Party Systems and Government Stability

Taylor, Michael; Herman, Valentine

doi:10.2307/1955041

Cited by 360 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…This is consistent with the findings of political scientists in the 1970's [e.g. Taylor and Herman (1971), Warwick (1979)] who documented that duration of government is related to party fragmentation and type of government. is an underlying demand for local public services that changes with demographics.…”

Section: -One Party Majoritysupporting

confidence: 92%

Spending Growth With Vertical Fiscal Imbalance: Decentralized Government Spending In Norway, 1880–1990

Borge

Rattsø

2002

Economics & Politics

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Vertical fiscal imbalance, decentralized responsibility of spending with centralized financing, creates a common pool problem with spending pressure towards central funds. A model of decentralized government spending under vertical fiscal imbalance is developed, and the importance of national political characteristics for internalization of costs and spending level is investigated in an econometric analysis of Norway during . We argue that in a parliamentary democracy, the internalization of costs is influenced by the party fragmentation of parliament. This is confirmed by the econometric analysis using a Herfindahl index as a measure of fragmentation and political strength.

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Section: -One Party Majoritysupporting

confidence: 92%

Spending Growth With Vertical Fiscal Imbalance: Decentralized Government Spending In Norway, 1880–1990

Borge

Rattsø

2002

Economics & Politics

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“…The Herfindahl index can be interpreted as the probability that two deputies picked at random from among the legislative parties will be of different parties, with higher values indicating a less fractionalized party system. This measure or its variants have been widely used in empirical research on party systems (e.g., Klingemann, 2005;Rae, 1971;Sigelman & Yough, 1978;Taylor & Herman, 1971). An alternative statistic is the Laakso and Taagepera (1979) measure of the effective number of parties (also Taagepera & Shugart, 1989).…”

Section: Measuring Party System Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Quantity and the Quality of Party Systems

Dalton

2008

Comparative Political Studies

481

164

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Previous research claims that the number of parties affects the representation of social cleavages in voting behavior, election turnout, patterns of political conflict, and other party system effects. This article argues that research typically counts the quantity of parties and that often the more important property is the quality of party competition-the polarization of political parties within a party system. The author first discusses why polarization is important to study. Second, the author provides a new measurement of party system polarization based on voter perceptions of party positions in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, which includes more than 50 separate elections from established and developing democracies. Third, the author compares party polarization and party fractionalization as influences on cleavage-based and ideological voting and as predictors of turnout levels. The finding is that party polarization is empirically more important in explaining these outcomes. Keywords: party polarization; party fractionalization; turnout; votingO ne of the most widely examined properties of party systems is the counting of the number of parties. A large body of research examines the merits of a two-party system versus a multiparty system (or a range of parties) and links the number of parties to the representation of social cleavages in voting behavior, turnout in elections, representation, and levels of political conflict (e.g., Blais & Dobrzynska, 1998;Kim, Powell, & Fording, 2006;Norris, 2004;Powell, 1982). Douglas Rae (1971) and others have examined how the number of parties influences strategic voting and other aspects of electoral behavior. At a systemic level, Lijphart (1999) includes the number of parties as a prime indicator for the development of consociational democracy and links a range of effects to the consociational model.

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“…It combines information about parties' left-right positions and party strength, using an index designed by Taylor and Herman (1971):…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of party polarization on ideological voting

2008

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Although ideology is a central factor in models of voting choice, little is known about the factors that explain the variation across elections in the strength of ideological voting. This paper suggests that the role of citizens' left-right orientations increases with party system polarization. It improves on previous studies on this question by avoiding potential sources of bias linked with voters' perceptions of the level of polarization, with rationalization effects, and with the specification of the spatial model of the vote. Based on data from the 1999 European Election Study and from an expert survey on party positions, the results confirm that polarization reinforces ideological voting. However, this effect is mediated by party identification and by political sophistication.

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Party Systems and Government Stability

Cited by 360 publications

References 7 publications

Spending Growth With Vertical Fiscal Imbalance: Decentralized Government Spending In Norway, 1880–1990

Spending Growth With Vertical Fiscal Imbalance: Decentralized Government Spending In Norway, 1880–1990

The Quantity and the Quality of Party Systems

The impact of party polarization on ideological voting

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