Stealth democracy and the support for new and challenger parties

Abstract

In the wake of the 2008 Great Recession, new and challenger parties have enjoyed electoral gains in some European countries. Political and economic disaffection have been pointed out as the main drivers of their electoral support. This article proposes voter’s stealth democracy attitudes, as defined by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, as an additional driving force to account for this electoral change. We examine the case of Spain with a survey conducted after the far-reaching transformation of the party system, which has led to the emergence of two new parties:Ciudadanos(on the center-right) andPodemos(on the radical-left). We find that stealth democracy attitudes are positively related to the support for the former and negatively related to the support for the latter. Additionally, we provide evidence of this relationship being conditional on voters’ ideology. The study illustrates how an unexplored attitudinal dimension contributes to party system change, and how the relevance of these attitudes might go beyond the temporary political discontent caused by the economic crisis.

The democratic interface: technology, political organization, and diverging patterns of electoral representation

“…This problem of unequal representation (which we demonstrate empirically below) more generally reflects ways in which preferences for different forms of organization play out in terms of the character, scale, stability, and coherence of various political mobilization processes (Dahlberg-Grundberg, 2015;Kavada, 2013). Indeed, we may be entering an era in which different organization and participation preferences operate as forms of ideology that better distinguish voters on the far left and right than earlier distinctions about class or economic positions (Bengtsson & Mattila, 2009;Gauja, 2016;Lavezzolo & Ramiro, 2017).…”

“…However, recent studies suggest that citizens on the right prefer 'stealth democracy' (Hibbing & Theiss-Morse, 2002) that favors efficiency and expert input over debate and direct participation (Bengtsson & Mattila, 2009;Bowler, Denemark, Donovan, & McDonnell, 2016;Lavezzolo & Ramiro, 2017;Webb, 2013). This would imply that engagement preferences continue to be compatible with the leader-centered and centralized organization of the vertical model.…”

Distance, dissatisfaction or a Deficit in attention: why do citizens vote for new parties?

“…Other indicators that measure political trust or satisfaction with democracy are available for a shorter period. Further research may want to delve deeper into which indicator of political dissatisfaction drives new party support the most: political dissatisfaction, as we studied here (also see Vidal 2018), or other more complex indicators such as support for stealth democracy (Lavezzolo and Ramiro 2018) or voterlevel populist beliefs (Akkerman, Mudde, and Zaslove 2014).…”

La competición espacial en Europa tras la Gran Recesión. Un análisis de las posiciones ideológicas ideales y reales en Italia, España y Francia

“…Different analyses have shown that both populist attitudes and economic evaluations have affected vote choices in West European countries (Fraile and Lewis-Beck 2014;Hernández and Kriesi 2016;van Hauwert and van Kessel 2017;Lavezzolo and Ramiro 2018;Andreadis et al 2018). We lack information, however, about the degree to which such attitudes have exerted any influence on party ideological positions.…”