Party ideology and clientelistic linkage

How does parties' ideology affect their linkage strategies? While scholars maintain that economically right wing parties are more clientelistic, there has been no systematic study testing this argument. We examine the conservative ideology-clientelism nexus with multi-level quantitative analyses of parties' clientelistic appeals. Our analysis reveals a robust, yet nuanced relationship between ideology and clientelism. Specifically, right wing parties are more clientelistic than left wing parties, but only with regard to providing broad economic rents to clients. In contrast, economically conservative parties are not more likely to engage in individual targeted clientelism. Moreover, parties' ties with economic interests mediate the relationship between ideology and clientelism. Finally, the association between parties' linkage to business interests and rents clientelism is attenuated by country-level economic liberalism

Coalition oversight and blame avoidance in Greece

This article examines the behavior of Greek political parties before, as well as during, the recent austerity period. Drawing on coalition oversight and blame avoidance literature, it argues that the unpopularity of austerity governments leads to extreme levels of dissent within the coalition. I operationalize this ‘intra-coalition opposition’ behavior using parliamentary questions, a legislative institution that has not been studied in the context of coalition politics. The analysis demonstrates that junior members in unpopular austerity governments increase their use of parliamentary questions to a degree that matches or even exceeds the formal opposition. However, intra-coalition dissent is conditional on the type of unpopular government policies, and on the ideology of coalition members. Specifically, using a new method of text analysis, I show that while the socialist Panhellenic Socialist Movement uses its parliamentary questions to avoid or minimize the blame associated with austerity policies, the conservative New Democracy does not, because left-leaning parties are electorally vulnerable to austerity measures. The results have implications for studying dissent in coalition politics in general, and the politics of austerity in particular

Brexit and moral foundation framing: the key to a people's vote is in Vote Leave's hands

Will Conservative Brexiteers back another referendum? If so, is it the nature of the argument that will persuade them or who makes it? Eitan Tzelgov and Delia Dumitrescu show that, although views on Brexit are based around moral issues, moral framing alone does not persuade these voters. What does seem to change their minds on a second referendum are moral arguments by Vote Leave

The political twittersphere as a breeding ground for populist ideas: The case of Israel

This study employs a neural network approach to investigate the dissemination and content of populist ideas within the Israeli political Twittersphere. By analyzing a dataset of Twitter activity by Israeli lawmakers from 2013 to 2022, the study reveals a consistent increase in the frequency and concentration of populist ideas, particularly among legislators from religious-nationalist parties. The analysis of the topical content of populist ideas spread on Twitter highlights the significant impact of legal proceedings against the Prime Minister on political discussions. It delineates the development of a Manichean discourse among the center-left and a complete populist cosmology among the right, reaching its peak in 2022. The study demonstrates the utility of such approaches in understanding the evolution and dissemination of populist ideas, as well as the challenges faced by the backsliding Israeli democracy

Making embedded knowledge transparent: How the V-Dem dataset opens new vistas in civil society research

We show how the V-Dem data opens new possibilities for studying civil society in comparative politics. We explain how V-Dem was able to extract embedded expert knowledge to create a novel set of civil society indicators for 173 countries from 1900 to the present. This data overcomes shortcomings in the basis on which inference has been made about civil society in the past by avoiding problems of sample bias that make generalization difficult or tentative. We begin with a discussion of the reemergence of civil society as a central concept in comparative politics. We then turn to the shortcomings of the existing data and discusses how the V-Dem data can overcome them. We introduce the new data, highlighting two new indices—the core civil society index (CCSI) and the civil society participation index (CSPI)—and explain how the individual indicators and the indices were created. We then demonstrate how the CCSI uses embedded expert knowledge to capture the development of civil society on the national level in Venezuela, Ghana, and Russia. We close by using the new indices to examine the dispute over whether post-communist civil society is “weak.” Time-series cross-sectional analysis using 2,999 country-year observations between 1989 and 2012 fails to find that post-communist civil society is substantially different from other regions, but that there are major differences between the post-Soviet subsample and other post-communist countries both in relation to other regions and each other

Cross-cutting issues, intraparty dissent and party strategy: The issue of European integration in the House of Commons

When do legislative opposition parties use wedge issues to attack the government? In this article, I focus on the issue of European integration and its impact on party strategy in the 1992–1997 British House of Commons. Utilizing both voting and rhetorical data, the analysis reveals that both government and opposition were split on the issue, and thus the opposition was not able to use it. This, I argue, stems from the complexity of the issue, i.e. the fact that it combines redistributive cleavages with pre- and post-material ones, which cannot be suppressed by party leaders. The results demonstrate the importance of taking into consideration both the government’s and the opposition’s cohesion in modeling party strategies. Further, the combination of voting and rhetorical data adds to our understanding of the dimensionality and structure of partisan ideologies in Europe. We have won more elections than any party in Britain because we are the most united and the most determined party in Britain. Over the same period Labour has been the most divided and the most undisciplined party. That is why they have lost, and lost, and lost, and lost again.   Sir Norman Fowler, Conservative Party Chairman, 1992 Party Conference. </jats:p

Evaluating and Improving Item Response Theory Models for Cross-National Expert Surveys

The data produced by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project contains ordinal ratings of a multitude of country-level indicators across space and time, with multiple experts providing judgments for each country-year observation. We use an ordinal item response theory (O-IRT) model to aggregate multiple experts' ratings. The V-Dem data provide a challenging domain for such models because they exhibit little cross-national bridging. That is, few coders provide ratings for multiple countries, making it difficult to calibrate the scales of estimates cross-nationally. In this paper, we provide a systematic analysis of the issue of bridging. We first use simulations to explore how much bridging one needs to achieve scale identification when coders' thresholds vary across countries and when the latent traits of some countries lack variation. We then examine how posterior predictive checks can be used to check cases of extent of scale non-comparability. Finally, we develop and evaluate search algorithms designed to select bridges that are most likely allow one to correct scale incompatibility problems.This research was supported, in part, by National Science Foundation Grant SES-1423944, PI: Daniel Pemstein, and by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Grant M13-0559:1, PI: Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

The V-Dem Measurement Model: Latent Variable Analysis for Cross-National and Cross-Temporal Expert-Coded Data

The Varieties of Democracy (V–Dem) project relies on country experts who code a host of ordinal variables, providing subjective ratings of latent—that is, not directly observable— regime characteristics over time. Sets of around five experts rate each case (country-year observation), and each of these raters works independently. Since raters may diverge in their coding because of either differences of opinion or mistakes, we require system- atic tools with which to model these patterns of disagreement. These tools allow us to aggregate ratings into point estimates of latent concepts and quantify our uncertainty around these point estimates. In this paper we describe item response theory models that can that account and adjust for differential item functioning (i.e. differences in how experts apply ordinal scales to cases) and variation in rater reliability (i.e. random error). We also discuss key challenges specific to applying item response theory to expert-coded cross-national panel data, explain the approaches that we use to address these challenges, highlight potential problems with our current framework, and describe long-term plans for improving our models and estimates. Finally, we provide an overview of the different forms in which we present model output

Walls, weed, and coal: How threats to local industry shape economic voting

Do threats to local economic industry influence voting behavior? While research has shown that voters backlash against candidates whose policies negatively affect their socio-economic status, relatively little research explores if voters can anticipate whether candidates/direct legislation threaten their local economies. We argue that individuals who are economically embedded within industries that serve as the basis of the local economy are especially sensitive to candidates/direct legislation that may harm those industries. We test our argument in three distinct scenarios. First, Texas’s Congressional District 28 is between 75–80% Hispanic stretching from San Antonio to Laredo and along the U.S. Mexico border. Between 2008—2018 Texas’ U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar faced very little opposition in the Democratic Primary and Republicans did not seriously challenge him in general elections. However, Cuellar, who is arguably the strongest Democratic supporter of privatized immigrant detention and receives large donations from prison companies, narrowly defeated Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney, in the 2020 primary, and then again in the 2022 primary. Voters living in areas with large shares of protective services workers, in areas that house border patrol headquarters and ICE facilities, and in areas with large shares of oil and gas workers disproportionately backed Cuellar over Cisneros in line with their economic interests. Second, halfway across the country in 2016, Californians voted on a ballot measure to legalize marijuana. The “legacy grow” high-density outdoor marijuana cultivation areas inside of the Emerald Triangle (Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity Counties) voted down the ballot measure despite otherwise voting strongly Democratic. Third, as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidates shifted against coal for environmental reasons, between 2000 and 2012 West Virginia voters in the highest density coal counties disproportionately shifted towards Republican candidates. These findings are consistent with our over-arching argument: When faced with keeping or potentially removing industries that serve as economic bedrocks, voters disproportionately favor the former to ensure their continued known economic station