New Challenges to Electoral Competition and Political Representation

Elections are the key component in the process of democratic representation. They allow citizens to influence and control policymakers, to hold them accountable for their past decision and performance, and give them an opportunity to express a mandate for the future government. In the last decade, a number of important political and electoral outcomes in established democracies have revealed a growing citizens’ dissatisfaction with traditional patterns of political representation. Mainstream parties on the left and on the right, such as Social Democratic parties, Christian Democrats, or Conservatives, which have alternated in government for a long time in many established democracies, are being challenged by new political entrepreneurs. Right-wing and left-wing populist parties, fuelled by discontent about economic austerity measures, concerns about growing immigration, and further European integration, have been increasingly successful at the polls. While populist parties remain in the opposition in most countries, their rising strength means that governance and representation by mainstream parties becomes more difficult. Such changes in the partisan landscape point to important underlying changes in the characteristics and preferences of the electorate. Processes of individualization of vote choices weaken long-standing group loyalties, while economic globalization is changing the economic landscape and influences political alignments. These developments also point to the growing discontent towards political elites which characterizes many established democracies. The economic crisis of the last decade, corruption scandals in many countries, attacks by populist leaders against the “classe politique”, growing economic inequality: all these trends have contributed to eroding citizens’ confidence in political elites and, in many cases, in representative institutions. These developments point to important questions for scholars working on electoral behaviour, on public opinion, and on political representation. The weakening of traditional political alignments opens the way for political entrepreneurs who seek to mobilize voters on new issues. This also suggests that characteristics of party leaders and candidates, as well as campaigns in general, may become to play an even stronger role in the voting decision process. The rising discontent towards political elites also underscores the importance of analysing how voting decisions are influenced by attitudes towards governments, by their perceived performance, and more generally by perceptions about parties’ and candidates’ competence. Moreover, changing patterns of trust in parties and institutions and in the dynamics of political participation also call for specific analyses. Finally the first European Parliament election without the United Kingdom will take place in 2019. Understanding and explaining the extent to which populist parties and new forces will succeed in changing the composition of European legislators is one of the key challenges for scholars in the field. In light of such background, this section invites scholars working on citizens’ attitudes, voting choices, political participation and electoral competition. We are particularly interested in comparative analyses, taking advantage of the variation across countries, regions, or levels (European, national, regional, etc.). **Participants This section should attract participants working in the field of election studies, public opinion, and comparative politics. Focusing on the comparative analysis of political behaviour and political representation, this section is likely to interest a broad range of scholars, working on both established and new democracies.