Parties and party competition

Question 1

Define what is meant by a political party

(READING)

Answer 1

a group of officials or would-be officials who are linked with a sizeable group of citizens into an organisation; a chief object of this organisation is to ensure that its officials attain power or are maintained in power” (Shively 2001)

Question 2

Explain Lipset & Rokkan’s (1967) cleavage model of parties READING

(Theories of parties)

Answer 2

Parties are formed and sustained by social cleavages
Parties are mass-based organisations
Parties appeal to and represent particular social groups.
Parties are primarily policy-seeking - and will not compromise on policy promises to win/remain in office

The prediction is the number of cleavages & number of crosscutting cleavages determines the number of parties
e.g.
One cleavage (class) - two parties (UK)
Two cleavage - no cross-cutting (class and religion) - three parties (Netherlands)
Three cleavages, some cross-cutting (class/religion/language - six parties (Belgium)

Question 3

Explain Down’s (1957) strategic actor model

(Theories of parties)

Answer 3

Parties are formed by like-minded politicians (pre-1988 both Labour and Conservative were looking similar)

Parties are elite organisations - who want to get into and stay in power for their gains
Do not appeal to groups but pivotal voters, who will help win elections

Parties are primarily office-seeking (to promote the interests of their leaders), and will compromise policy promises to win/remain in office (parties converge to the median voters to win the elections)

Prediction- Parties should converge on the “median voter”.

Question 4

Assumptions behind the Downsian Model

Answer 4

1. The credibility of party positional change - voters may find party commitment to a new position credible
2. No competition from third parties- if a party moves to the centre, it might be “outflanked” by other parties entering and competing for its voters (UKIP), making downsian model not a credible model for parties
3. Single policy dimension- if there is more than one dimension of political competition, then converging on the median is not a stable equilibrium.
4. Perfect turnout - what if people abstain if a party moves away too far from the ideal position? May be easier to win votes by “mobilising the base” than persuading voters to switch parties.

Question 5

How do you measure Party positions on the Left - Right dimension

Answer 5

1 - coding party manifestos - teams of people hand code each sentence in a party manifesto, and applying a method to work out the party position

2 - Expert survey - ask political scientists in a country to locate parties in a particular point in time on the left-right dimensions

3 - Analysis of parliamentary votes - look at how MP’s and parties have voted on specific policy issues and use these votes to locate parties in a multi-dimensional policy space

Question 6

Case study of coding UK party manifestos

Answer 6

• Looking at UK party manifesto data from 1945-2018
• We see patterns of convergence and divergence neither being consistent with Downes or Lipset & Rokkans model
• Looking in the 1950’s where Downes had written we see convergence around economic policy during the post-war era
• From the 1970’s we see divergence with Marget Thatcher moving economic policy further right with her goals of marketisation and privation
• In the late 1990’s - early 2000’s Tony Blair moves Labour party back to the centre in order to appeals to the median voter
• We see median voters in the UK moves slightly to the right and we see parties change their manifesto that way in order to appeal to them
• Both parties can explain parties convergence but at different time periods and under different conditions

Question 7

Case study of Convergence and Polarisation of US Parties using roll call voting

Answer 7

• looking at how different parties vote from 1870-2010
• Post civil war era we see a lot of divergence
• From the 1930’s we see a lot of convergence around economic issues with social issues becoming more salient
• From the 1980s, these parties have become the most polarised than ever before in US history
• This is partly due to the differences in preferences from voters about shifts in inequality within society

Question 8

How does Mudde (2004) define populism

Answer 8

Anti-establishment - believe society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups

‘Pub’ politics - simplistic politics to appeal to gut feelings

Opportunistic policies - aimed to please voters without concerns for the longer term quickly

Question 9

Case study on the rise of populist parties

Answer 9

Timbro Authoritarian Populism Index 2019

• populist parties have increasingly become more of an important part of European politics with 23%-25
  % of votes going to populist parties and 11 populists parties having a role in government within European

Question 10

Norris and Inglehardt (2016) explanation for the rise of Populist parties

Answer 10

Cultural backlash thesis
 Populist support can be explained as a social psychological phenomenon, reflecting a nostalgic reaction amongst older sectors of the electorate seeking a bulwark against value change
 There has been a substantial rise of tolerance amongst the younger cohorts and college educated living in Western societies for the expression of diverse forms of sexuality, identities etc.
 As post-materialism gradually becomes more numerous, they had brought new issues into politics, leading to a declining emphasis on social class and economic distribution and growing polarisation based around cultural issues and social identities
 These developments have triggered negative reactions among older traditionalists who felt threatened by the erosion of the values which were once predominant

Question 11

Seymour Martin Lipset (2000) - importance of political parties

Reading

Answer 11

• Political parties, are fundamental to modern democracy, as they create and sustain it.
• The existence of opposition parties restrains incumbents by seeking to reduce their resources and enlarge the rights available to those out of power, helping to establish democratic norms and values
• ## parties must cultivate a loyal base of supporters who consistently vote for them and identify with their political platform over time, this base of support should be deeply rooted in society, typically stemming from fundamental social, economic, cultural, or ideological cleavages within the population