Lektion 9: Partsystems and competition

Question 1

What was the outcome of the state-church cleavege?

Answer 1

(From the national rec)

• Liberals (no churh) vs Conservatives
• Disagreement about the education
• This cleavege focus on moral principles

Outcome:

• Catholics formed conservative parties. (Germany, Switzerland, Spain)
• Catholics withdrew from politics - (Italy and France until later)
• No conflict in protestantic homogenous countries. (Derfor har vi ikke de partier i DK)

Eks på parti: Conservative/Religious parties (Christian democracy) in DK

Question 2

What is the rural-urban cleavege?

Answer 2

(From the industrial rev)

• Economic conflict (forskellige økonomiske præferencer)
• Cleaveges focus on trade policies
• Protectionism (protektionistisk) vs. free trade (frihandel)
• Overlapped with cultural and religious divide
• Strong agrarian parties

Eks på parti: Modern centre right

Question 3

Which role does party play?

Answer 3

! Parties interact in party systems

! Competition for votes “ office “ policies

Question 4

What is a partysystem

Answer 4

• Party systems are sets of parties that compete and cooperate with the aim of controlling government
• Party systems reflect underlying social cleavages.

Question 5

Which revolutions create the 4 main cleaveges?

Answer 5

The national rev:

• Center-Periphy
• State-Church

The industrial rev:

• rural-Urban
• Capital-labour

Question 6

Nævn the four conflicts/rev which made cleaveges

Answer 6

1. National revolution – the emergence of nation states.
2. Industrial revolution
3. Russian revolution
4. Post-industrial revolution – Rokkan didnt write about this, but it can be put in his theory.

Question 7

What is the Center-Periphy cleavege?

Answer 7

(From the national rev)

• A centralisation of the political power, admistrative structure and taxation system.
• Altså eliten i centrum ville standardisere kulturen på landet.

Eks på parti: Regionalist parties/minority parties

Question 8

What is the Worker-Labour cleavege?

Answer 8

(From the industrial rev)
- The most famous cleavage (Due to Marx)

• Commodification – people are turned into a commodity(varer), trated in a labour market.
• Urbanised working class – not nice living conidition, motivated them to organise and demand protection. Formation of trade unions and social democratic countries.
• Workers structurally in inferior position. Arbejder er under arbejdsgiver
• Employment and social protection. Represented by trade unions, later socialist parties

Eks. på parti: Exists in all industrialised democracies (socialist)

Question 9

Which new cleavages emerged in the 21 st century

Answer 9

• Communism-socialism cleavage
• Materialism-post-materialism cleavage
• Integration-demarcation cleavage

Question 10

What is the Communism and Socialism cleavege

Answer 10

• Cleavage within working class
• International revolution..
• ..or change through democracy

Eks på partier: left still split in many countries.

Uden revolution = social democrats
Med revolution: = kommunister

Question 11

What is the Materialism-Post-materialism cleavege?

Answer 11

Ingelhart theory:
Silent revolution AND Value change.

• If you grow up during ww1 you will develop different values. Sruvival values (mad, tag over hovedet)..
  But if you grow up in the boom years you will take survival for granted and gå op i ting som ytringsfrihed, miljø – in other words post-material values.

Eks på partier: Greens or reformed ‘new left’ parties

Question 12

What is the Integration-Demarcation cleavege?

Answer 12

• ‘Losers of globalisation’
• Economic protection
• Cultural protection

Eks på partier:

1. New populist right
2. Old parties incorporate new issues

Question 13

Types of party systems?

Answer 13

! Dominant-party system - where one party have absolute majorty for a long time.
- Absolute majorities
- Few coalitions / alternation
one large party with more than absolute majority of votes and seats.
No other party approaching 50 %
one-party government
South Africa since 1994

! Two-party system – two competing power. Equal in power. A FUNCTION of the electoral system (a majoritarian electoral system).
Two large parties sharing together around 80 % of votes and seats
Balanced 35-45 % each with one of the two reaching 50 % of seats
Alternation between parties
One-party government
Austria, UK

! Multi-party system - difficult to get majority power.
different coalitions and so on.
- Moderate
- Polarised
Several or many parties, with none approaching 50 % of votes and seats
Parties of different size
Parties run for elections individually and form coalitions after elections
Coalitions government

! Bipolar system - more civilised. Combines 2 parties in a multipartysystem. France and Germany until reacently.
- Electoral alliances
Two large coalitions composed of several parties sharing together around 80 % of votes and seats
coalitions are balanced (40-50 %)
Coalitions are stabler over time and run elections as electoral alliances
Coalition government
Italy since 1994, Portugal

Question 14

What is Downs assumption?

Answer 14

Talks about voting behaviour
uses new classic economic to develp his theory

• Aassumptions 1: actors are fully rationality –> they pursue material interest, they maxermize the vote. They dont have policy goals (downs)
• Assumption 2: perfect information
• Assumption 3: one dimension that matters! (the left-right dimension)

Results:
# Parties supply policies demanded by the voters
# Voters choose party closest to their policy preference

In the electoral market parties (the supply side) present platforms to appeal to many voters whose vote is determined by the proximity of their preferences (the demand side) to the parties’ offer. Voters are assumed to be rational, informed about alternative proposals and able to choose the alternative closest to their top preferences.

Question 15

What is the criticism of Downs model?

Answer 15

• Rationality vs. psychological processes
• Paradox of voting (beløning for at stemme, så er det rationelt at stemme)
• Vote vs. office vs. policy seeking (stopper vote-seeking for at komme i koalition med et andet parti=office-seeking)
• One vs. multi-dimensionality
• Position vs. valence issues

Question 16

Which types of party behaviour does Down talk about

Answer 16

Office (post, sæde), vote(stemmer) and policy(politik, ideologi)

Question 17

What is a position issue?

Answer 17

a position issue is where you have a dimension betwwen left or right. An issue where parties can have different positions. På højre-venstre skalaen

hvor partier konkurrer op holdninger, man tager en modsat holdning en konkurrenten. Man kan tage flere positioner til det emne man snakker om, man kan have det samme mål men forskellige strategi om at nå der hen.

Question 18

What is a valence issue?

Answer 18

hvor partier konkurrer på kompetence à Man kæmper om hvem der er bedst til at opnå målet, selvom man har det samme mål. Hvis et parti sagde ”barselsorlov 9 mdr, så sagde det andet barselsorlov 12 mdr”. à Pointen er man prøver og overbevise vælgerne at man er bedre til at nå målet en konkurrenterne.

Derfor er kritikken, at alle er enige om at der er et problem og løsning, men måden hvorpå man håndtere det.
Derfor skulle vi opleve en redistribution for median vælgerne i downs teori dette ses dog ikke

Question 19

What are party families

Answer 19

Party families:
Party families originate from socio-economic and cultural cleavages created by industrialization, urbanization and the formation of liberal states.

Question 20

What are the advantages and disadvantages of party systems?

Answer 20

Two party systems:
• Historically positive connotation
• Effective
• Accountable
• Alternation (two main parties alternate in power. Voters directly influence the formation of government and a small shift can cause government change.
• Distortive (under represents minorities and over represent large mainstream parties of left-right)
• Moderation - all main parties have a chance to govern and thus avoid extreme claims. Need to gather votes from large moderate segments of the electorate.
• Discountinuity - decisions are made by majority with a clear strategy, but subssequent cabinets often reverse legislation.

Multiparty systems:
• Historically negative connotation
• Ineffective
• Non-accountable - because government are formed by many parties.
• no alternation - coalition negotiations are out of the reach of voters’ influence and shifts of votes are not necessarily followed by change of government.
• representative - fairly represents minorities in societies with ethnolinguistic and religious and religious minorities.
• radicalization - allow representation of extreme parties.
• continiuty - decisions are made by consensus

Question 21

What is Downs “competition”

Answer 21

! Parties respond to voters ideological distribution
! Centre typically promises most votes
! Highest voter concentration
! Maximisation of space in which party is most proximate
–> Convergence
–> Risk of new competitors

The dynamics of party systems is determined by parties’ search for optimal location on the left-right axis.
Depending on the distribution of the electorate along the scale, parties move to a position where the support is largest.

The prediction of competition models, is that parties converge towards the centre of the left-right axis, as the point where most votes concentrate, and as the point where voters are less rigidly ideologized.

Question 22

What is Catch-all-parties?

Answer 22

A rational choice theory when it is put on to describe party systems from an RC-view.
When parties try to get as many voters as possible.