Working through the issues: how issue diversity and ideological disagreement influence coalition duration

Greene, Zachary

doi:10.1017/s1755773916000114

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…Issue diversity likely matters for a range of political outcomes (e.g. Jennings et al 2011;Boydstun et al 2014;Greene 2016b). Incorporating research on issue diversity provides a means of characterizing political campaigns that may result in new approaches to the study of elections.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Being Heard above the Noise: The Role of Incumbent Issue Diversity in Election Campaigns

Greene

2018

Polit Behav

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Historical policy reputations influence voters' perceptions of parties' electoral campaigns. In the face of their recent experiences in office, government parties' thoughtfully crafted electoral messages likely compete for voters' attention with a wealth of broader information about the government's policy activities and priorities. For their message to be heard, incumbent parties must offer a focused policy message that draws voters' attention to the issues they most prioritize. Considering the issue scope of parties' electoral messages, I hypothesize that incumbency status determines the effect issue appeals have on the votes parties receive. Opposition parties may profit from including more issues, but incumbent parties' policy reputations limit the potential benefits from diverse appeals. Using evidence from 25 OECD countries over a 60 year period, I find that parties' incumbent status conditions the effect of issue diversity on parties' aggregate electoral success. Voters reward incumbents for focusing their platforms, but reward opposition parties for diverse appeals. The results for incumbent parties are robust to extensive sensitivity analyses. The theory and evidence broadly suggest that incumbent parties with more focused policy messages can, at least partially, overcome the weight of their past policy reputations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Being Heard above the Noise: The Role of Incumbent Issue Diversity in Election Campaigns

Greene

2018

Polit Behav

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“…Party family membership may serve as a proxy for the underlying cleavage structure of a niche, as party families tend to group together parties that mobilized in similar historical circumstances and had the intention of representing similar interests' (Gallagher et al, 1995: 181). Third, on the basis of the CMP, we again constructed an inverse Herfindahl measure that captures the density of the issue agenda within each niche (for more details on the exact calculation, see Greene, 2014). Theoretically, the resulting measure equals 1 if all parties competing in an election only emphasize one single issue -producing maximum concentration -whereas increasing values denote more issue agenda density.…”

Section: Operationalizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecologies of ideologies: Explaining party entry and exit in West-European parliaments, 1945–2013

Wardt

Berkhout

Vermeulen

2016

European Union Politics

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This study introduces a population-ecological approach to the entry and exit of political parties. A primary proposition of population ecology is that organizational entry and exit depends on the number of organizations already present: that is, density. We propose that political parties mainly experience competition from parties in the same ideological niche (left, centre, right). Pooled time-series analyses of 410 parties, 263 elections and 18 West-European countries largely support our expectations. We find that political parties are more likely to exit when density within their niche increases. Also there is competition between adjacent ideological niches, i.e. between centrist and right-wing niches. In contrast to our expectations, neither density nor institutional rules impact party entry. This raises important questions about the rationale of prospective entrants.

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“…Warwick (1994) argues that disagreement causes coalitions to terminate prematurely as they are incapable of developing legislation. Indeed, this relationship holds strongest empirically accounting for issue diversity in parties’ platforms (Greene, 2016).…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Ruling divided

Greene

Jensen

2017

Party Politics

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Abstract:Issue salience and ideological disagreement often predict coalition government behavior. However, research on portfolio allocation has yet to fully specify the complex relationship between issue salience, disagreement and coalition negotiations. Scholars treat issue salience and disagreement as distinct and disconnected, despite evidence that they work together and with conditional effects in a range of settings. Following a logic of portfolio trades or 'logrolls', we propose that the relative salience of issues and disagreements at the issue level within the coalition both moderate the effect of issue salience on portfolio allocation. Using data drawn from the Parliamentary Democracy Data Archive, we find compelling evidence for our theory that links party manifestos to portfolio allocation. Consistent with a story on the conditional effect of salience and disagreement, we find evidence that the effect of salience is mitigated by the extent of disagreement between coalition parties.

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Working through the issues: how issue diversity and ideological disagreement influence coalition duration

Cited by 18 publications

References 82 publications

Being Heard above the Noise: The Role of Incumbent Issue Diversity in Election Campaigns

Being Heard above the Noise: The Role of Incumbent Issue Diversity in Election Campaigns

Ecologies of ideologies: Explaining party entry and exit in West-European parliaments, 1945–2013

Ruling divided

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