Party actors and party change: Does factional dominance matter?

Harmel, Robert; Tan, Alexander C.

doi:10.1111/1475-6765.00090

Cited by 60 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…20 Harmel and Janda 1994. 21 Harmel and Tan 2003;Harmel et al 1995;Hazan and Rahat 2006;Janda et al 1994;Kenig 2009b. 22 Kitschelt 1989.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Leadership Competition and Disagreement at Party National Congresses

Greene¹,

Haber²

2014

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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Theories often explain intraparty competition based on electoral conditions and intraparty rules. This article further opens this black box by considering intraparty statements of preferences. In particular, it predicts that intraparty preference heterogeneity increases after electoral losses, but that candidates deviating from the party's median receive fewer intraparty votes. Party members grant candidates greater leeway to accommodate competing policy demands when in government. The study tests the hypotheses using a new database of party congress speeches from Germany and France, and uses automated text classification to estimate speakers' relative preferences. The results demonstrate that speeches at party meetings provide valuable insights into actors' preferences and intraparty politics. The article finds evidence of a complex relationship between the governing context, the economy and intraparty disagreement.Theories of party politics often make strong assumptions about the relationship between parties' behavior and the preferences of intraparty actors. For example, scholars frequently assume that parties act as if they are unitary actors, and that the party leader represents the median preferences of the party's membership. Despite substantial theoretical development and a number of detailed case studies, few cross-national analyses of intraparty politics consider the role of intraparty preferences. 1This absence is striking. Intraparty politics and party preferences hold implications for a large range of political processes such as election campaigns, legislative politics and coalition governance. 2Building on these studies, we develop a theory of intraparty preferences and party leader selection by considering experiences in government and intraparty electoral rules. Broadly, we theorize that a party's electoral context influences its internal preference diversity. We then argue that candidates' statements of preferences influence their intraparty electoral success. Candidates who express preferences closer to the party's ideological center attract more votes than more extreme candidates.To empirically test hypotheses from our theory, we create a new dataset of intraparty actor preferences from their statements at party national congresses. By focusing on speeches at intraparty meetings, we begin to break open the black box of intraparty politics. Despite evidence that parties act as if they are internally divided in parliament, few studies seek to directly, quantitatively analyze actors' preferences outside this arena.3 Historically, intraparty actors' preferences have proven complicated to measure. Limited data has created a major hurdle in testing theories of intraparty politics. Like recent research studying political

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“…20 Harmel and Janda 1994. 21 Harmel and Tan 2003;Harmel et al 1995;Hazan and Rahat 2006;Janda et al 1994;Kenig 2009b. 22 Kitschelt 1989.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…55 In our next hypothesis, we predict that the relative distance from the ideological center influences the amount of votes a candidate receives. 48 Harmel and Janda 1994;Harmel and Tan 2003. 49 Downs 1957.…”

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confidence: 99%

Leadership Competition and Disagreement at Party National Congresses

Greene¹,

Haber²

2014

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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“…And they tend to agree (and indeed concentrate on) the drivers of change, the most commonly cited independent variables being external shock (normally electoral defeat or loss of office), change in the dominant faction and (especially) a change of leader (see, e.g., Harmel and Tan, 2003; see also Wilson, 1980). Finally, they are essentially in agreement about what constitutes change or at least where to look for it.…”

Section: Measuring Party Changementioning

confidence: 97%

‘A Bit Less Bunny-Hugging and a Bit More Bunny-Boiling’? Qualifying Conservative Party Change under David Cameron

Bale

2008

Br Polit

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“…1 To be sure, while some models depict such exogenous forces as sufficient, others caution against so deterministic a thesis. Moreover, whether or how parties react to broader developments depends on whether or how they perceive such trends.…”

Section: L a Y T O N Ma R C C L E M E N Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Christian Democracy? Welfare State Politics and Policy in a Changing CDU

Clemens¹

2013

German Politics

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Party actors and party change: Does factional dominance matter?

Cited by 60 publications

References 8 publications

Leadership Competition and Disagreement at Party National Congresses

Leadership Competition and Disagreement at Party National Congresses

‘A Bit Less Bunny-Hugging and a Bit More Bunny-Boiling’? Qualifying Conservative Party Change under David Cameron

Beyond Christian Democracy? Welfare State Politics and Policy in a Changing CDU

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