Party Positions and Beyond

Abstract

Left-Right party positions are of crucial importance for both theoretical and empirical models in political science. In the tradition of Anthony Downs, left-right is used to model the ideological space of voters and parties. In the tradition of empirical electoral studies (Inglehart 1984) left-right is interpreted as super-issue enabling real world orientation within the ideological space. The panel “Party Positions & Beyond” embraces paper combining both traditions. First, Johannes Schmitt applies an agent based model to approach the causal mechanisms of Sartoris’ famous centrifugal direction of party competition. The model demonstrates under which conditions micro-level mechanism produce centrifugal tendencies at the party system level. In the second paper Holger Reinermann models how voters aggregate issues into party rankings. Assuming that voters ‘switch’ heuristics, he develops hypotheses on how greater issue diversity in party competition influences voter heuristic use. These hypotheses are tested combining survey with manifesto data. The question of the concrete content of ideological dimensions asks Leonce Röth. He discusses conflicting conceptions of market liberalism. It turns out, that two factors mainly explain differences of the competing approaches: Conceptual differences are translated into measurements differences and the degree of context sensitivity explain the variance of the competing measurements at hand. The fourth and the fifth paper challenge the view of parties as unitary actors. Christoph Oberst asks whether ideological party cohesion matter in decision making processes. Using the manifesto based index of party cohesion he analyses partisan effects on labor market reforms. He shows that cohesion has a relevant effect on party’s left-right position. Margret Hornsteiner investigates the intra-party dimension of manifesto-formation. Based on a principal-agent framework she shows that vagueness in manifestos pledges increase the more the leadership controls the process of manifesto formation, thus leaving greater room for maneuver at later stages in the legislative cycle.

Title	Details
Bringing Cohesion In	View Paper Details
Market Liberalism and Political Parties – Exploring the Meaning and the Positioning of Political Parties on the Economic Dimension	View Paper Details
A Microfoundation of Centrifugal Dynamics in Party Systems	View Paper Details
Party Competition Dimensionality and Voter Heuristic Use	View Paper Details