Electoral Systems and Political Transformation in Post-Communist Europe

Birch, Sarah

doi:10.1057/9781403938763

Cited by 256 publications

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“…More specifically, our results have important implications for party strategies in relatively new democracies (Budge 1994;Laver 2005; see also Budge, Ezrow, and McDonald 2010). In these democraciescharacterized by unstable party systems (Birch 2003;Powell and Tucker 2013;Rose and Mishler 2010;van Biezen 2003;Tavits 2005), uncertainty about how election outcomes are translated into governing coalitions (Druckman and Roberts 2007;Grzymala-Busse 2001;Tzelgov 2011), and uncertainty about how governing coalitions formulate policy-citizens reward parties that present extreme party positions, because these parties are more successful at communicating clear policy stances than moderate parties. Given this, parties that want to maximize vote share are better off by adopting distinctly noncentrist policy positions in these systems.…”

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confidence: 79%

When Extremism Pays: Policy Positions, Voter Certainty, and Party Support in Postcommunist Europe

Ezrow¹,

Homola²,

Tavits³

2014

The Journal of Politics

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We argue that extreme positioning benefits parties in new democracies, because-given the lack of other reliable cues such as party histories-the distinctiveness of their left-right policy positions increases voter certainty about parties' identities and intentions in office. Cross-sectional analyses provide evidence that, in the new democracies of postcommunist Europe, parties that are farther away from the mean voter position gain more popular support than those moderately positioned along a policy continuum. In established democracies, by contrast, policy moderation increases popular support. We also find empirical support for the proposed causal mechanism that links policy positions to popular support via voter certainty. These findings have implications for party strategies, spatial theories, and our understanding of political representation in new democracies.E xisting cross-national research suggests that parties gain votes by adopting positions close to the mean (or median) voter's position (Alvarez, Nagler, and Bowler 2000a;Alvarez, Nagler, and Willette 2000b;Dow 2001Dow , 2011Schofield 2004; see also Schofield, Sened, and Nixon 1998a;Schofield et al. 1998b). 1 In this article, we argue that this relationship is less likely to hold in new democracies, where parties are, instead, more likely to be rewarded for extremism than centrism. Our argument, which we detail in the next section, builds on three central premises derived from the existing literature. First, parties with less ambiguous positions (i.e., positions about which voters, on average, are more certain) attract more electoral support. Second, centrist positions generate more ambiguity and voter uncertainty than noncentrist positions. Third, noncentrist or extremist positions are particularly effective in reducing voter uncertainty when other cues about party identities and intentions are absent, as is the case in new democracies.In order to test our argument, we conduct a macrolevel analysis of party positioning and election outcomes across 31 countries from 1996 to 2007. 2 Our study produces the following findings. First, with respect to the established democracies, we corroborate the findings of the existing studies of multiparty competition that parties receive a statistically significant electoral benefit from locating near the mean voter position. Second, in line with our theoretical expectation, we find that in the context of new, postcommunist democracies, parties receive an

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confidence: 79%

When Extremism Pays: Policy Positions, Voter Certainty, and Party Support in Postcommunist Europe

Ezrow¹,

Homola²,

Tavits³

2014

The Journal of Politics

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“…These elections brought new trends and phenomena to party politics in the Czech Republic, which had in many respects excluded them from the transformations of the party system between 1996 and 2010. They also transformed the Czech party system, which until then had been considered one of the most stable in post -communist Central and Eastern Europe by various domestic and foreign experts (see, e.g., Birch 2003;Deegan -Krause -Haughton 2010;Stegmaier -Vlachová 2011;Charvát 2012;Maškarinec -Bláha 2014 etc. ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Business‑Firm Parties and the Czech Party System after 2010

Just

Charvát

2016

Politics in Central Europe

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“…I would like to emphasize this difference. The last formula is the volatility of supply (like party replacement) which can be calculated by deducting the volatility of the existing parties from the overall volatility, so TV = Vp -Vd (Birch, 2003(Birch, ,pp. 119-124, Šedo, 2007Chytilek, Šedo, 2009. pp.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Party System of Slovak Republic and its Stability after 2010 and 2012 Elections in Comparative Perspective

Stískala¹

2012

Slovak Journal of Political Sciences

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The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the changes in the Slovak party system after the elections to the National Council in 2012. This study is divided into two chapters. The first one deals with theoretical constructions of the classification of the party system with special focus on the party system theory by Giovanni Sartori. After the theoretical introduction, the author is trying to apply this concept on the Slovak party system. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the evaluation of volatility applying the concepts of Sarah Birch, Maurice N. Pedersen, Richard Rose, and Neil Munro on the election results. In the conclusion, the presented calculations are used in comparison with the data from the 2010 elections to verify the hypothesis that the rising volatility constitutes a new milestone in the party system of the Slovak Republic.

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Electoral Systems and Political Transformation in Post-Communist Europe

Cited by 256 publications

References 0 publications

When Extremism Pays: Policy Positions, Voter Certainty, and Party Support in Postcommunist Europe

When Extremism Pays: Policy Positions, Voter Certainty, and Party Support in Postcommunist Europe

Business‑Firm Parties and the Czech Party System after 2010

Party System of Slovak Republic and its Stability after 2010 and 2012 Elections in Comparative Perspective

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