The 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections in Lithuania

This article provides a detailed set of coding rules for disaggregating electoral volatility into two components: volatility caused by new party entry and old party exit, and volatility caused by vote switching across existing parties. After providing an overview of both types of volatility in post-communist countries, the causes of volatility are analysed using a larger dataset than those used in previous studies. The results are startling: most findings based on elections in post-communist countries included in previous studies disappear. Instead, entry and exit volatility is found to be largely a function of long-term economic recovery, and it becomes clear that very little is known about what causes ‘party switching’ volatility. As a robustness test of this latter result, the authors demonstrate that systematic explanations for party-switching volatility in Western Europe can indeed be found.

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“… 24 For more on the 2004 Lithuanian election, see Jurkynas 2005, who describes it as an ‘earthquake’ election (p 770).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Electoral Volatility in Post-Communist Countries: New Data, New Results and New Approaches

Powell¹,

Tucker²

2013

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

270

228

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“…A telling example is Lithuania after the 2004 elections, where the genuinely new Labor Party (DP) emerged as strongest party with 27.7% of the seats. EPs of different ideological stances, including the Social Democrats (LSDP), the Social Liberals, the Liberal and Center Union, and the Conservatives, at first intended to build a ‘rainbow coalition’ to prevent the victorious newcomer from taking over the government (Jurkynas, 2005: 775). In the end, however, the LSDP and the Social Liberals were wooed away by the DP to form a joint government – at an extraordinarily high price: with only half of the seats (14.2%), the LSDP received the same five portfolios as the DP and, additionally, got to nominate the Prime Minister; the Social Liberals (7.7%) were assigned two portfolios.…”

Section: Multivariate Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

New parties, information uncertainty, and government formation: evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

Grotz

Weber

2015

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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Government formation in multi-party democracies is notoriously ridden with information uncertainty. Uncertainty is aggravated when new parties enter parliament, which generally suggests a ‘newcomer handicap’ in government formation. However, relegating newcomers to the opposition comes with uncertainty in its own right, which suggests immediate cabinet participation as new leaders seize the opportunity and established parties pursue containment. We explore elite responses to this strategic problem in the postcommunist democracies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) where new parties often gain parliamentary representation. Even in CEE, a newcomer handicap in government formation is apparent, controlling for other detrimental party attributes. However, this applies to small newcomers only. For larger parties the handicap turns into a bonus, an effect only qualified once the newcomer outnumbers its competitors. Either way, newness-induced uncertainty thus intensifies the strategic rationale of government formation. As party systems become more volatile, these findings are relevant beyond CEE.

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“…It is a catch-all party without any specific ideological or programmatic profile. Its success in the 2004 elections was based on the popularity of its charismatic leader Viktor Uspaskich and on its anti-establishment rhetoric (Jurkynas, 2005, Ramonaitė, 2006. After participating in a ruling coalition with Social Democrats and getting entangled in some financial scandals it lost popularity and received only 9 percent of the votes in the 2008 elections.…”

Section: Ideological Profiles Of Lithuanian Parties and Their Performmentioning

confidence: 99%

Voting Advice Applications in Lithuania: Promoting Programmatic Competition or Breeding Populism?

Ramonaite

2010

Policy & Internet

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This article analyses the effects of the voting assistance tool Manobalsas that was developed for the Lithuanian parliamentary elections of 2008 by three leading universities in Lithuania. Analytical voting assistance tools (or Voting Advice Applications — VAAs) assist voters by offering systematised information about candidates and parties, and by providing voting recommendation based on the congruence of political attitudes between a voter and a party. Voting assistance tools were mainly developed by academic institutions to inform voters about the policy positions of political parties, and to promote programmatic competition between parties. The analysis of the use of the Manobalsas voting advice application in Lithuania suggests that parties might be able to manipulate the results of the tool by adopting non‐ideological (ideologically unconstrained) populist policy positions. The remarkable success of a non‐programmatic party in the Lithuanian Manobalsas system demonstrates that VAAs might be advantageous to non‐ideological populist parties which are most flexible to adjust to the attitudes of an “average” voter.

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The 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections in Lithuania

Cited by 14 publications

References 2 publications

Revisiting Electoral Volatility in Post-Communist Countries: New Data, New Results and New Approaches

Revisiting Electoral Volatility in Post-Communist Countries: New Data, New Results and New Approaches

New parties, information uncertainty, and government formation: evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

Voting Advice Applications in Lithuania: Promoting Programmatic Competition or Breeding Populism?

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