Partisanship and the Vote in Europe

Abstract

The notion of party identification is undoubtedly one of the most central concepts in electoral research, if not the most central concept. Since the notion of party identification was introduced in the early survey-based election studies (Campbell et al. 1954, 1960), it has been the pinnacle of the study of American voters. Yet there has been continuous debate about the concept, in particular about its nature, origins and stability. In Europe the debate has also focused on whether party identification can be meaningfully employed in models of voting at this side of the Atlantic, whether it is as stable in parliamentary systems as in the United States, and how it should be measured in multi-party systems. This has resulted in alternative conceptualizations of partisanship, different measures of the concept, and diverging conclusions about the nature of partisanship and how it relates to the vote. This workshop will bring together new research in this area in order to assess whether this ‘old model of voting’ is (still) valuable for explaining vote choice in Europe. Papers could focus on the theoretical foundation of partisanship, the issue of measurement, or its position in causal models of individual voting behaviour. Comparisons can either be made by contrasting the United States and Europe, or by contrasting two or more individual countries. Finally, papers that employ methods other than survey questionnaires are certainly also welcome.

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