Pub Date : 2022-10-31DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2137310
David Schmuck, Lukas Hohendorf
Abstract In parliamentary systems, party leaderships accomplish party unity by promising positive incentives to their members of parliament (MP) and threatening them with negative incentives. Regarding reselection, ‘loyal’ and active MPs should be rewarded with promising list positions, while rebellious and ‘slacking’ MPs should be punished with worse list positions or even denied renomination. Although this assumption is central to explaining party unity induced by party discipline, empirical evidence for this practice has been scarce. The study combines data on roll-call voting, parliamentary speeches and questions in the German Bundestag from 1990 to 2017 with novel data on renominations including renomination failures. Investigating list position changes and renomination failures in the German mixed-member system, the results indicate that selectorates of list candidates punished dissenting voting behaviour, while selectorates of district candidates considered the degree of parliamentary activity. The findings have broader implications for the representatives’ accountability in parliamentary systems.
{"title":"Loyal lists, distinctive districts: how dissent-shirking and leisure-shirking affect mixed-candidate selection","authors":"David Schmuck, Lukas Hohendorf","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2137310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2137310","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In parliamentary systems, party leaderships accomplish party unity by promising positive incentives to their members of parliament (MP) and threatening them with negative incentives. Regarding reselection, ‘loyal’ and active MPs should be rewarded with promising list positions, while rebellious and ‘slacking’ MPs should be punished with worse list positions or even denied renomination. Although this assumption is central to explaining party unity induced by party discipline, empirical evidence for this practice has been scarce. The study combines data on roll-call voting, parliamentary speeches and questions in the German Bundestag from 1990 to 2017 with novel data on renominations including renomination failures. Investigating list position changes and renomination failures in the German mixed-member system, the results indicate that selectorates of list candidates punished dissenting voting behaviour, while selectorates of district candidates considered the degree of parliamentary activity. The findings have broader implications for the representatives’ accountability in parliamentary systems.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"1424 - 1450"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48394290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-17DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2132026
N. Charron, Jana Schwenk
Abstract High corruption perceptions among voters have been shown to have dire consequences for political participation, trust in institutions and ability to solve collective action problems. Research on corruption focussed on macro- and micro-level explanations to explain persistent corruption in developed countries. This article adds a new meso-level variable to the picture: party primaries. While until recently selection of candidates was the privilege of narrow party elites, many Western European parties have introduced primaries to select candidates for public offices. This study posits that this attempt at increasing intraparty democracy has negative consequences regarding corruption perceptions and suggests three mechanisms through which primaries increase corruption perceptions among supporters of parties that use them. First, primaries can be perceived as a means of ‘window-dressing’, second, primaries can suffer from vote buying, and third, candidates in primaries have incentives to campaign on anti-elitism to distinguish themselves from party elite candidates, increasing corruption salience. The theoretical argument is tested using a novel dataset on primaries in Spanish regions and corruption perceptions in a difference-in-difference design. The results support the hypothesis that primaries increase corruption perceptions among supporters of parties that use them and hint that this result is driven by the process of competitive primaries rather than a restriction of competition.
{"title":"Inclusive candidate selection and corruption: evidence from Spanish regions","authors":"N. Charron, Jana Schwenk","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2132026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2132026","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract High corruption perceptions among voters have been shown to have dire consequences for political participation, trust in institutions and ability to solve collective action problems. Research on corruption focussed on macro- and micro-level explanations to explain persistent corruption in developed countries. This article adds a new meso-level variable to the picture: party primaries. While until recently selection of candidates was the privilege of narrow party elites, many Western European parties have introduced primaries to select candidates for public offices. This study posits that this attempt at increasing intraparty democracy has negative consequences regarding corruption perceptions and suggests three mechanisms through which primaries increase corruption perceptions among supporters of parties that use them. First, primaries can be perceived as a means of ‘window-dressing’, second, primaries can suffer from vote buying, and third, candidates in primaries have incentives to campaign on anti-elitism to distinguish themselves from party elite candidates, increasing corruption salience. The theoretical argument is tested using a novel dataset on primaries in Spanish regions and corruption perceptions in a difference-in-difference design. The results support the hypothesis that primaries increase corruption perceptions among supporters of parties that use them and hint that this result is driven by the process of competitive primaries rather than a restriction of competition.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"1396 - 1423"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43759711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-17DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2126679
Sharon Baute, A. Pellegata
Abstract Since the Eurozone crisis, intense political debate has resurfaced about deservingness judgements in European solidarity. To contribute to this debate, this article proposes a refined concept of ‘multi-level blame attribution’. It postulates that public support for EU-level welfare policies crucially depends on how citizens attribute responsibility for economic outcomes across different levels of agency. Results from an original public opinion survey conducted in 10 European Union member states demonstrate that attributing blame to individuals decreases citizens’ willingness to show solidarity with needy Europeans, whereas attributing blame to the EU increases support. The role of attributing blame to national governments is dependent on the country context; beliefs that worse economic outcomes are caused by national governments’ policy decisions tend to dampen support for EU targeted welfare policies only in the Nordic welfare states. The article concludes by discussing the implications of multi-level blame attribution for the formation of public attitudes towards European solidarity.
{"title":"Multi-level blame attribution and public support for EU welfare policies","authors":"Sharon Baute, A. Pellegata","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2126679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2126679","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Since the Eurozone crisis, intense political debate has resurfaced about deservingness judgements in European solidarity. To contribute to this debate, this article proposes a refined concept of ‘multi-level blame attribution’. It postulates that public support for EU-level welfare policies crucially depends on how citizens attribute responsibility for economic outcomes across different levels of agency. Results from an original public opinion survey conducted in 10 European Union member states demonstrate that attributing blame to individuals decreases citizens’ willingness to show solidarity with needy Europeans, whereas attributing blame to the EU increases support. The role of attributing blame to national governments is dependent on the country context; beliefs that worse economic outcomes are caused by national governments’ policy decisions tend to dampen support for EU targeted welfare policies only in the Nordic welfare states. The article concludes by discussing the implications of multi-level blame attribution for the formation of public attitudes towards European solidarity.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"1369 - 1395"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42710110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-04DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2123095
A. Durovic
Abstract For the second time in the history of the Fifth Republic, the candidates of France’s former mainstream left- and right-wing parties were disqualified during the first round of the presidential elections. The repetition of the duel between Emmanuel Macron (centrist candidate) and Marine Le Pen (radical-right candidate) in the second round of the presidential election marks the durable transformation of the political space in French politics, an evolution that was already taking shape in 2017. The 2022 parliamentary elections confirmed the transformation and reconfiguration of the political landscape. Overall, the results of the elections in 2022 underscore major shifts in the party system as well as deep political fragmentations not only on the left but also, and in particular, on the right. Above all, the poor level of turnout in both elections reconfirms the considerable and enduring crisis of representative democracy in France.
{"title":"Rising electoral fragmentation and abstention: the French elections of 2022","authors":"A. Durovic","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2123095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2123095","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract For the second time in the history of the Fifth Republic, the candidates of France’s former mainstream left- and right-wing parties were disqualified during the first round of the presidential elections. The repetition of the duel between Emmanuel Macron (centrist candidate) and Marine Le Pen (radical-right candidate) in the second round of the presidential election marks the durable transformation of the political space in French politics, an evolution that was already taking shape in 2017. The 2022 parliamentary elections confirmed the transformation and reconfiguration of the political landscape. Overall, the results of the elections in 2022 underscore major shifts in the party system as well as deep political fragmentations not only on the left but also, and in particular, on the right. Above all, the poor level of turnout in both elections reconfirms the considerable and enduring crisis of representative democracy in France.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"141 2","pages":"614 - 629"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41284899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-29DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2110376
D. Traber, Lukas F. Stoetzer, Tanja Burri
Abstract Public opinion polarisation can impair society’s ability to reach a democratic consensus in different political issue areas. This appears particularly true when the polarisation of opinions coincides with clearly identifiable social groups. The literature on public opinion polarisation has mostly focussed on the US two-party context. We lack concepts and measures that can be adapted to European countries with multi-party systems and multi-layered group identities. This article proposes a conceptualisation of polarisation between groups in society. It presents a measure that captures the overlap of ideology distributions between groups. The two-step empirical framework includes hierarchical IRT models and a measure for dissimilarity of distributions. The second part presents an empirical application of the measure based on survey data from Switzerland (1994–2016), which reveals insightful dynamics of public opinion polarisation between party supporters and education groups.
{"title":"Group-based public opinion polarisation in multi-party systems","authors":"D. Traber, Lukas F. Stoetzer, Tanja Burri","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2110376","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2110376","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Public opinion polarisation can impair society’s ability to reach a democratic consensus in different political issue areas. This appears particularly true when the polarisation of opinions coincides with clearly identifiable social groups. The literature on public opinion polarisation has mostly focussed on the US two-party context. We lack concepts and measures that can be adapted to European countries with multi-party systems and multi-layered group identities. This article proposes a conceptualisation of polarisation between groups in society. It presents a measure that captures the overlap of ideology distributions between groups. The two-step empirical framework includes hierarchical IRT models and a measure for dissimilarity of distributions. The second part presents an empirical application of the measure based on survey data from Switzerland (1994–2016), which reveals insightful dynamics of public opinion polarisation between party supporters and education groups.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"652 - 677"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41853302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-29DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2114651
Tamaki Ohmura, David M. Willumsen
Abstract The literature on legislative voting either explicitly excludes free votes from its analysis, does not distinguish them from other recorded votes, or analyses only topic-specific subsets of them. This research note shows all three approaches to be problematic, and argues for a reconsideration of how free votes are approached in the literature. Drawing on a dataset covering all recorded votes in the German Bundestag (1949–2021), and analysing the topics, initiators and voting behaviour on all free votes held, it is shown that free votes are frequent, address a broad range of issues, and display substantial variation in legislative behaviour. Most importantly, there is a strong indication that free votes are held on topics on which parties refrain from taking a position. The findings have substantial implications for the study of parliamentary floor voting.
{"title":"Free votes and the analysis of recorded votes: evidence from Germany (1949–2021)","authors":"Tamaki Ohmura, David M. Willumsen","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2114651","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2114651","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The literature on legislative voting either explicitly excludes free votes from its analysis, does not distinguish them from other recorded votes, or analyses only topic-specific subsets of them. This research note shows all three approaches to be problematic, and argues for a reconsideration of how free votes are approached in the literature. Drawing on a dataset covering all recorded votes in the German Bundestag (1949–2021), and analysing the topics, initiators and voting behaviour on all free votes held, it is shown that free votes are frequent, address a broad range of issues, and display substantial variation in legislative behaviour. Most importantly, there is a strong indication that free votes are held on topics on which parties refrain from taking a position. The findings have substantial implications for the study of parliamentary floor voting.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"1205 - 1221"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49119744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-16DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2113219
Juliana Chueri, Anna Damerow
Abstract Although populist radical right-wing parties (PRRPs) are regarded as male-dominated, many have in recent years expanded their female electorate and reduced their electoral gender gap. Studies explain this trend as the result of a conscious strategy to target female voters through representation. This strategy is applied in both the descriptive and substantial realms, as PRRPs appoint female leaders and adopt relatively more progressive stances on gender, while still holding conservative, family-centred positions. However, the central question of whether and which of these strategies explain the closing gender gap in the populist vote has not yet been thoroughly comparatively examined. To answer this question, this study uses conditional logit models to explore the relationship between descriptive and substantial representation and women’s vote for a PRRP. The results show that a higher convergence between voter and PRRP positions on gender equality increases female votes for the PRRP. However, female descriptive representation does not prove relevant to explaining women’s vote for PRRPs. This has important implications for the literature on female representation in general, and women’s vote for PRRPs in particular.
{"title":"Closing the gap: how descriptive and substantive representation affect women’s vote for populist radical right parties","authors":"Juliana Chueri, Anna Damerow","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2113219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2113219","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although populist radical right-wing parties (PRRPs) are regarded as male-dominated, many have in recent years expanded their female electorate and reduced their electoral gender gap. Studies explain this trend as the result of a conscious strategy to target female voters through representation. This strategy is applied in both the descriptive and substantial realms, as PRRPs appoint female leaders and adopt relatively more progressive stances on gender, while still holding conservative, family-centred positions. However, the central question of whether and which of these strategies explain the closing gender gap in the populist vote has not yet been thoroughly comparatively examined. To answer this question, this study uses conditional logit models to explore the relationship between descriptive and substantial representation and women’s vote for a PRRP. The results show that a higher convergence between voter and PRRP positions on gender equality increases female votes for the PRRP. However, female descriptive representation does not prove relevant to explaining women’s vote for PRRPs. This has important implications for the literature on female representation in general, and women’s vote for PRRPs in particular.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"928 - 946"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44344109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-12DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2112482
M. Kaltenegger
Abstract In parliamentary democracies, the logic of delegation from voters to government requires that political parties control government actions. Recruiting government personnel through the party organisation is the primary mechanism for parties to retain such a dominance over the government. Existing research has examined secular trends and cross-sectional variance in ministers’ party ties, mostly focussing on appointments of party members to government office. By contrast, this article centres on the appointment of members of the party elite as a yardstick for party control over government. It explores short-term variance in the ‘partyness’ of appointments, arguing that performance-related shifts in the intra-party power balance condition party elites’ access to ministerial office. Utilising data on ministerial appointments in Austria (1945–2017; n = 603), the article demonstrates that successful party leaders can relax party control by minimising appointments of party elite members, while relatively unsuccessful leaders have to compensate party elites with government jobs.
{"title":"The intra-party bargain over ministerial appointments: how party leader performance affects the ‘partyness’ of government","authors":"M. Kaltenegger","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2112482","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2112482","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In parliamentary democracies, the logic of delegation from voters to government requires that political parties control government actions. Recruiting government personnel through the party organisation is the primary mechanism for parties to retain such a dominance over the government. Existing research has examined secular trends and cross-sectional variance in ministers’ party ties, mostly focussing on appointments of party members to government office. By contrast, this article centres on the appointment of members of the party elite as a yardstick for party control over government. It explores short-term variance in the ‘partyness’ of appointments, arguing that performance-related shifts in the intra-party power balance condition party elites’ access to ministerial office. Utilising data on ministerial appointments in Austria (1945–2017; n = 603), the article demonstrates that successful party leaders can relax party control by minimising appointments of party elite members, while relatively unsuccessful leaders have to compensate party elites with government jobs.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"1156 - 1177"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47728197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-16DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2097442
Tamaki Ohmura, S. Bailer
Abstract Why do women fail to rise in parties, especially youth parties? This analysis shows that female party members’ preferences regarding the purpose of a committee, networking and the election rule in party organisations differ from male party members’ which is likely a reason why women face challenges to rise in parties. This article investigates for the first time these gender based differences in preferences simultaneously by conducting a survey experiment with youth party members. Respondents (n > 1200) were asked if they would run for a seat in a decision-making committee of their youth party. In order to analyse which youth party members opt for which opportunities, the purpose of these committees, the networking opportunities they provide, and the election rule for these committees vary at random. The results show that female members hesitate to join committees that would grant them power, and that they are less likely to opt for upward networking opportunities than their male party colleagues. This effect is particularly strong in hierarchically organised youth parties of centre-right parties. Findings on preferred election rules mostly hold for women from left-wing parties. In contrast to men, this group prefers party quotas. Analysing differences by gender and political orientation, this article shows a clear gender preference gap exists both within and across youth parties.
{"title":"Power-seeking, networking and competition: why women do not rise in parties","authors":"Tamaki Ohmura, S. Bailer","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2097442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2097442","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Why do women fail to rise in parties, especially youth parties? This analysis shows that female party members’ preferences regarding the purpose of a committee, networking and the election rule in party organisations differ from male party members’ which is likely a reason why women face challenges to rise in parties. This article investigates for the first time these gender based differences in preferences simultaneously by conducting a survey experiment with youth party members. Respondents (n > 1200) were asked if they would run for a seat in a decision-making committee of their youth party. In order to analyse which youth party members opt for which opportunities, the purpose of these committees, the networking opportunities they provide, and the election rule for these committees vary at random. The results show that female members hesitate to join committees that would grant them power, and that they are less likely to opt for upward networking opportunities than their male party colleagues. This effect is particularly strong in hierarchically organised youth parties of centre-right parties. Findings on preferred election rules mostly hold for women from left-wing parties. In contrast to men, this group prefers party quotas. Analysing differences by gender and political orientation, this article shows a clear gender preference gap exists both within and across youth parties.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"897 - 927"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43873934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-10DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2095494
Vincenzo Emanuele, Marco Improta, Bruno Marino, Luca Verzichelli
Abstract Technocracy has recently triggered growing scholarly interest, especially as an alternative form of ruling to both party government and populism. In the context of weakened parties-citizens links and increasing external constraints faced by Western European ruling parties, technocratic appointments might help deal with the responsibility-responsiveness dilemma highlighted by Peter Mair. However, research on the explanatory factors of technocratic appointments is still underdeveloped. This article argues that the recourse to technocracy is fuelled by electoral volatility. In contexts of high electoral turbulence – and even more when parties frequently enter or exit the party system – ruling parties turn to technocratic appointments to dilute responsibility. This expectation is tested through an original longitudinal multilevel dataset including 655 cabinets and 373 elections in 20 Western European countries from 1945 to 2021. The findings of this article contribute to the current debate on technocracy and shed new light on the general understanding behind political representation.
{"title":"Going technocratic? Diluting governing responsibility in electorally turbulent times","authors":"Vincenzo Emanuele, Marco Improta, Bruno Marino, Luca Verzichelli","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2022.2095494","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2095494","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Technocracy has recently triggered growing scholarly interest, especially as an alternative form of ruling to both party government and populism. In the context of weakened parties-citizens links and increasing external constraints faced by Western European ruling parties, technocratic appointments might help deal with the responsibility-responsiveness dilemma highlighted by Peter Mair. However, research on the explanatory factors of technocratic appointments is still underdeveloped. This article argues that the recourse to technocracy is fuelled by electoral volatility. In contexts of high electoral turbulence – and even more when parties frequently enter or exit the party system – ruling parties turn to technocratic appointments to dilute responsibility. This expectation is tested through an original longitudinal multilevel dataset including 655 cabinets and 373 elections in 20 Western European countries from 1945 to 2021. The findings of this article contribute to the current debate on technocracy and shed new light on the general understanding behind political representation.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"995 - 1023"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43268484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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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