Institutions and Legacies: Electoral Volatility in the Postcommunist World

Epperly, Brad

doi:10.1177/0010414011401226

Cited by 29 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…However, the change during the remaining period of the electoral cycle is apparently unstable as well. This trend could be connected to the low predictability of the political situation and government formation in some parts of Europe (Emanuele et al, 2018;Epperly, 2011). Frequent major changes in party systems and constantly emerging and disappearing parties decrease the ability of citizens to predict political trends (Casal Bértoa and Mair, 2012;Enyedi and Casal Bértoa, 2018; 196,188/197/30 196,188/197/30 196,188/197/30 196,188/197/30 196,188/197 Tavits, 2008).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

As time goes by, the same sentiments apply? Stability of voter satisfaction with democracy during the electoral cycle in 31 countries

Wass

2020

Party Politics

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Popular consent is an essential element for success and stability of democracies. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that “electoral winners” (i.e. voters casting a ballot for government parties) are more satisfied with democracy than supporters of the opposition parties. However, little is known about the dynamics of satisfaction during the electoral cycle: Do winners become happier and losers even more discontent over time? We approach this question by utilizing an interview date in the European Social Survey (rounds 1–8) to position individuals within the different stages of electoral cycle. The results based on 199,207 responses from 199 surveys in 31 countries suggest that satisfaction with democracy stays relatively stable during the electoral cycle across various electoral systems if the political development is predictable. However, if actions of the parties are uncertain, namely the alternations of governments tend to be frequent, partial, and opened to all parties, and hence neither winners nor losers know how steady their status is with respect to the political development in the country, their satisfaction tend to fluctuate over time. Therefore, the conclusion reached is the more stable West European democracies have limited generalizability to the low-predictable systems in Central and Eastern Europe.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

As time goes by, the same sentiments apply? Stability of voter satisfaction with democracy during the electoral cycle in 31 countries

Wass

2020

Party Politics

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“…Conversely, since the beginning of the democratization process, and for over a quarter of century, party systems in post-communist countries have been depicted as highly fluid (Mair 1997;Pridham and Lewis 1996;Sitter 2002;Bakke and Sitter 2005;McAllister and White 2007;Tavits 2008;Rose and Munro 2009;Pop-Elecheș 2010;Epperly 2011;Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015), challenging the very existence of structured forms of competition in some cases.…”

Section: Party System Change Between East and West: Two Different Wormentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the Iron Curtain Still Exist? The Convergence in Electoral Volatility between Eastern and Western Europe

2018

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The literature on party system change and electoral volatility in post-communist Europe tends to make a clear-cut distinction between Central and Eastern European (CEE) party systems and Western European (WE) ones. The former are unstable and unpredictable and electoral volatility is driven by the continuous emergence of new political parties. Conversely, electoral stability is the rule in the latter, and volatility is associated with electoral shifts among established parties. This conventional wisdom suffers from three potential sources of bias: case selection, time coverage and method. By correcting these biases, this article investigates whether the traditional division between CEE and WE party systems has been levelled as regards volatility. To do so, it presents evidence based on an original data set of electoral volatility and its internal components covering 31 WE and CEE party systems since 1990. It finds that a process of asymmetric convergence in the levels of electoral volatility is taking place between the two regions, with Western Europe approaching Central and Eastern Europe with increasing electoral instability.

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“…Dix, 1989;Elster, Offe, and Preuss, 1998). As a result, newly democratised countries face high levels of electoral volatility (Bogaards, 2008;Epperly, 2011;Roberts and Wibbels, 1999) and low levels of party system institutionalization (Casal Bertoa, 2012;Kuenzi and Lambright, 2001;Mainwaring and Scully, 1995). Both electoral volatility and lack of institutionalization hamper the ability of voters to learn where parties stand and vote strategically.…”

Section: The Conditioning Effects Of Experience With Electionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electoral systems, ethnic cleavages and experience with democracy

Raymond

Huelshoff

Rosenblum

2016

International Political Science Review

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Recent studies show that the effects of electoral systems and ethnic cleavages on the number of parties in emerging democracies differ from those effects observed in more established democracies. Building on recent arguments maintaining that the quality of democracy improves with experience, we argue the reason for the differences in the findings between established and emerging democracies is that the effects of these variables on the number of parties differ according to a country’s experience with elections. To test this argument, we analyse party system fragmentation in 89 established and emerging democracies and the conditioning effects experience with elections have on the effects of district magnitude, ethnic cleavages and variables relating to the presidential party system. The results show that the effects of institutional and social cleavage variables differ substantially between emerging and established democracies, but these effects begin to approximate those seen in more established democracies with additional experience with elections.

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Institutions and Legacies: Electoral Volatility in the Postcommunist World

Cited by 29 publications

References 28 publications

As time goes by, the same sentiments apply? Stability of voter satisfaction with democracy during the electoral cycle in 31 countries

As time goes by, the same sentiments apply? Stability of voter satisfaction with democracy during the electoral cycle in 31 countries

Does the Iron Curtain Still Exist? The Convergence in Electoral Volatility between Eastern and Western Europe

Electoral systems, ethnic cleavages and experience with democracy

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