From Party Politics to Personalized Politics?

Abstract

The book examines two of the most prominent developments in contemporary democratic politics, party change and political personalization, and the relationship between them. It presents a broad-brush, cross-national comparison of these phenomena that covers around fifty years in twenty-six countries through the use of more than twenty indicators. It demonstrates that, behind a general trend of decline of political parties, there is much variance among countries. In some, party decline is moderate or even small, which may point to adaptation to the changing environments these parties operate in. In others, parties sharply decline. Most cases fall between these two poles. A clear general trend of personalization in politics is identified, but there are large differences among countries in its magnitude and manifestations. Surprisingly, the online world seems to supply parties with an opportunity to revive. When parties decline, personalization increases. Yet these are far from being perfect zero-sum relationships, which leaves room for the possibility that other political actors may step in when parties decline and that, in some cases, personalization may not hurt parties; it may even strengthen them. Personalization is a big challenge to parties. But parties were, are, and will remain a solution to the problem of collective action, of channeling personal energies to the benefit of the group. Thus they can cope with personalization and even use it to their advantage.

The Presidentialization of Political Executives

“…Specifically, they and most authors argue that personalization influences electoral campaigns, voting behaviour, and indirectly but importantly in the context of this chapter, the functioning of governments, and, therefore, of the pol it ical executive. For their part, Rahat and Kenig (2018) examine the cross-national vari ation in the levels and patterns of party change and political personalization. Reviewing the literature on per son al iza tion, Costa Lobo (2017: 159) reports that 'there is no strong trend towards personalization of party organizations, whereas in electoral behaviour the evidence points to the increasing use by voters of leaders as heuristics' .…”

The effect of voters’ economic perception, Brexit and campaigns on the evaluation of party leaders over time

“…Why do voters change their evaluation of party leaders? The electoral impact of voters’ evaluations of party leaders in parliamentary elections has been extensively covered (Aarts et al, 2011; Bittner, 2011, 2018b; Costa and Ferreira da Silva, 2015; Ferreira da Silva, 2018; Garzia, 2014, 2017; Lobo and Curtice, 2014; Mughan, 2015) and the influence of party leaders in elections may further increase as established democracies tend to become more and more personalised (Kriesi, 2012; Poguntke and Webb, 2005; Rahat and Kenig, 2018; Rahat and Sheafer, 2007; Wattenberg, 1991). Although it has also been argued that party leaders have always had an electoral impact (Bittner, 2018a).…”

Image that Matters: News Media Consumption and Party Leader Effects on Voting Behavior

“…Over the last two decades, the personalization of politics has attracted increasing interest among social and political scientists, particularly concerning its electoral face, that is, the impact of voters’ assessments of individual politicians on their voting decisions (Garzia 2017a, 2014; Holmberg and Oscarsson 2011; Karvonen 2010). Rahat and Kenig (2018: 121) argue that political personalization “implies a change in behaviours such as voting, which tends to follow the evaluations of leaders . .…”

“… 1. On these bases, this paper focuses explicitly on the micro-level behavioral dimension of personalization rather than on media personalization, that is, the degree of personalization in newspapers/television coverage (Rahat and Kenig 2018). …”