Revisiting Electoral Volatility in Post-Communist Countries: New Data, New Results and New Approaches

Abstract

This article provides a detailed set of coding rules for disaggregating electoral volatility into two components: volatility caused by new party entry and old party exit, and volatility caused by vote switching across existing parties. After providing an overview of both types of volatility in post-communist countries, the causes of volatility are analysed using a larger dataset than those used in previous studies. The results are startling: most findings based on elections in post-communist countries included in previous studies disappear. Instead, entry and exit volatility is found to be largely a function of long-term economic recovery, and it becomes clear that very little is known about what causes ‘party switching’ volatility. As a robustness test of this latter result, the authors demonstrate that systematic explanations for party-switching volatility in Western Europe can indeed be found.

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

“…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.…”

An initial profile of the ideologically volatile voter in Europe: The multidimensional role of party attachment and the conditionality of the political system

“…The suggested influence of the political system (through various mechanisms) on levels of volatility implies it is quite possible volatility indeed shows contextual patterns of variance, as also argued by some of the more recent literature (Dejaeghere and Dassonneville, 2012;Powell and Tucker, 2014). Yet, considering similar dealignment issues affect Europe altogether, it would be fair to argue the current political climate provides a favourable breeding ground for volatility.…”

“…condition) a voter's likelihood to develop a partisan identity and its subsequently effect on volatile behaviour (e.g. Mainwaring and Zoco, 2007;Dejaeghere and Dassonneville, 2012;Powell and Tucker, 2014). This study describes a country's institutional structure by means of its political system (see also Dalton et al, 2011).…”

Measuring Party System Change: A Systems Perspective

“…Is this also the case in other regions? In recent years, new tools have been developed to examine party system change in Europe (e.g., Bertoa and Enyedi, 2014;Chiaramonte and Emanuele, 2015;Powell and Tucker, 2013). It would be interesting to assess how fluidity index scores relate to results obtained using these indices.…”

“…It is the point of departure for theoretical studies (Mair, 1989a;Smith, 1989), and for empirical studies of system change in specific countries (Bardi, 2007;Mair, 1979Mair, , 1989bQuinn, 2013;Ware, 2009). The framework has influenced the design of quantitative indicators of system change (e.g., Bartolini and Mair, 1990;Bertoa and Enyedi, 2014;Chiaramonte and Emanuele, 2015;Pedersen, 1979Pedersen, , 1980Powell and Tucker, 2013). However, none of these indicators treats 'the system' as a distinct entity, which means they do not measure the magnitude of 'party system change' when this notion is understood in Sartori terms.…”