5. Political parties - polarization or convergence?

Question 1

What are political parties

Answer 1

• People united together
• Shared set of beliefs
• To compete for political power and provide public goods in the form of policies

Question 2

What are common criticisms of political parties

Answer 2

• Only concerned with advancing one specific part of the general will
• Prevent individual politicians from representing their constituents interests

Question 3

What are the benefits of political parties

Answer 3

• Reduces information cost for voters
• Alloes voters to hold a collective of politicians to account
• Parties recruit and train leaders
• Allows for coordinated collective action across a range of isseus to produce coherent programmes of government

Question 4

How can you measure the number of parties

Answer 4

Laakso and Taagepera developed an equation

Effective number of parties

• Parties that are electorally successful versus those that rarely win votes or seats

Question 5

Why is it useful to know the number of effective parties

Answer 5

Used as a method of classifying democracies

• Autocratic
  
  • Non-partisan - no official parties
  • Single-party - only one party is legally allowed to hold power
• Democratic
  
  • One-party dominant - only one party has a realistic chance of winning
  • Two-party dominant - only two major parties have a realistic chance
  • Multi-party - more than two parteis have a realistic chance of winning

Question 6

How does the cleavage model explain party behaviour

Answer 6

• Deep rooted social divisions structure political conflict within societies
• Parties form to represent these divisions
• Parties are primarily motivated by the pursuit of policy and are unlikely to compromise on their policy goals to win or remain in office
• Possible to predict the number of parties by the number of cleavages
  
  • 1 cleavage (working class vs elites)
  • 2 political parties

Question 7

Describe how the cleavages model helps explain the breakdown of political parties in Belgium

Answer 7

• Multiple cross cutting cleavages (class, religion, language)
• Result is 6 major parties
• This has made Belgium almost ungovernable at times

Question 8

Describe party families in Europe

Answer 8

European countries are composed of parties taht fit into a broad series of party families

Regadless of electoral system, these parties always seem to be represented since the 1920s

• Radical left - low skilled owrking class, students
• Greens - public sector middle class, students
• Social democrats - skilled working class, public sector middle class
• Liberals - private sector middle class, small business-people
• Christian democrats - religious working and middle class
• Conservatives - private sector middle class, small business-people, farmers
• Radical right - unemployed, low skilled working class
• Regionalists (left or right) - ethno-linguistic minorities
• Anti-Europeans (left or right) - low-skilled working class, small business-people

Question 9

Who developed the Strateic Actor theory

Answer 9

Anthony Downs

Question 10

Describe the Strategic Actor model

Answer 10

• Each political party is a team who seek office solely in order to enjoy the income, prestige and power
• Policy is viewed as a tool
• Parties are willing to change policies if it will increase their chances of gaining or retaining power
• They are more likely to appeal to pivotal voters rather than a specific social group as a whole

Question 11

What is Downs’ theory of party convergence

Answer 11

Downs predicts that parties will converge on the median voter to maximize voteshare

Question 12

What are the main criticisms of the theory of party convergence

Answer 12

• Only works if there is only one dimension on which parties compete
• If there is more than one then converging on the median voter does’t provide equalibrium
• Will be affectedby which leader is chosen by the party
  
  • Members usually select a leader closer to their ideal point rather than the median voter
  • Often used to explain the growing polarisation in American politics

Question 13

What is The Comparative Manifestos Project

Answer 13

• Coding manifestos according to their policy positions
• Trained individuals review every sentence and tag them as for or against certain policy positions
• Data is combined to give an overall sense of the party’s position on a left-right dimension

Question 14

Describe Benoit and Laver’s project on measuring party positions

Answer 14

Ask political scientists in various countries to locate each party on various dimensions (economic policy, social policy, decentralasation of decision-making and environmental policy)

They aggregate to determine an overall position

Question 15

Describe McCarty et al’s theory for measuring party positions

Answer 15

• Look at the past voting behavious of MPs and parties to locate them within a multidimensional space