IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v104y2023i4p605-618.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Gidong Kim

Abstract

Objectives While some argue that parties reduce voter uncertainty to attract more votes, others claim that parties increase vote shares when beclouding their policy positions. To address the puzzle, I argue that as the degree of consensual characteristics increases, strategic uncertainty is electorally more helpful because parties in consensus models should consider the governing coalition and facilitate cooperation with other parties due to multiparty systems. Methods Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, I employ multilevel modeling to analyze 335 parties in 32 countries including both advanced and postcommunist democracies. Results I find empirical evidence that as the political institutions have more consensus models, it is more beneficial (or less costly at least) for parties to pursue voter uncertainty with broad appealing strategies primarily in advanced democracies. Conclusion The findings suggest that democratic institutional settings shape the incentives for parties to adopt either broad or narrow appeals in the context of party competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Gidong Kim, 2023. "Patterns of (party competition in) democracy: Voter certainty and party strategy in different institutional settings," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 104(4), pages 605-618, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:104:y:2023:i:4:p:605-618
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.13284
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13284
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.13284?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shane P. Singh, 2012. "Where Do Parties Live? Electoral Institutions, Party Incentives, and the Dimensionality of Politics," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 93(4), pages 950-967, December.
    2. Kedar, Orit, 2005. "When Moderate Voters Prefer Extreme Parties: Policy Balancingin Parliamentary Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(2), pages 185-199, May.
    3. Adams, James & Clark, Michael & Ezrow, Lawrence & Glasgow, Garrett, 2004. "Understanding Change and Stability in Party Ideologies: Do Parties Respond to Public Opinion or to Past Election Results?," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 589-610, October.
    4. Han, Kyung Joon, 2020. "Beclouding Party Position as an Electoral Strategy: Voter Polarization, Issue Priority and Position Blurring," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(2), pages 653-675, April.
    5. Gidron, Noam, 2022. "Many Ways to be Right: Cross-Pressured Voters in Western Europe," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(1), pages 146-161, January.
    6. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    7. Lanny W. Martin, 2004. "The Government Agenda in Parliamentary Democracies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(3), pages 445-461, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jelle Koedam, 2021. "Avoidance, ambiguity, alternation: Position blurring strategies in multidimensional party competition," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(4), pages 655-675, December.
    2. Luigi Curini, 2015. "Explaining party ideological stances," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 79-96, January.
    3. Michael K Miller, 2011. "Seizing the mantle of change: Modeling candidate quality as effectiveness instead of valence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(1), pages 52-68, January.
    4. Benjamin Michallet & Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta & François Facchini, 2015. "Greening Up or Not? The Determinants Political Parties’ Environmental Concern: An Empirical Analysis Based on European Data (1970-2008)," Working Papers 2015.25, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    5. Stefano Camatarri & Francesco Zucchini, 2019. "Government coalitions and Eurosceptic voting in the 2014 European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 425-446, September.
    6. Benjamin Michallet & Giuseppe Gaeta & François Facchini, 2015. "Greening up or not? The determinants of political parties' environmental concern: an empirical analysis based on European data (1970-2008)," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01154006, HAL.
    7. Samuel Merrill & James Adams, 2007. "The effects of alternative power-sharing arrangements: Do “moderating” institutions moderate party strategies and government policy outputs?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 413-434, June.
    8. Mostapha Diss & Eric Kamwa, 2019. "Simulations in Models of Preference Aggregation," Working Papers hal-02424936, HAL.
    9. Adam, Antonis & Ftergioti, Stamatia, 2019. "Neighbors and friends: How do European political parties respond to globalization?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 369-384.
    10. Paul Mitchell & Geoffrey Evans & Brendan O'Leary, 2009. "Extremist Outbidding in Ethnic Party Systems is Not Inevitable: Tribune Parties in Northern Ireland," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 57(2), pages 397-421, June.
    11. Jan Rovny, 2012. "Who emphasizes and who blurs? Party strategies in multidimensional competition," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(2), pages 269-292, June.
    12. Do Won Kim, 2020. "Populism Amidst Prosperity: Dimensionality, party competition and voter preference in the era of populism: The case of England, 2010-2017," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 160, European Institute, LSE.
    13. Ben Lockwood & James Rockey, 2020. "Negative Voters? Electoral Competition with Loss-Aversion," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(632), pages 2619-2648.
    14. Holger Reinermann, 2022. "Party competition and the structuring of party preferences by the left-right dimension," Rationality and Society, , vol. 34(2), pages 185-217, May.
    15. Benjamin Michallet & Giuseppe Gaeta & François Facchini, 2015. "Greening up or not? The determinants of political parties' environmental concern: an empirical analysis based on European data (1970-2008)," Working Papers halshs-01154006, HAL.
    16. Jae-Jae Spoon, 2012. "How salient is Europe? An analysis of European election manifestos, 1979–2004," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(4), pages 558-579, December.
    17. Tim Bale & Christoffer Green‐Pedersen & André Krouwel & Kurt Richard Luther & Nick Sitter, 2010. "If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them? Explaining Social Democratic Responses to the Challenge from the Populist Radical Right in Western Europe," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(3), pages 410-426, June.
    18. Abou-Chadi, Tarik & Krause, Werner, 2020. "The Causal Effect of Radical Right Success on Mainstream Parties’ Policy Positions: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 50(3), pages 829-847.
    19. Michallet, Benjamin & Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio & Facchini, Francois, 2015. "Greening up or not? The determinants of political parties’ environmental concern: an empirical analysis based on European data (1970-2008)," MPRA Paper 63335, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2015.
    20. Nils D. Steiner & Lucca Hoffeller & Yanick Gutheil & Tobias Wiesenfeldt, 2022. "Class voting for radical-left parties in Western Europe: The libertarian vs. authoritarian class trade-off," Working Papers 2207, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:104:y:2023:i:4:p:605-618. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.