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Political parties are typically seen as conservative institutions which rarely change. Despite this common perception, parties do change, and on occasion, transform themselves by changing features such as the party name and logo, or their policy program. How can we conceptualize these kinds of changes, and what are the electoral consequences for parties which change in these ways? In this paper, I argue that feature changes and policy changes are instances of party rebranding, or situations where a party attempts to overhaul its entire image. I then test the electoral consequences of feature and policy rebrands on a dataset of 239 political parties from 1945 to 2019. The results indicate that feature rebrands increase party vote share for the election after the rebrand, while policy rebrands have no effect. These findings have implications for our understanding of parties themselves and the kinds of party signals that voters respond to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents news briefs on political science, political parties, practical politics, elections, and the cabinet system in Finland under Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen. Leehna Luhtanen is Minister of Justice while Susanna Huovinen is Minister of Transport and Communication. Strikes and lockouts in the pulp and paper industry dominated presidential campaigns.

Many previous theoretical analyses of multiparty coalition behaviour have been based either on one-dimensional policy model or on a constantsum game interpretation. For theoretical and empirical reasons this paper focusses on a competitive two-dimensional model. In this model parties are concerned with policy outcomes but choose party positions both with a view to electoral consequences and as a basis for coalition bargaining. The political heart is proposed as the set of possible coalition outcomes. The heart is either the core of the political game or is determined by a small number of party positions. Under certain conditions an equilibrium in the choice of party positions can be shown to exist. The model suggests that parties can be categorized as either strong or weak core parties, anti-core parties or peripheral parties. This categorization of parties implies a typology of party systems, which gives some theoretical foundation for the occurrence of minority, minimal winning and surplus coalitions in many of the European countries in the postwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years it has become increasingly difficult to maintain that the European party systems are stable and that they reflect the societal cleavage structures of the past. One developmental aspect of the party systems is singled out for description and analysis in this paper. It is argued that European party systems in terms of electoral volatility, i.e., rates of net change in the electorates, are drifting away from each other. Some of the party systems which have traditionally been considered volatile, apparently are becoming less so, while some other systems are taking on the character of highly volatile party systems. A simple set of hypotheses, based upon the notion of party space, is proposed in order to account for the variation observed. The data lend support to the hypothesis that electoral volatility is a function of the format of the party system and of short-term changes in that format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At first sight, the electoral systems in Denmark, Germany, South Africa and Sweden may seem different and an attempt to categorize them together odd. All four, however, belong to the same category, which Arend Lijphart calls 'proportional representation two-tier districting systems', and the effects of these systems on the proportionality of the representation of political parties are, indeed, comparable. The four electoral systems were the basis of their countries' general elections during 1994. The results of these elections are used for analyses and discussions of the relative importance of the differences which one also finds between them. The paper ends with an examination of the behavioural consequences of these institutional arrangements, which are also found elsewhere, i.e. in Estonia, Iceland, Norway and New Zealand (in the new electoral system currently being implemented there). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents evidence of initial steps taken since 1989 towards the enhancement of social democratic transnational party co-operation, manifesting itself on both a programmatic and an organizational level. To explain this development, a thesis based on the neo-functionalist logic of political spillover together with a theory of party change is presented. An emerging European-level presence is explained by increased EC policymaking since the adoption of the Single European Act, interacting with the internal preconditions for organizational innovation present in many social democratic parties. Evidence of such trends is then submitted, focusing on the French Socialist, German Social-Democratic and British Labour Parties; the European Parliament Socialist Group; and the Socialist transnational party federation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many previous theoretical analyses of multiparty coalition behaviour have been based either on a one-dimensional policy model or on a constant-sum game interpretation. For theoretical and empirical reasons this paper focusses on a competitive two-dimensional model. In this model parties are concerned with policy outcomes but choose party positions both with a view to electoral consequences and as a basis for coalition bargaining. The political heart is proposed as the set of possible coalition outcomes. The heart is either the core of the political game or is determined by a small number of party positions. Under certain conditions an equilibrium in the choice of party positions can be shown to exist. The model suggests that parties can be categorized as either strong or weak core parties, anti-core parties or peripheral parties. This categorization of parties implies a typology of party systems, which gives some theoretical foundation for the occurrence of minority, minimal winning and surplus coalitions in many of the European countries in the postwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis, country by country, of sympathy scores given by European party activists from 58 political parties in 11 countries of the European Community to more than 100 different national interest groups. In all countries but one, the left-right dimension is the predominant criterion for interpreting the sympathy scores given. In Belgium, the exception, a regional (Flemish-Walloon) cleavage line is most important. The analyses were performed with a new adapted version of the unidimensional Coombsian unfolding model. Bad fit to the unidimensional model is not remedied by postulating additional common dimensions, but by identifying and removing stimuli (interest groups) that do not conform to the unidimensional unfolding model. The nonrepresentability of these stimuli can be attributed to lack of agreement among activists about the location of these stimuli on the left-right dimension. More specifically, certain relatively popular stimuli are perceived by most respondents as close to their own location on the left-right scale, and, conversely, certain relatively unpopular stimuli are perceived by most respondents as distant from their own location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do political parties respond to external shocks? Using an original survey of political parties across Europe conducted in June 2020 and Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) data on partisan ideological positioning, we argue that the pre‐existing ideological stances of Europe's political parties shaped their response to emerging Covid‐19 policy issues, including the tension between economic normalization and containment, legal versus voluntary enforcement and the role of science in policymaking. We find that party ideology powerfully predicts how parties, both in government and in opposition, responded to the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains far‐right mobilisation in the protest arena? After decades of growing electoral support and policy influence, the far right is experiencing an increase in grassroots mobilisation. Scholars of social movements and political parties have devoted little attention to the determinants of far‐right protest mobilisation in Europe. In this article, we bridge previous research on the far right and social movements to advance hypotheses on the drivers of far‐right protest mobilisation based on grievances, opportunities and resource mobilisation models. We use an original dataset combining novel data on 4,845 far‐right protest events in 11 East and West European countries (2008–2018), with existing measures accounting for the (political, economic and cultural) context of mobilisation. We find that classical approaches to collective action can be fruitfully applied to the study of the far right. Cultural grievances, notably concerns about immigration, as well as the availability of institutional access points in contexts characterised by divided government increase far‐right protest mobilisation. But far‐right protest mobilisation also rests on the organisational resources available to nativist collective actors, that is, the network in which they are embedded, their visibility in the media and elected officials. These findings have important implications to understand far‐right success in advanced democracies. They show that far‐right mobilisation in the protest arena not only rests on favourable circumstances, but also on whether far‐right actors can profit from them. More broadly, the study links party politics and social movement research to grasp the far right's modes of political contestation, locating research on this phenomenon at the intersection of political sociology and comparative politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note reports on the 2002 and 2006 Chapel Hill expert surveys (CHES), which measure national party positioning on European integration, ideology, and several European Union (EU) and non-EU policies. The reliability of expert judgments is examined and the CHES data are cross-validated with data from the Comparative Manifesto Project, the 2003 Benoit-Laver expert survey and the 2002 Rohrschneider-Whitefield survey. The dataset is available on the CHES website. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emigrants' ideologies and partisan attitudes may diverge from other voters': overseas voters are ideologically self‐selected, receive distinctive information about campaigns and have experiences abroad that are likely to shape their political views. Parties, anticipating these emigrant attitudes, can manipulate overseas voting availability to give the vote primarily to their own supporters. Alternatively, parties may expect newly enfranchised voters to provide electoral support in gratitude for the right to vote. To distinguish these separate processes, this project undertakes a case study of Turkey to trace a ruling party's strategic expectations as it makes overseas‐enfranchisement decisions. To see how generalisable these results are, the study further extends to a statistical analysis of differences in vote choice between voters at home and abroad across all 23 European countries that report overseas votes separately, using an original dataset encompassing 121 elections. Both the case study and the statistical analysis suggest that emigrant‐enfranchising parties tend to garner overseas voters' support in a lasting way. This suggests that overseas enfranchisement most often appears to involve incumbent parties (correctly) expecting long‐term ideological compatibility with their overseas nationals, not simply exchanging the franchise for short‐term, transactional support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 70 per cent of the parties emerging in the post‐Second World War era failed to keep their seats in parliament. Party survival is an important issue, especially in parliamentary democracies, where parties are the means through which voters' preferences are linked to government policy outputs. Using an event history modeling framework, and data from 37 democracies, covering 830 parties, this article analyses two questions regarding party durability. First, when do parties fail? Second, which parties survive longer? The article shows that most parties fail at the beginning of their lifespan, and disappear before the end of their fourth term in parliament. Moreover, it is found that moderate policy position, distinct ideology and participation in governing coalitions increase the duration of party survival, even when controlling for party size. This article contributes to the extensive literature about the electoral benefits of ideological moderation and distinct policy positions by showing the long‐term benefits of these factors. Moreover, the long‐term benefit of party participation in government in terms of survival overcomes the short‐term cost of ruling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article explores whether differential time horizons in legislative chambers that result from staggered membership renewal affect legislative behaviour. The analysis focuses on patterns of bill initiation and the introduction of amendments in the upper chambers of Australia, France, Germany and Japan – all four of which contain two or more classes of members that face re‐election at different times. Drawing on original comparative data, clear evidence is found of over‐time variation in legislative activity levels in the upper chambers. Approaching elections lead to increased activity levels, with increases in the introduction of bills, but also, to a lesser extent, amending activity. Such variation is found not only for those members facing the most proximate election, but for all members of the chamber. Importantly, there are no significant differences in legislative behaviour between those members up for re‐election and those not facing the electorate in the most proximate election. These patterns are interpreted tentatively as evidence of the paramount importance of political parties in parliamentary systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Leaders and members of parliament serve as a political party's public face. Their image casts a shadow in which observers interpret policy statements. It is hypothesized in this article that media cover and voters understand policy messages through the lens of prominent party members’ characteristics. Easy‐to‐observe descriptive traits, such as gender or ethnicity, cue parties’ policy priorities. Media are more likely to emphasise party messages on issues historically related to these groups when they are visible in the party's public image. Hypotheses from this theory are tested using data on prominent party members’ descriptive characteristics, policy statements and media coverage of statements from the European Election Studies. Data from the 1999, 2004 and 2009 European elections evidence support for the theory. Parties with more female representatives signal stronger emphasis on gendered issues in media reports. The results hold implications for understanding the ways in which parties deliver and voters receive campaign messages. This research offers an explanation for voters’ limited knowledge of parties’ policy positions; media reinforce existing gender stereotypes and voters’ predispositions by selectively reporting policy statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Party politics and electoral research generally assume that party members are loyal voters. This article first assesses the empirical basis for this assumption before providing individual‐level explanations for defection. It combines prominent theories from party politics and electoral behaviour research and argues that internal disagreement and external pressure can each bring about disloyal voting. The hypotheses are motivated with multi‐country European survey data and tested on two sets of party‐level national surveys. The results show, first, that, on average, 8 per cent of European party members cast a defecting vote in the last election, and second, that dissatisfaction with the leadership is the strongest predictor of defection. Additionally, internal ideological disagreement is associated with higher probabilities of defection, whereas the effects of pull factors in the form of contentious policies are rather limited. These findings emphasise the importance of testing scientific assumptions and the potential significance of party leadership contests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Governments led by nonpartisan, ‘technocratic’ prime ministers are a rare phenomenon in parliamentary democracies, but have become more frequent since the late 1980s. This article focuses on the factors that lead to the formation of such cabinets. It posits that parliamentary parties with the chance to win the prime ministerial post will only relinquish it during political and economic crises that drastically increase the electoral costs of ruling and limit policy returns from governing. Statistical analyses of 469 government formations in 29 European democracies between 1977 and 2013 suggest that political scandals and economic recessions are major drivers of the occurrence of technocratic prime ministers. Meanwhile, neither presidential powers nor party system fragmentation and polarisation have any independent effect. The findings suggest that parties strategically choose technocrat‐led governments to shift blame and re‐establish their credibility and that of their policies in the face of crises that de‐legitimise their rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Which parties use simple language in their campaign messages, and do simple campaign messages resonate with voters’ information about parties? This study introduces a novel link between the language applied during election campaigns and citizens’ ability to position parties in the ideological space. To this end, how complexity of campaign messages varies across parties as well as how it affects voters’ knowledge about party positions is investigated. Theoretically, it is suggested that populist parties are more likely to simplify their campaign messages to demarcate themselves from mainstream competitors. In turn, voters should perceive and process simpler campaign messages better and, therefore, have more knowledge about the position of parties that communicate simpler campaign messages. The article presents and validates a measure of complexity and uses it to assess the language of manifestos in Austria and Germany in the period 1945–2013. It shows that political parties, in general, use barely comprehensible language to communicate their policy positions. However, differences between parties exist and support is found for the conjecture about populist parties as they employ significantly less complex language in their manifestos. Second, evidence is found that individuals are better able to place parties in the ideological space if parties use less complex campaign messages. The findings lead to greater understanding of mass‐elite linkages during election campaigns and have important consequences for the future analysis of manifesto data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Current comparative policy research gives no clear answer to the question of whether partisan politics in general or the partisan composition of governments in particular matter for different morality policy outputs across countries and over time. This article addresses this desideratum by employing a new encompassing dataset that captures the regulatory permissiveness in six morality policies that are homosexuality, same‐sex partnership, prostitution, pornography, abortion and euthanasia in 16 European countries over five decades from 1960 to 2010. Given the prevalent scepticism about a role for political parties for morality policies in existing research, this is a ‘hard’ test case for the ‘parties do matter’ argument. Starting from the basic theoretical assumption that different party families, if represented in national governments to varying degrees, ought to leave differing imprints on morality policy making, this research demonstrates that parties matter when accounting for the variation in morality policy outputs. This general statement needs to be qualified in three important ways. First, the nature of morality policy implies that party positions or preferences cannot be fully understood by merely focusing on one single cleavage alone. Instead, morality policy is located at the interface of different cleavages, including not only left‐right and secular‐religious dimensions, but also the conflicts between materialism and postmaterialism, green‐alternative‐libertarian and traditional‐authoritarian‐nationalist (GAL‐TAN) parties, and integration and demarcation. Second, it is argued in this article that the relevance of different cleavages for morality issues varies over time. Third, partisan effects can be found only if individual cabinets, rather than country‐years, are used as the unit of analysis in the research design. In particular, party families that tend to prioritise individual freedom over collective interests (i.e., left and liberal parties) are associated with significantly more liberal morality policies than party families that stress societal values and order (i.e., conservative/right and religious parties). While the latter are unlikely to overturn previous moves towards permissiveness, these results suggest that they might preserve the status quo at least. Curiously, no systematic effects of green parties are found, which may be because they have been represented in European governments at later periods when morality policy outputs were already quite permissive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses an issue previously neglected in the research on support for populist parties: How do perceptions of the local quality of government (QoG) and local service delivery affect voters' propensity to vote for a populist party? It argues that personal experience with poor QoG makes voters more likely to support populist parties. The argument highlights the interplay between supply and demand factors in explaining populist support and discusses why populist parties have been particularly successful in certain regions in Europe. A unique dataset from the Quality of Government Institute that surveys citizens' perception of QoG in their area is used to estimate both individual- and regional-level models of the link between perceived local QoG and populist support in Europe. The empirical results show a strong and robust association between within-country variation in QoG and support for populist parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When democracies ban political parties, one of the central issues that usually emerges in both public and academic debate concerns the effects of proscription. Some argue that proscription may lead to radicalisation, a growth of militancy and readiness to use violence. Others argue that, in the long run, banning parties may damage the foundations of a democratic polity as the ban may be interpreted as a silent weakening of democratic rights in the state and therefore a failure of democracy itself. However, and notwithstanding its centrality for the conduct of democratic politics, the impact of party bans on party system development has remained mostly under-researched. Trying to address this lacuna, and employing a new dataset of banned parties in Europe between 1945 and 2015, the study reported in this article compares the effects of party ban regulation on party system stability in three different arenas: electoral, parliamentary and governmental. In particular, the impact of party proscription on electoral volatility, fragmentation and closure is examined in three countries: Turkey, Germany and Spain. Using examples both at national and regional (e.g., Basque Country, Navarre, Saxony) levels, and making use of survey data when available, it is found that the banning of a relevant political party not only increases volatility and reduces fragmentation, but also alters the existing structure of competition at the time of government formation. Likewise, the empirical analysis also suggests a number of alternative hypotheses (i.e., organisational succession, electoral system) when trying to explain why the outcomes of some cases within each country deviate from theoretical expectations. Finally, the article also examines the phenomenon of 'non-banning' and how the failure of attempts to ban political parties might affect the development of a party system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How the recent creation, re-invention or reinforcement of regional levels of political decision making across Europe compounds political representation is one of the key issues of contemporary democratic government. Despite growing scholarly interest, the critical question as to whether the regional institutional setting has brought about distinct representational roles among sub-state legislators has yet to be addressed. To advance research in this field, this study bridges the literature on multilevel politics and legislative studies that to date have developed in isolation. Using innovative survey data from 14 statewide and 56 regional legislatures across Europe, it provides the first comprehensive test of how the state structure affects a legislator's views on representation. The results highlight that, relative to legislators in unitary states and national legislators in multilevel states, legislators at the regional level are more constituency-oriented. Moreover, this heightened responsiveness to constituents at the regional level is not offset by weaker collective representation operating through political parties. Beyond these findings' immediate relevance to scholars of federalism/regionalisation and parliaments, they also speak to the wider normative debate about the quality of political representation and public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classical outbidding model of ethnic politics argues that democratic competition involving ethnic parties inevitably leads to ethnic outbidding where parties adopt ever more extreme positions. However, recent small-N studies show that ethnic outbidding is only one of a range of strategies available to ethnic parties. This article seeks to explain why some ethnic parties are extremist, whereas others adopt moderate positions. Drawing on the ethnic outbidding and the nested competition model of ethnic party competition, it is hypothesised that the ethnic segmentation of the electoral market, and the relative salience of an ethnically cross-cutting economic dimension of party competition, account for the varying degrees of extremism. Hypotheses are tested drawing on a novel, expert-survey-based dataset that provides indicators for the positions of 83 ethnonational minority parties in 22 European democracies in 2011. Results of ordinary least squares and two-level linear regressions show that as the economic dimension gains importance, parties become more moderate relative to the party system mean. The electorate's ethnic segmentation has a positive effect on extremism, but this effect is not significant in all models. Contrary to expectations, higher ethnic segmentation of the party system is associated with more moderate positions in the majority of the estimated models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the collapse of party membership in the last half-century has consumed much of the focus of party scholarship, the notion of membership itself is surprisingly under-theorised. This article presents a tripartite framework for understanding party membership as a constructed concept: from the perspective of the state, the individual and the political party. As organisational mediators and strategic electoral actors, political parties construct varying notions of membership in order to mobilise resources and gain legitimacy, while balancing the participatory demands of citizens with the legal and normative expectations imposed by the state. Using a number of illustrative examples from Europe and beyond, the article analyses the development of supporters' networks and the extension of participatory opportunities to non-members. Designed in part to address this membership decline and to offer individuals a different way of engaging with political parties, these initiatives are seen as a crucial step in the evolution of modern parties towards looser, more individualised and amorphous networks of affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does voter polarisation affect party responsiveness? Previous research has shown that political parties emphasise political issues that are important to their voters. However, it is posited in this article that political parties are not equally responsive to citizen demands across all issue areas. The hypothesis is that party responsiveness varies considerably with the preference configuration of the electorate. More specifically, it is argued that party responsiveness increases with the polarisation of issues among voters. To test these theoretical expectations, party responsiveness is analysed across nine West European countries from 1982 until 2013. Data on voter attention and voter preferences with regard to specific policy issues from a variety of national election studies is combined with Comparative Manifestos Project data on parties' emphasis of these issues in their election manifestos. The findings have major implications for understanding party competition and political representation in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article systematically investigates interest group-party interactions in the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom based on cross-national surveys with responses from 1,225 interest groups. The findings show that interest groups and parties still interact in the beginning of the twenty-first century, but that the vast majority of their interaction involves a low degree of institutionalisation. Using fractional logit analysis, it is demonstrated that the strength of interest group-party linkage is primarily affected by systematic differences in state-society structures and organisational group characteristics. Moreover, differences are found in what conditions different types of interaction. Whereas historical legacies and partisan origin influence an interest group's structural party links, group resources make interactions of a less institutionalised, ad hoc nature more likely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The likely effects of the ongoing process of European integration on the internal workings of national political parties have hitherto attracted surprisingly little attention in comparative research. This conceptual article discusses how the increasing relevance of European-level decision making may have changed the balance of power within national political parties. It identifies two groups of party actors who are most likely to benefit from the process of Europeanisation of national political parties. First, the ‘executive bias’ of European Union (EU) decision making is likely to work in favour of party elites in general. However, while they may gain power in intra-party decision making, their control over the national policy agenda is likely to become increasingly eroded through a general shift of policy control to the European level. Second, EU specialists (i.e., those who specialise in EU affairs) are likely to have more access to resources and more control over policy decisions within national parties because of the growing importance of European integration. These propositions are discussed in detail and are then assessed with reference to the main findings from a major empirical study of the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents news briefs on political science, political parties, practical politics, and the cabinet system in Austria under Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel. Ursula Haubner is Federal Minister for Social Security, Generations and Consumer Protection. The right-wing populist Freedom Party split from the liberal-conservative Austrian People's Party as a consequence of internal crisis.

The article presents news briefs on political science, political parties, practical politics, elections, and the cabinet system in Estonia under Prime Minister Andrus Ansip. Edgar Savisaar is Minister of the Interior, Minister of Education and Research, and Minister of Social Affairs. Control of the Defense and Foreign Ministries were retained by the Reform Party.

The article presents news briefs on political science, the cabinet system, referendum, and political parties in the Netherlands under Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. Deputy Prime Minister is Laurens Jan Brinkhorst. Politician Geert Wilders used the momentum of his campaign against the European Constitutional Treaty to build his own political party, the Partij voor de Vrijheid.

Perhaps the strongest empirical finding in political science is ‘Gamson's Law’: the near-perfect relationship that exists in parliamentary systems between a coalition party's seat contribution to the government and its quantitative allocation of cabinet portfolios. Nevertheless, doubts remain. What would happen if the salience or importance of the various portfolios was also taken into account? Should it not be the case that payoffs correspond with bargaining power rather than seat contributions? And perhaps most significantly, would addressing these issues produce evidence that the parties designated to form governments extract disproportionately large payoffs for themselves, as predicted by ‘proposer’ models of bargaining? Utilizing the results of a new expert survey of portfolio salience in 14 Western European countries, the authors of this article explore each of these questions. Their basic finding is that salience-weighted portfolios payoffs overwhelmingly mirror seat contributions, contra proposer models and any other models based on bargaining power. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for formal models of bargaining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines party-based Euroscepticism in the candidate states of Central and Eastern Europe. In an attempt to develop comparative lessons from the different cases, it presents research into the location, electoral strength and type of Euroscepticism in the party systems of these countries. The data is then used to examine six propositions about the relationship between party-based Euroscepticism and left-right ideological spectrum, party position in party systems, public Euroscepticism, prospects for accession, ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Euroscepticism and state longevity. The article concludes that extending the scope of our study of Euroscepticism to the candidate states extends our understanding of Euroscepticism from its study in Western Europe and brings new insights into party systems in Central and Eastern Europe. It also offers clues as to some future effects of European Union enlargement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modem democracies political parties exist because (1) they reduce transaction costs in the electoral, parliamentary and governmental arenas and (2) help overcome the dilemma of collective action. In Western Europe political parties are the central mechanism to make the constitutional chain of political delegation and accountability work in practice. Party representatives in public office are ultimately the agents of the extra-parliamentary party organization. In order to contain agency loss parties rely on party-internal mechanisms and the institutionalisation of party rights in public rules and, in contrast to US parties, they apply the full range of ex ante and ex post mechanisms. Generally, the role of party is weaker the further down the chain of delegation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we address the question whether or not the votes for anti-immigrant parties can be considered as protest votes. We define protest votes by the motives underlying electoral choices, building on earlier research done by Tillie (1995) and Van der Eijk & Franklin (1996). That research showed that ideological proximity and party size are the best predictors of party preference. On this basis we designed a typology of motives for party choice and how these motives would manifest themselves empirically. Analyzing the 1994 elections for the European Parliament for seven political systems we show that anti-immigrant parties attract no more protest votes than other parties do, with only one exception: the Dutch Centrumdemocraten. Voting for anti-immigrant parties is largely motivated by ideological and pragmatic considerations, just like voting for other parties. In addition, (negative) attitudes towards immigrants have a stronger effect on preferences for anti-immigrant parties than on preference for other parties. Social cleavages and attitudes towards European unification are of minor importance as determinants of preferences for anti-immigrant parties. The overall conclusion is that a rational choice model of electoral behavior has strong explanatory power for party preferences in general, but also for the support for anti-immigrant parties in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some observers have held that political parties have been minor players in the process of European integration due to the low salience of the issue and the prevalence of intra party disagreement over European questions. Although recent scholarship and the rising salience of European issues have brought increased attention to the role of political parties, the study of the relationship between party positions and both public opinion and policy outcomes has been hampered by an absence of comparable data on party positions. This research note presents the findings of an expert survey on party positions on the issue of European integration. In addition to estimates of the parties' positions on the issue itself, this survey provides information on the importance of the issue of European integration to each party, and the extent of internal dissent within parties. The data also indicate that parties have, on average, become increasingly pro-European over the period 1984-1996. Both the salience of the issue of integration and the extent of intra-party disagreement have increased during this period. However, deep intra-party divisions appear less prevalent than commonly believed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deviation between party seat shares and party expected power in parliamentary winning coalitions is measured with a new formula. In analogy with electoral deviation, in which proportions of votes and proportions of seats for each party are compared, proportions of seats and the proportions of influence in parliamentary majorities for each party are compared. A new parliamentary power index, which can be applied to different criteria in coalition formation, is used for this purpose. Formal trends of parliamentary disporportionality are presented. An empirical application for real elections in the period 1972-1993 in five European countries with parliamentary regimes shows a positive correlation between electoral deviation and parliamentary deviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Values and ideologies seem to be changing rapidly in many countries of Western Europe. These developments imply a shift among the adherents of political parties. On the one hand, we expect to see a process of deideologization weakening the traditional ties between parties and their adherents. On the other hand, increasing pluralization is suggested by the ongoing process of individualization. In this study we analyze the orientations of the adherents of the main political parties in 12 Western European countries in the last two decades. We expect to find clear traces of ongoing deideologization as well as pluralization, but this expectation proves to be inaccurate. Neither deideologization nor pluralization can be accepted as a common feature of party adherents in advanced industrial societies. On the contrary. Each of these processes seems to follow a different path of development in distinct countries and in distinct party families. A general 'decline-of-the-party' or an 'end-of-ideology' is not to be found among the adherents of the main parties in Western Europe in the last decades. The processes appear to be more complicated, with divergent developments in different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the authors' views on political parties in European democracies since 1960-1990. According to them, there has been an organizational decline and a loss of organizational links which tie parties to electors. They say that raw membership count is one of the principal measures by which party membership strength can be assessed across national boundaries. They note that the pattern of party membership among the traditional liberal parties has also been erratic.

Central to the 'new politics' is the increased salience of non-material issues and a heightened concern with participation. 'New social movements' and 'new politics' parties are contingent manifestations of this new politics, which is also manifest in changed orientations toward established political parties. In most respects, the British appear no less well-disposed toward the 'new politics' than their European neighbours. Yet Britain is distinguished by the absence of either a radical ecology movement or a successful 'new politics' party. British exceptionalism is explained by institutional arrangements which constrain the environmental movement toward integration rather than opposition, and an electoral system which polarises political competition and inhibits the development of new parties. One consequence is the preservation of the Labour Party as a beneficiary of, and vehicle for, the expression of much political dissent. As a result, in Britain the 'new politics' is to an unusual degree combined with 'old politics'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has two aims. The first attempts to define the 'extreme right' political family. The three criteria adopted - spatial, historic-ideological, attitudinal-systemic - have led us to identify two types of the extreme right party. One type comprises parties with a fascist imprint (old right-wing parties); the other comprises recently-born parties with no fascist associations, but with a right-wing antisystem attitude (new right-wing parties). The second aim of this article is to explain the recent 'unexpected' rise of the new right-wing parties. Changes in the cultural domain and in mass beliefs have favoured radicalization and system polarization on one side, and the emergence of attitudes and demands not treated by the established conservative parties on the other one. These two broad changes have set the conditions for the rise of extreme right parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the ideology of Jon Pierre and the participants of the European Political Parties' Middle-Level Elites (EPPMLE) Project. The political actors in competitive democracies are found to be more involved in politics than mere voters. The project is created as an exploration of the whole series of different substantive curiosities. Pierre argues on the defining party activists, stating the standpoints and attitudes of a certain organisational stratum. He puts emphasis on commitments, beliefs, socio-psychological character of organisations and motivation.

During the last four years a research project has studied the 'Middle-Level Elites' of sixty European political parties. Like most previous studies in this area the main objective of the project was strictly party activists' attitudes: no attention was paid to their actual behaviour in the party organisation. Other studies of recent date indicate however that party activists, despite their often more radical or extreme stands on many issues, often submit to the authority and dominance of the party leadership in the intraparty policy-making process. Thus, attitudinal data seem to tell us very little about the actual behaviour of the party activists. The article first presents the results of some recent studies on the attitudes of party activists. Secondly. these findings are related to studies on the actual behaviour of the activists. When synthesising these different types of observations, we can develop a typology of intraparty conflicts, as well as one of party activist behaviour. Together, these two typologies represent different models of intraorganisational behaviour. Finally, by using empirical illustrations drawn from recent studies on party activist attitudes or behaviour, some hypotheses deduced from the theories of May, Hirschman and Michels are introduced to suggest paths for future research and to point to some of the most salient problems in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How proportional are the results of electoral systems designed to ensure proportional representation? How large is the deviation from proportionality for relative majority systems? Does a given system favor large, small or medium-sized parties? Are some parties consistently advantaged? Is the system predictable or erratic? Plotting the percentage of seats-percentage of votes ratio versus percentage of votes for all parties, is found to be a simple and yet powerful graphical method to answer such questions. Application of such "proportionality profiles" to West European multi-party systems leads to a typology of electoral systems based on their actual effect (rather than their formal procedure or intended effect). District magnitude, the number of rounds, and nationwide adjustment rules are found to be more important than formal seat distribution rules such as d'Hondt or Sainte-Laguë. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an overview of a project designed to simulate the distribution of seats in the European Parliament after the first direct elections in 1978. First, the data base and some basic assumptions are described which pertain to electoral systems, voter behavior, and realignments in party systems. Some illustrative results of simulation runs are summarized which proceed from voter preferences as expressed in the most recent national general elections in the nine member countries of the European Community. These findings are analyzed for individual parties and parliamentary fractions as well as with the chances for forming majority coalitions in mind. Finally, the effects of some likely shifts in voting patterns are considered assuming that current national electoral systems will be applied in 1978. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, party systems are classified by the number of parties they include. More recently their coalitional possibilities have been taken into account, even though policy positions of parties were ignored. Closed Minimal Range Theory holds that parliamentary coalitions in support of a government will consist of parties that are adjacent on an ordinal scale of social-economic policy positions, and will span a range, along that scale that is no larger than is necessary for the coalition in order to control a majority of seats in the voting body. This theory, which has achieved very satisfactory empirical results, allows the classification of parties according to the number of closed minimal range coalitions they are part of in a given situation. There is always a party that is a member of every such closed minimal range coalition; in actual fact such pivotal parties may maintain this position for very long periods and were found to be a member of the government in 104 out of 108 coalitions studied. Party systems may be classified according to the number of closed minimal range coalitions they present in a given situation and whether or not all parties are included in at least one such coalition. Coalitional situations in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden since 1918, and in Israel since 1948, Italy since 1945, in the French IVth Republic, and the German Weimar Republic are presented in a table and discussed briefly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies of European party systems have not taken into account fully the complexity and richness of party life on the continent. We need more multi-level, multi-dimensional analyses within a cross-national framework in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the relationships between parties, social structure and regimes. The discussion of some of the lacunae in the existing literature and of various ways of looking at political parties-emphasizes that because of the large number of alternative approaches available to the political sociologist, there is no single source of data, unit or level of analysis suitable for considering all facets of the subject. By crossing back and forth between levels or units of analysis, we may well gain in precision and detail what might be lost in methodological purity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an introduction to the July 1992 issue of the "European Journal of Political Research," that focuses on the extreme right-wing parties in Europe.