27 research outputs found
When do MĂ€nnerparteien Elect Women? Radical Right Populist Parties and Strategic Descriptive Representation
How radical right populist parties use the representation of women as an electoral tool
Although radical right populist parties in Europe are still predominantly led by and supported by men, there has been a marked increase in the number of women with high profile roles in these parties. Drawing on a new study, Ana Catalano Weeks, Bonnie M. Meguid, Miki Caul Kittilson and Hilde Coffé ask whether we should view this trend as a genuine step toward better representation for women
Why Parties Narrow their Representative Profile: Evidence from Six European Democracies
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this recordIn this paper, we analyse the conditions under which political parties narrow their representative profile (defined by the scope of the issues or the constituencies they represent). This strategy has been neglected in the party literature, which is mainly focused on the adoption of catch-all strategies among mainstream parties or the tendency to stick to core issues among niche parties. In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework that includes central external and internal drivers of party change and we empirically test this framework using novel survey data covering 121 parties across six European democracies: The United Kingdom, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Ireland.European Commissio
Political Parties and 'the Immigration Issue':Issue Ownership in Swedish Parliamentary Elections 1991-2010
Bringing Government Back to the People? The Impact of Political Decentralization on Voter Engagement in Western Europe
This paper examines how political decentralization affects levels of voter engagement. Political actors have often justified processes of political decentralization as means to âbring government back to the people.â While these claims are consistent with scholarly theories on voter turnout, aggregate-level analysis does not reveal the expected net shifts in voter attitudes and behavior in decentralized countries of Western Europe. Rather than signaling the relative unimportance of constitutional reform for voter engagement, this study finds that decentralization differentially affects members of the electorate. Using survey data to examine pre- and post-decentralization voter participation in Scotland, I determine that partisans of the regionalist, Scottish National Party are more receptive to the effects of this institutional change than affiliates of the national, mainstream parties. This paper suggests, therefore, that institutions do not necessarily have an independent effect on voter behavior; their impact is mediated by the individual-level characteristics of those voters
Multi-Level Elections and Party Fortunes: The Electoral Impact of Decentralization in Western Europe
When do MĂ€nnerparteien Elect Women?:Radical Right Populist Parties and Strategic Descriptive Representation
Radical right populist (RRP) parties are often described as MĂ€nnerparteien, predominantly led by, represented by, and supported by men. Yet recently, these parties have elected more women. Under what conditions do we see this increase in women MPs? This paper presents a novel argument of strategic descriptive representation: electorally struggling RRP parties with large gender gaps in voter support increase their proportion of women MPs to attract previously untapped women voters. To test this argument, we develop the most comprehensive dataset to date on women MPs and gender differences in voter support across Europe and over time, covering 187 parties in 30 countries from 1985 to 2018. Our analyses confirm that RRP parties engage in strategic descriptive representation when they are both struggling electorally and suffering from a gender gap in support. Additional models reveal that this tactic is largely unique to RRP parties