Party System Transformation and the Structure of Political Cleavages in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, 1967–2019

SOTA, CARMEN DURRER DE LA; Gethin, Amory; Martínez-Toledano, Clara

doi:10.2307/j.ctv209xnfn.10

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 15 publications

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“…More recent work of Hug and Schulz (2007) has shown that the ideological positions of Swiss parties are very stable over time. Scholars have also emphasized that-despite a certain shift in the cleavage structure (Kriesi, 2015)-the main division among Swiss parties has remained stable since 1960 and that the left has concentrated around the SP and GPS (Durrer de la Sota et al, 2021). Thus, voters who identify with one of the two main left parties are likely to negatively portray the two most prominent parties of the right (the FDP and SVP).…”

Section: Evidence On Negative Party Cues From Observational Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative Party Identification and the Use of Party Cues in the Direct Democratic Context

Walder

Strijbis²

2022

PaG

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The use of party cues is a fundamental process of how voters adopt policy preferences. While research has shown that party identification is an important driver of political attitudes in general and policy positions in particular, we know little about how negative party identification (identifying as an opponent to a party) impacts voters’ political preferences. This article aims to fill this gap in the literature by combining an experimental and observational empirical analysis of the effect of negative party identification on voters’ issue preferences in the context of direct democratic decision‐making. First, we analyze a survey experiment conducted during a real‐world campaign on affordable housing for a popular ballot in Switzerland. Using continuous measures of party identification, we show a causal relationship between negative party identification and voters’ policy preferences. Second, we use longitudinal observational data of vote choice on direct democratic policy proposals and show that voters adopt policy preferences that contrast with the policy positions of parties they oppose. In sum, the two complementary designs show that voters tend to position themselves not only in alignment with their preferred parties but also in opposition to parties with which they negatively identify. Furthermore, the results indicate that, when adopting policy preferences, negative cues may carry as much weight as positive party cues. Our analysis has important implications for understanding voters’ adoption of policy preferences in general and specifically in the direct democratic context.

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Section: Evidence On Negative Party Cues From Observational Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative Party Identification and the Use of Party Cues in the Direct Democratic Context

Walder

Strijbis²

2022

PaG

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Introduction: The German Federal Election 2021—Negotiating a New Era

Campbell,

Davidson-Schmich

2023

New Perspectives in German Political Studies

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Brahmin Left Versus Merchant Right: Changing Political Cleavages in 21 Western Democracies, 1948–2020

Gethin

Martínez-Toledano

Piketty

2021

The Quarterly Journal of Economics

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114

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This article sheds new light on the long-run evolution of political cleavages in 21 Western democracies. We exploit a new database on the socioeconomic determinants of the vote, covering over 300 elections held between 1948 and 2020. In the 1950s and 1960s, the vote for social democratic, socialist, and affiliated parties was associated with lower-educated and low-income voters. It has gradually become associated with higher-educated voters, giving rise in the 2010s to a disconnection between the effects of income and education on the vote: higher-educated voters now vote for the “left,” while high-income voters continue to vote for the “right.” This transition has been accelerated by the rise of green and anti-immigration movements, whose distinctive feature is to concentrate the votes of the higher-educated and lower-educated electorates. Combining our database with historical data on political parties’ programs, we provide evidence that the reversal of the education cleavage is strongly linked to the emergence of a new “sociocultural” axis of political conflict.

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Party System Transformation and the Structure of Political Cleavages in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, 1967–2019

Cited by 4 publications

References 15 publications

Negative Party Identification and the Use of Party Cues in the Direct Democratic Context

Negative Party Identification and the Use of Party Cues in the Direct Democratic Context

Introduction: The German Federal Election 2021—Negotiating a New Era

Brahmin Left Versus Merchant Right: Changing Political Cleavages in 21 Western Democracies, 1948–2020

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