressional losers or congressional winners and the presidential loser.
Elections constitute a principal avenue of citizen involvement in political life, and knowledge of their effects on public attitudes towards the polity and the role of the individual therein has important implications for theories of democratic governance. One sucli attitude is political efficacy, ‘the feeling that individual political action does have, or can have, an impact on the political process’. Although many studies have documented that political efficacy is positively associated with electoral participation, the causal mechanisms involved are not well understood. Most researchers have simply assumed that the ‘causal arrow’ runs from efficacy to participation, i.e. from the attitude to the behaviour. Investigations of the hypothesis that the behaviour (participation) affects the attitude (efficacy) are rare. Rarer still are enquiries focusing on the impact of election outcomes on efficacy, and studies that examine both effects are virtually non-existent. In this Note covariance structure analysis is used to investigate the effects of voting, campaign activity and the outcomes of the 1984 national elections on political efficacy in the American electorate.
It has been said about the United States that it is now suffering ‘a crisis of regime’. Europe, we have been told, is in little better condition: ‘all over Europe the First World War broke up the structure of society which, before 1914, had provided the necessary basis of confidence between government and governed. There no longer exists, except in a few places such as Switzerland, that general acceptance of the conduct of national affairs that adds to the vigor of government and society alike.’ ¹ These are the kinds of practical political problems to which the concept of political support, as found in systems analysis, has been directed.
Competing theoretical claims exist in the literature on the effect of proportionality on political trust. To date, empirical studies yielded mixed results. In this paper, we examine a curvilinear effect of the proportionality of election outcomes on political trust using data from the European Social Survey (2006–2009). The findings show that political trust is indeed highest in countries with very proportional as well as in countries with very disproportional election outcomes and lowest in countries that fall in between. Election outcomes that are more fully inclusive and those that provide more accountability can both lead to higher levels of political trust. Next to the proportionality of the translation of votes into seats, this study investigates a broad range of election outcomes that are associated with (dis)proportionality i.e. the effect of the number of parties in elections, parliament and government, voting for the winning or losing party under different levels of proportionality and the clarity of responsibility.
Over the past three decades the effects of globalization and denationalization have created a division between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in Western Europe. This study examines the transformation of party political systems in six countries (Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK) using opinion surveys, as well as newly collected data on election campaigns. The authors argue that, as a result of structural transformations and the strategic repositioning of political parties, Europe has observed the emergence of a tripolar configuration of political power, comprising the left, the moderate right, and the new populist right. They suggest that, through an emphasis on cultural issues such as mass immigration and resistance to European integration, the traditional focus of political debate - the economy - has been downplayed or reinterpreted in terms of this new political cleavage. This new analysis of Western European politics will interest all students of European politics and political sociology.
Here is the unabridged version of the classic theoretical study of voting behavior, originally published in 1960. It is a standard reference in the field of electoral research, presenting formulations of the theoretical issues that have been the focus of scholarly publication. No single study matches the study of The American Voter.