Autore: Redazione CISE

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Autori: Sarah Botterman, Marc Hooghe

Acta Politica 47, 1-17 (January 2012)

Abstract

In this article, we investigate the impact of religious involvement on voting preference for the Christian Democratic party in Belgium. Although religious involvement is declining in Western European democracies, there is still significant evidence for the influence of religion on voting behaviour. We examine the relationship between individual religiosity, community religious involvement and vote preference for the Christian Democratic party in Belgium in 2009. The results show that a Catholic denomination is the most important predictor for vote preference for the Christian Democratic party, followed by church practice. The multilevel analysis demonstrates that this effect can be observed not just at the individual level, but also at the community level as inhabitants of communities with high levels of church practice are more likely to vote for the Christian Democratic party, even controlling for their own religious background and behaviour. Religion still plays a role in determining voting preferences, with the religious effect occurring simultaneously at the individual and the community level, although it is clear that the effect is much stronger at the individual level.

Full Text: https://www.palgrave-journals.com/ap/journal/v47/n1/full/ap201111a.html

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Autore: Ruth Dassonneville

Acta Politica 47, 18-41 (January 2012)

Abstract

In this article, we investigate voter volatility and analyse the causes and motives of switching vote intentions. We test two main sets of variables linked to volatility in literature; political sophistication and political disaffection. Results show that voters with low levels of political efficacy tend to switch more often, both within a campaign and between elections. In the analysis, we differentiate between campaign volatility and inter-election volatility, and by doing so show that the dynamics of a campaign have a profound impact on volatility. The campaign period is when the lowly sophisticated switch their vote intention. Those with higher levels of interest in politics have switched their intention before the campaign has started. The data for this analysis are from the three wave PartiRep Belgian Election Study (2009).

Full Text: https://www.palgrave-journals.com/ap/journal/v47/n1/full/ap201119a.html

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Autore: Peter Selb

European Journal of Political Research, December 2011

Abstract

How quickly, to what extent and under what conditions do voters and elites adapt to new electoral institutions in order to not waste their votes and effort on hopeless competitors? A latent-curve model of strategic adaptation is developed and fitted to district-level election data from Spain. The extent of strategic adaptation is generally found to vary with the strength of the electoral system. However, grave ethnic tensions are demonstrated to seriously retard adaptation even under favourable institutional conditions.

Full Text: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2011.02049.x/abstract

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Autori: Richard S. Katz, Peter Mair

Party Politics January 2012 vol. 18 no. 1 107-111

Abstract

A recurring problem in comparative politics is determining the extent to which models derived in one setting can be transferred directly to other settings. The original cartel party thesis was meant to account for developments that were beginning to be observed in the established democracies of western Europe in the 1990s. Many of the contemporary conditions that appeared to be driving those developments are to be found in other places, but of course preceded by quite different historical trajectories. The articles on parties and interest groups that are published in this special issue of Party Politics provide an important window on the question of how much historical processes can be compressed, or indeed of whether institutions and practices like the cartel party can be adopted (or to what extent they can be adapted) to new settings, irrespective of historical differences.

Full Text: https://ppq.sagepub.com/content/18/1/107.abstract?rss=1

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Autore: Richard S. Katz

Party Politics January 2012 18: 3-6,

Full Text: https://ppq.sagepub.com/content/18/1/3.full.pdf+html?rss=1

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Autori: Thomas Brauninger, Martin Brunner, Thomas Daubler

European Journal of Political Research, December 2011

Abstract

It is well known that different types of electoral systems create different incentives to cultivate a personal vote and that there may be variation in intra-party competition within an electoral system. This article demonstrates that flexible list systems – where voters can choose to cast a vote for the list as ordered by the party or express preference votes for candidates – create another type of variation in personal vote-seeking incentives within the system. This variation arises because the flexibility of party-in-a-district lists results from voters’ actual inclination to use preference votes and the formal weight of preference votes in changing the original list order. Hypotheses are tested which are linked to this logic for the case of Belgium, where party-in-a-district constituencies vary in their use of preference votes and the electoral reform of 2001 adds interesting institutional variation in the formal impact of preference votes on intra-party seat allocation. Since formal rules grant Belgian MPs considerable leeway in terms of bill initiation, personal vote-seeking strategies are inferred by examining the use of legislative activity as signalling tool in the period between 1999 and 2007. The results establish that personal vote-seeking incentives vary with the extent to which voters use preference votes and that this variable interacts with the weight of preference votes as defined by institutional rules. In addition, the article confirms the effect of intra-party competition on personal vote-seeking incentives and illustrates that such incentives can underlie the initiation of private members bills in a European parliamentary system.

Full Text: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2011.02047.x/abstract;jsessionid=6C17AA2739CE04FD90EEB1A75C37A9D3.d03t03

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Autori: Geoffrey Evans, James Tilley

British Journal of Political Science January 2012 42 : pp 137-161

Abstract

Why has the association between class and party declined over time? Contrary to conventional wisdom that emphasizes the fracturing of social structures and blurring of class boundaries in post-industrial society, it is argued here that class divisions in party preferences are conditioned by the changing shape of the class structure and the effect of parties’ strategic ideological responses to this transformation on the choices facing voters. This thesis is tested using British survey data from 1959 to 2006. We demonstrate that increasing class heterogeneity does not account for the decline of the class–party association, which occurs primarily as a result of ideological convergence between the main parties resulting from New Labour’s shift to the centre.

Full Text: https://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8444230

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Autori: Paolo Bellucci, Oliver Heath

British Journal of Political Science January 2012 42 : pp 107-135

Abstract

No consensus exists on the causal mechanisms underpinning declining voting based on social cleavages – religion and class – in Europe. Previous research has emphasized two main factors: social change within the electorate (bottom-up) and parties’ policy polarization (top-down). This article presents a third level of analysis that links parties and cleavage-related social organizations, producing a factor capable of reinforcing group identity and interest representation. This hypothesis was tested for Italy in 1968–2008, where changes in the party system provided a natural experiment to assess the impact of changing structural alternatives at the party–organizational level. The level of cleavage voting in Italy then responded primarily to changes in the structure of party–organization linkages, while the impact of policy mobilization and social change was negligible.

Full Text: https://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8444236

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Autori: James Adams, Catherine E. De Vries, Debra Leiter

British Journal of Political Science January 2012 42 : pp 81-105

Abstract

During the 1980s and the 1990s, the elites of the two largest Dutch parties converged dramatically in debates on income redistribution, nuclear power and the overall Left–Right dimension, paving the way for the Dutch party system’s polarization on immigration and cultural issues. Did the Dutch mass public depolarize along with party elites, and, if so, was this mass-level depolarization confined to affluent, educated, politically engaged citizens? Analysis of Dutch Parliamentary Election Study respondents’ policy beliefs and partisan loyalties in 1986–98 shows that the mass public depolarized during this period, and that this extended equally throughout the electorate. These conclusions mirror previous findings on Britain, but differ from those on the United States, and have important implications for political representation and for parties’ election strategies.

Full Text: https://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8444233