Extra- and within-system electoral volatility

Abstract

We analyze the remarkable differences in the electoral success of new parties and compare the determinants of electoral volatility attributable to new versus established parties. We base our findings on an original data set of total volatility, extra-system volatility, and within-system volatility for 67 democratic countries across all regions of the world since 1945. The article makes three contributions. First, we show that it is important to distinguish between electoral volatility that represents vote shifts among established parties (within-system volatility) and shifts to new parties (extra-system volatility). Second, we provide descriptive information about total, within-system, and extra-system volatility for 67 countries. Third, we analyze the determinants of volatility. Our results show that the causes of within- and extra-system volatility differ markedly. In contrast to Powell and Tucker, for our broader range of countries and longer time period, there are several statistically robust positive findings.

Patterns of intra-election volatility: the impact of political knowledge

“…There was only a small number of converters who were highly politically interested and confirmed to the ideal of the rational democratic voter, as they had weak predispositions and could "afford" conversion through thought. Since then, many studies have however shown that voters do switch from one party to another, either between or within election campaigns (Dalton, McAllister, and Wattenberg 2000;Dassonneville 2014;Mainwaring, Gervasoni, and Espana-Najera 2017;Mair 2008). Still, the question remains whether these converters are indeed highly interested in and knowledgeable about politics or rather uninformed floating voters.…”

Towards turbulent times: measuring and explaining party system (de-)institutionalization in Western Europe (1945–2015)

“…Moreover, in order to gauge the convergent/discriminant validity of the PSI index, that is, the degree to which alternative indicators of the same concepts are empirically associated, we need to correlate PSI with total volatility. We did so with five data sets on total volatility in Western European countries, those by Bartolini and Mair (1990), Powell and Tucker (2014), Dassonneville (2015), Emanuele (2015), and Mainwaring et al (2016): the Pearson's r coefficient of the correlation between PSI and Bartolini and Mair's data is −0.79 (N = 134), that with Powell and Tucker's data is −0.60 (N = 95), that with Dassonneville's data is −0.80 (N = 312), that with Emanuele's TV is −0.84 (N = 324), 13 and finally that with Mainwaring, España and Gervasoni's data is −0.77 (N = 229). While the differences among the three correlation coefficients depend upon the different rules employed in the calculation of volatility data, 14 these results clearly indicate that the association between PSI and volatility is high, but far from deterministic.…”

“…13 Note that the correlation between PSI and Emanuele's RegV (2015) is −0.66 (N = 324). 14 Dassonneville (2015) and Emanuele (2015) follow Bartolini and Mair's (1990) criteria as regard the treatment of new parties and, specifically, cases of split and merge, while Powell and Tucker (2014) and Mainwaring et al (2016) follow less conservative criteria. 15 See also Table A2 in the online Appendix.…”

Party System Institutionalization, Party Collapse and Party Building

“…The idea that party systems would stabilize over time as politicians invest in building organizations and voters can increasingly use party labels as information short-cuts makes intuitive sense. However, on average, there has not been a trend over time towards greater institutionalization in Latin America, Africa and Asia (Mainwaring et al 2016).…”

“…Aldrich's (1995) classic book suggests that the incentives for politicians to invest in party building in an era of mass enfranchisement are powerful. Whereas Lipset and Rokkan (1967) famously emphasized the freezing of party systems, most party systems in the third and fourth waves of democratization have experienced high volatility, rapid change, and weak parties (Mainwaring and Zoco 2007;Mainwaring et al 2016;Pop-Eleches 2010).…”