Where Do Parties Live? Electoral Institutions, Party Incentives, and the Dimensionality of Politics

Abstract

Objectives This study examines how electoral systems shape the underlying dimensionality of political discourse by incentivizing certain strategies among parties. Methods Cross‐sectional linear regression is used to examine how electoral systems affect dimensionality. The study provides an original measure of dimensionality derived from an empirical estimation of a spatial model of voter preferences over political parties. Data are from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Results The analysis indicates that electoral institutions strongly affect a nation's dimensionality, especially in socioethnically homogenous countries. Less proportional electoral systems engender a unidimensional political space. Results are robust across several model specifications. Conclusions Individuals and the media conceptualize government and ideology in dimensional terms. Moreover, much academic work assumes certain dimensional constructs. By testing theoretical predictions about electoral systems and political dimensionality, this study provides an empirical basis for such assumptions.

The Relative Importance of Self‐Focused and Society‐Focused Values in Explaining Political Attitudes in Europe

“…As social political attitudes are driven more strongly by conservation values (i.e., security, tradition, and conformity), this leads little room for power (which we have found to be more associated with economic policy) to play a role. In Europe, however, partly due to the historical centrality of the economic cleavage, and partly due to the greater dimensionality of politics afforded by more complex party systems (Singh, 2012), power as a value is still able to exert an influence on political attitudes.…”

Party system dimensionality and perceived quality of representation

“…Thus, according to this theory, the shape of political space is determined by the demand-side and all actors of a political system ‘live’ in the same space (cf. Singh, 2012).…”

Patterns of (party competition in) democracy: Voter certainty and party strategy in different institutional settings

“…Subsequent studies find that incentives from those institutional settings can shape not only strategic voting behavior (Cox 1997) but also the emergence of new political parties (van der Brug, Fennema, and Tillie 2005) and party extremism (Dow 2011). Scholars further show that different institutional settings affect political representation (Lijphart 2012), dimensionality of political space (Singh 2012; Williams and Ishiyama 2022), government responsiveness (Hobolt and Klemmensen 2008), and policy outcomes, such as economic growth (Knutsen 2011) and redistribution (Iversen and Soskice 2006). Likewise, although different institutional settings shape different incentives for parties to pursue strategic behavior, existing studies do not reach a consensus about when and why they adopt either broad or narrow appeals.…”