Performance, leadership, factions and party change: An empirical analysis

Harmel, Robert; Heo, Uk; Tan, Alexander C.; Janda, Kenneth

doi:10.1080/01402389508425055

Cited by 135 publications

(106 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…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.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Leadership Competition and Disagreement at Party National Congresses

Greene¹,

Haber²

2014

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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

show abstract

“…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.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Leadership Competition and Disagreement at Party National Congresses

Greene¹,

Haber²

2014

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In a major work on party leadership selection in Britain between 1963and 1995, Stark (1996 argues that modern communications technology has focused unprecedented attention on party leaders.…”

Section: Anglophone Democracies: a Comparative Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Choosing party leaders: Anglophone democracies, British parties and the limits of comparative politics

Denham

2016

Br Polit

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since 1965, Britain's major political parties have radically, and repeatedly, changed the ways in which they choose their leaders. Building on a recent comparative study of party leadership selection in the five principal Anglophone ('Westminster') parliamentary democracies (Cross and Blais, 2012a), this article first outlines a theoretical framework that purports to explain why the major parties in three of those countries, including Britain, have adopted such reform. It then examines why five major British parties have done so since 1965. It argues that, while Cross and Blais' study makes a significant contribution to our knowledge and understanding of processes of party leadership selection reform in Anglophone parliamentary democracies, it has limited explanatory power when applied to changes enacted by the major parties in modern and contemporary Britain. Instead, the adoption of such reform in the British context is ultimately best understood and explained by examining both the internal politics and external circumstances of individual parties.

show abstract

“…Immediately after the elections, they already found themselves well above the 5 per cent threshold in the polls and in September 1993 support even rose up to 16 per cent. This is likely to have triggered the mechanism that small parties are not shocked by electoral stagnation or even downturns but extraordinary success could give fuel to those in the party who may be bent on a more organised, pragmatic approach (Harmel et al 1995). Initially, the Greens were founded to promote a message more so than to govern, and thus, they constituted a good example of a policy-seeking party (Harmel and Janda 1994).…”

Section: The Case Of the German Greensmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conforming to the Dominant Discourse: Framing Distance and Multiparty Competition

Wardt¹

2015

West European Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Performance, leadership, factions and party change: An empirical analysis

Cited by 135 publications

References 4 publications

Leadership Competition and Disagreement at Party National Congresses

Leadership Competition and Disagreement at Party National Congresses

Choosing party leaders: Anglophone democracies, British parties and the limits of comparative politics

Conforming to the Dominant Discourse: Framing Distance and Multiparty Competition

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About