Pub Date : 2023-07-19DOI: 10.1177/13540688231187965
Thomas Legein
This article introduces the concept of bundle as a new powerful tool in the study of party reforms. The intensive and intricate nature of the engineering political parties undertake to preserve the status quo amidst a challenging environment tends to be obscured by the focus on their so-called ‘conservative nature’. Applied to the process tracing of a large sequence of reforms implemented by the Belgian French-Speaking liberal party (MR) between 2019 and 2022, the bundle concept provides the opportunity to go beyond the narrow vision of party reforms only defined and empirically studied so far through their type, size and success. I triangulate a variety of sources to uncover mechanisms through which a handful of key party actors - as powerful steering agents - perceive and translate environmental factors into specific reforms. The bundle analysis brings notably to light a key sequencing mechanism – a snowball effect – explaining how the sequence actually unfolded and fed on itself, challenging our hitherto accepted understanding of party engineering. This study also offers a transferable conceptual framework with valuable insights for wider use in the field, providing an avenue for theory building through causal analysis.
{"title":"Understanding how bundles of party reforms are shaped: A snowballing sequence in the French-speaking Belgian liberal party (MR)","authors":"Thomas Legein","doi":"10.1177/13540688231187965","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231187965","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces the concept of bundle as a new powerful tool in the study of party reforms. The intensive and intricate nature of the engineering political parties undertake to preserve the status quo amidst a challenging environment tends to be obscured by the focus on their so-called ‘conservative nature’. Applied to the process tracing of a large sequence of reforms implemented by the Belgian French-Speaking liberal party (MR) between 2019 and 2022, the bundle concept provides the opportunity to go beyond the narrow vision of party reforms only defined and empirically studied so far through their type, size and success. I triangulate a variety of sources to uncover mechanisms through which a handful of key party actors - as powerful steering agents - perceive and translate environmental factors into specific reforms. The bundle analysis brings notably to light a key sequencing mechanism – a snowball effect – explaining how the sequence actually unfolded and fed on itself, challenging our hitherto accepted understanding of party engineering. This study also offers a transferable conceptual framework with valuable insights for wider use in the field, providing an avenue for theory building through causal analysis.","PeriodicalId":48122,"journal":{"name":"Party Politics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44398739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-18DOI: 10.1177/13540688231189362
D. Albertazzi, Stijn van Kessel
Partisan dealignment in Western Europe has gone hand in hand with the decline of electoral participation and active membership in political parties. Yet political participation and activism are not necessarily a thing of the past, and scholars have for instance observed these characteristics in several contemporary populist radical right parties (PRRPs). Drawing on the analysis of 124 interviews with party representatives from four European PRRPs (the League, the Finns Party, Flemish Interest and the Swiss People’s Party), we ask what motivates PRRP elites to foster the creation of tight communities of activists. Three reasons appear to stand out: campaigning prowess (to gain public support); legitimising the party; and organisational survival. The final section offers reflections on the wider implications of our study and suggests avenues for future research, questioning the assumption that parties are necessarily and uniformly shifting away from activism and societal rootedness.
{"title":"Why do party elites incentivise activism? The case of the populist radical right","authors":"D. Albertazzi, Stijn van Kessel","doi":"10.1177/13540688231189362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231189362","url":null,"abstract":"Partisan dealignment in Western Europe has gone hand in hand with the decline of electoral participation and active membership in political parties. Yet political participation and activism are not necessarily a thing of the past, and scholars have for instance observed these characteristics in several contemporary populist radical right parties (PRRPs). Drawing on the analysis of 124 interviews with party representatives from four European PRRPs (the League, the Finns Party, Flemish Interest and the Swiss People’s Party), we ask what motivates PRRP elites to foster the creation of tight communities of activists. Three reasons appear to stand out: campaigning prowess (to gain public support); legitimising the party; and organisational survival. The final section offers reflections on the wider implications of our study and suggests avenues for future research, questioning the assumption that parties are necessarily and uniformly shifting away from activism and societal rootedness.","PeriodicalId":48122,"journal":{"name":"Party Politics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47629928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-18DOI: 10.1177/13540688231176976
Jinhyuk Jang
How are ministerial portfolios distributed among coalition parties in Asian-Pacific democracies? Studies of power-sharing in Asia tend to focus on democratization processes rather than executive cabinets, although government coalitions occur regularly in the region. Using an original dataset of governments in 27 Asian-Pacific democracies from 1945 to 2018, I examine the bargaining advantage of the formateur party - the party managing the government formation process - over other parties entering government. We know from existing studies, mainly on Europe, that government parties holding larger shares of legislative seats receive larger shares of cabinet posts. I argue that portfolio allocation also depends on institutional context, and use the substantial institutional variation across countries in my dataset to test implications of this argument. I find that formateur parties have a greater advantage over coalition partners in presidential systems than in parliamentary ones, but that this advantage diminishes as political constraints facing the formateur increase.
{"title":"Partisan distribution of ministerial portfolios in Asian-Pacific democracies","authors":"Jinhyuk Jang","doi":"10.1177/13540688231176976","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231176976","url":null,"abstract":"How are ministerial portfolios distributed among coalition parties in Asian-Pacific democracies? Studies of power-sharing in Asia tend to focus on democratization processes rather than executive cabinets, although government coalitions occur regularly in the region. Using an original dataset of governments in 27 Asian-Pacific democracies from 1945 to 2018, I examine the bargaining advantage of the formateur party - the party managing the government formation process - over other parties entering government. We know from existing studies, mainly on Europe, that government parties holding larger shares of legislative seats receive larger shares of cabinet posts. I argue that portfolio allocation also depends on institutional context, and use the substantial institutional variation across countries in my dataset to test implications of this argument. I find that formateur parties have a greater advantage over coalition partners in presidential systems than in parliamentary ones, but that this advantage diminishes as political constraints facing the formateur increase.","PeriodicalId":48122,"journal":{"name":"Party Politics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45863627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-17DOI: 10.1177/13540688231190048
Ville Aula, Vesa Koskimaa
This study analyses professional policy experts in political parties. While recent studies have described the characteristics of ‘unelected politicians’, the drivers for their emergence and impact on democracy have not yet been fully elaborated. We examine these aspects via Finnish party elite interviews (n=79). We challenge the traditional party professionalization narrative where parties’ increasing publicity management efforts diminish intra-party democracy (IPD) and parties’ political ambitions. We find that in addition to campaign, media, and democratic needs, political parties in Finland are concerned especially by their policymaking capacity that has shifted to experts of public administration and lobbyists, and which parties seek to strengthen with the recruitment of more political employees. This elevates the role of partisan policy professionals within political parties, a perspective that has been downplayed in party organisation literature. We call this the imperative of expertise and conclude that while it likely limits traditional IPD, it can improve representative democracy by enhancing parties’ policy control against the technocratic tendencies of contemporary democracy.
{"title":"The imperative of expertise: why and how the professionalisation of policymaking transforms political parties?","authors":"Ville Aula, Vesa Koskimaa","doi":"10.1177/13540688231190048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231190048","url":null,"abstract":"This study analyses professional policy experts in political parties. While recent studies have described the characteristics of ‘unelected politicians’, the drivers for their emergence and impact on democracy have not yet been fully elaborated. We examine these aspects via Finnish party elite interviews (n=79). We challenge the traditional party professionalization narrative where parties’ increasing publicity management efforts diminish intra-party democracy (IPD) and parties’ political ambitions. We find that in addition to campaign, media, and democratic needs, political parties in Finland are concerned especially by their policymaking capacity that has shifted to experts of public administration and lobbyists, and which parties seek to strengthen with the recruitment of more political employees. This elevates the role of partisan policy professionals within political parties, a perspective that has been downplayed in party organisation literature. We call this the imperative of expertise and conclude that while it likely limits traditional IPD, it can improve representative democracy by enhancing parties’ policy control against the technocratic tendencies of contemporary democracy.","PeriodicalId":48122,"journal":{"name":"Party Politics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48883322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-17DOI: 10.1177/13540688231190033
Dan Paget
Campaign costs have risen in Africa. I ask: what has driven this cost inflation? Studies of Western parties attribute it to campaign modernization as mediatization. Studies of African parties do not recognize this campaign advancement. They attribute these it to another cause: spiraling clientelism. I argue that there is a third, hitherto overlooked driver of such inflation and adaptation: the hybridization of rallies with capital-intensive practices. This capitalization of rally production amounts to an alternative form of campaign modernization which diverges from those found in the global north. I trace this process in Tanzania, but this theory has wider reach. Many African campaigns are rally-intensive and have fewer authoritarian retardants of party competition than Tanzania. This makes it likely that other countries’ experiences resembled or surpassed Tanzania’s in Africa and beyond. Altogether, I demonstrate that there is ongoing innovation at rallies which is driving significant rises in campaign costs.
{"title":"Capitalized rallies: Why campaigns costs are rising and rallies are hybridizing in Tanzania","authors":"Dan Paget","doi":"10.1177/13540688231190033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231190033","url":null,"abstract":"Campaign costs have risen in Africa. I ask: what has driven this cost inflation? Studies of Western parties attribute it to campaign modernization as mediatization. Studies of African parties do not recognize this campaign advancement. They attribute these it to another cause: spiraling clientelism. I argue that there is a third, hitherto overlooked driver of such inflation and adaptation: the hybridization of rallies with capital-intensive practices. This capitalization of rally production amounts to an alternative form of campaign modernization which diverges from those found in the global north. I trace this process in Tanzania, but this theory has wider reach. Many African campaigns are rally-intensive and have fewer authoritarian retardants of party competition than Tanzania. This makes it likely that other countries’ experiences resembled or surpassed Tanzania’s in Africa and beyond. Altogether, I demonstrate that there is ongoing innovation at rallies which is driving significant rises in campaign costs.","PeriodicalId":48122,"journal":{"name":"Party Politics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41747891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-15DOI: 10.1177/13540688231188479
Daniel Fittante
Scholars have identified the important roles personal characteristics — such as religion, gender, and race — play in influencing policymakers' position-taking behavior. One important yet overlooked personal characteristic is generation. This personal characteristic is not only influencing individual policymakers’ position-taking behavior; it is also changing some important political realities across Europe. An illustrative example of these changes is Finland's decision to join NATO. Based on documentary analyses of parliamentary speeches and personal interviews with Finnish officials, this article demonstrates that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine revealed already established, generation-based cleavages among MPs whose parties had long opposed the prospect of joining NATO. The speeches also reveal a dynamic and evolving orientation to the Baltic states among an emerging political cohort of Finnish MPs, who have been socialized in a fully EU-integrated Finland.
{"title":"Generation-based position taking: Unpacking Finland’s decision to join NATO","authors":"Daniel Fittante","doi":"10.1177/13540688231188479","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231188479","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars have identified the important roles personal characteristics — such as religion, gender, and race — play in influencing policymakers' position-taking behavior. One important yet overlooked personal characteristic is generation. This personal characteristic is not only influencing individual policymakers’ position-taking behavior; it is also changing some important political realities across Europe. An illustrative example of these changes is Finland's decision to join NATO. Based on documentary analyses of parliamentary speeches and personal interviews with Finnish officials, this article demonstrates that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine revealed already established, generation-based cleavages among MPs whose parties had long opposed the prospect of joining NATO. The speeches also reveal a dynamic and evolving orientation to the Baltic states among an emerging political cohort of Finnish MPs, who have been socialized in a fully EU-integrated Finland.","PeriodicalId":48122,"journal":{"name":"Party Politics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44068532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-14DOI: 10.1177/13540688231190047
Eoghan Kelly
This paper examines strategic voting at Scottish Parliamentary elections since 1999. The emergence of the pro-independence Scottish National Party as the dominant party in Scotland has forced unionist voters to carefully consider their options. Analysing differences between the simultaneous pluralist constituency ballot and proportional list ballot of Scotland’s Additional Member System provides a unique insight into how voter behaviour has changed in response to Scotland’s changing political reality. This paper finds that many unionist voters have put aside left-right rivalries to support fellow unionist candidates on the constituency ballot. This examination finds that Labour and Conservative voters are willing to work together, in some circumstances, to defeat a significant number of pro-independence candidates. I find that intra-unionist strategic voting helped prevent the separatist majorities in parliament in both 2016 and 2021.
{"title":"Unionist unity? Strategic voting at Scottish parliamentary elections","authors":"Eoghan Kelly","doi":"10.1177/13540688231190047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231190047","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines strategic voting at Scottish Parliamentary elections since 1999. The emergence of the pro-independence Scottish National Party as the dominant party in Scotland has forced unionist voters to carefully consider their options. Analysing differences between the simultaneous pluralist constituency ballot and proportional list ballot of Scotland’s Additional Member System provides a unique insight into how voter behaviour has changed in response to Scotland’s changing political reality. This paper finds that many unionist voters have put aside left-right rivalries to support fellow unionist candidates on the constituency ballot. This examination finds that Labour and Conservative voters are willing to work together, in some circumstances, to defeat a significant number of pro-independence candidates. I find that intra-unionist strategic voting helped prevent the separatist majorities in parliament in both 2016 and 2021.","PeriodicalId":48122,"journal":{"name":"Party Politics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47146673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-13DOI: 10.1177/13540688231185673
Charlotte van Kleef, T. Mickler, S. Otjes
This study examines how parliamentary party groups decide who speaks for them on specific issues in parliament. We build on three strands of the literature: the work on the institutional foundations of parliamentary speech; the literature on committee assignments in parliamentary systems which points to different rationales behind parliamentary specialisation and the division of labour; and the literature on issue competition. First, we expect that the party leadership will assign more speaking time on issues that parties ‘own’ to Members of Parliament (MPs) they favour. Second, we expect an informational rationale regarding the allocation of speaking time by which MPs speak on issues for which they have pre-existing expertise. Third, we expect MPs to speak on issues if they have ties to relevant constituencies outside parliament. We analyse a new data set of all speeches in the Dutch lower house between 1998–2017. The analyses point to the importance of two rationales in the allocation of speaking time: high-status MPs (reflected by their list positions) speak on issues that parties prioritise, and MPs speak on issues of which they have specialised knowledge. Our analyses shed important light on how parliamentary party groups (PPGs) function, specifically how they divide labour within their ranks.
{"title":"The partisan foundations of parliamentary speech. How parliamentary party groups decide who gets to speak for them","authors":"Charlotte van Kleef, T. Mickler, S. Otjes","doi":"10.1177/13540688231185673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231185673","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines how parliamentary party groups decide who speaks for them on specific issues in parliament. We build on three strands of the literature: the work on the institutional foundations of parliamentary speech; the literature on committee assignments in parliamentary systems which points to different rationales behind parliamentary specialisation and the division of labour; and the literature on issue competition. First, we expect that the party leadership will assign more speaking time on issues that parties ‘own’ to Members of Parliament (MPs) they favour. Second, we expect an informational rationale regarding the allocation of speaking time by which MPs speak on issues for which they have pre-existing expertise. Third, we expect MPs to speak on issues if they have ties to relevant constituencies outside parliament. We analyse a new data set of all speeches in the Dutch lower house between 1998–2017. The analyses point to the importance of two rationales in the allocation of speaking time: high-status MPs (reflected by their list positions) speak on issues that parties prioritise, and MPs speak on issues of which they have specialised knowledge. Our analyses shed important light on how parliamentary party groups (PPGs) function, specifically how they divide labour within their ranks.","PeriodicalId":48122,"journal":{"name":"Party Politics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49663330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-07DOI: 10.1177/13540688231188476
Ž. Poljak, A. Walter
Studies examining parties’ attack behaviour, also called negative campaigning, largely neglect temporal dynamics. Therefoe, this paper examines how the electoral cycle, the period between two elections, impacts parties’ attack behaviour in parliaments. We argue that parties attack all the time but that the (i) level, (ii) type, and (iii) nature of attacks are affected by the electoral cycle as parties adapt their objectives. Analysing longitudinal data on parties’ attacks in the parliaments of Belgium, Croatia, and the UK (2010–2020), we find that when elections draw closer parties’ use of attacks, trait attacks, and uncivil attacks increases. We also find support for the notion that not all parties’ attack behaviour is equally impacted by the electoral cycle, as parties differ in sensitivity to the electoral cycle based on risk acceptance. Overall, the impact of the electoral cycle on parties’ strategic choices in general, and attack behaviour specifically, should not be ignored.
{"title":"Parties’ parliamentary attack behaviour throughout the electoral cycle","authors":"Ž. Poljak, A. Walter","doi":"10.1177/13540688231188476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231188476","url":null,"abstract":"Studies examining parties’ attack behaviour, also called negative campaigning, largely neglect temporal dynamics. Therefoe, this paper examines how the electoral cycle, the period between two elections, impacts parties’ attack behaviour in parliaments. We argue that parties attack all the time but that the (i) level, (ii) type, and (iii) nature of attacks are affected by the electoral cycle as parties adapt their objectives. Analysing longitudinal data on parties’ attacks in the parliaments of Belgium, Croatia, and the UK (2010–2020), we find that when elections draw closer parties’ use of attacks, trait attacks, and uncivil attacks increases. We also find support for the notion that not all parties’ attack behaviour is equally impacted by the electoral cycle, as parties differ in sensitivity to the electoral cycle based on risk acceptance. Overall, the impact of the electoral cycle on parties’ strategic choices in general, and attack behaviour specifically, should not be ignored.","PeriodicalId":48122,"journal":{"name":"Party Politics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65466736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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