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Party Lines (party + line)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences66%

Selected Abstracts

Crossing Party Lines: Volatility and Ticket Splitting in Mexico (1994,2000)

BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 1 2005
David Crow
This article aims to amplify our portrait of the Mexican electorate by examining the ways in which Mexican electors distributed their votes among the parties during 1994,2000, both over successive elections (volatility) and in the same election (ballot splitting). Aggregate and survey data revealed that Mexicans engaged in these two forms of electoral behaviour frequently, indicators of an electorate in flux. Regression analysis indicated that, contrary to the expectation that the politically sophisticated differentiated their votes, virtually all parts of Mexican society were equally likely to switch parties and split tickets. [source]

More power to the European Parliament?

ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 35 2002
Abdul G. Noury
SUMMARY Many observers have expressed scepticism about granting more power to the European Parliament. The sceptics believe that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) do not vote in a disciplined way and that they vote more often with their country group than with their European Party. Using a unique database consisting of all roll call votes by each individual MEP between 1989 and 1999 (over 6000 votes by over 1000 different MEPs), we show that the sceptics are wrong. Our data shows clearly that MEPs vote more along party lines than along country lines. Party cohesion is comparable to that of the US Congress and is increasing over time whereas country cohesion is low and declining. In short, politics in the European Parliament generally follows the traditional left,right divide that one finds in all European nations. These findings are valid across issues, even on issues like the structural and cohesion funds where one would expect country rather than party cohesion. In votes where the EP has the most power , those held under the so-called co-decision procedure , MEPs participate more and are more party-cohesive. In our opinion, this unique empirical analysis provides grounds for justifying a generalization of the co-decision procedure. [source]

Learning from the Danish case: A comment on Palle Svensson's critique of the Franklin thesis

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2002
Mark N. Franklin
Palle Svensson in this issue of EJPR has objected to the characterisation of Danish voters made by Franklin and others who, in various publications, expounded the thesis that on issues of low salience, referendum votes tend to follow party lines. Svensson finds evidence that the Maastricht Treaty was not an issue of low salience to Danish voters in the ratification referendums conducted there, and gives other details of the evolution of public opinion regarding Europe that clarify the circumstances in which our thesis should apply. In the light of his arguments, this Comment presents a more nuanced version of the thesis that learns from the Danish case, and should be of greater utility than our earlier version in helping to interpret the role of government standing in referendum outcomes. [source]

Exploring the Attitudinal Structure of Partisanship

JOURNAL OF APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 9 2010
Douglas D. Roscoe
This study examined the structure of attitudes toward the political party an individual primarily identifies with and attitudes toward the other party with an emphasis on differentiating between the cognitive and affective components. Participants responded to a telephone survey that included measures of party identification, partisan attitudes, political information involvement activities, and voting behavior. Results indicated attitudes toward the parties were a function of both cognitive and affective components, although strong partisans had an attitudinal structure characterized as having a stronger cognitive component. Strong partisans were more polarized in their attitudes across parties. In addition, individuals with more cognitive-affective ambivalence toward their own parties were less likely to vote, and their votes were less likely to be along party lines. [source]

Candidate Strategies in the Presidential Nomination Campaign

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2010
TRAVIS N. RIDOUT
This article examines the situations under which candidates in multicandidate races go on the attack (both intraparty and interparty), paying special attention to the timing of the attacks, whether the attacker or the attacked is a front-runner or trailing, and candidate ideology. Using ad tracking data from the 2004 and 2008 U.S. presidential nomination campaigns and detailed polling data from each state, the authors find that timing is an important consideration in launching an attack and that candidate ideology determines who gets attacked. While candidate standing and candidate resources have little influence on intraparty attack behavior, both are important predictors of attacks across party lines. [source]

Friction and Party Manifesto Change in 25 Countries, 1945,98

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2009
Stefaan Walgrave
Political processes are affected by "friction." Due to cognitive limitations and institutional delays, political agendas do not adapt smoothly to real-world impulses; political agendas either ignore them or overreact. The first question this article tackles is whether the same punctuated change process can be observed in party manifestos. Secondly, it examines whether there are differences across political systems and across party lines. Thirdly, the study tries to account for differences in the degree of "punctuatedness" of party manifestos. Drawing on the vast dataset of the Manifesto Research Group, the article shows that party manifestos are indeed characterized by friction and resistance to change; it also establishes that there are considerable differences in frictional patterns between parties and political systems; and it finds that electoral fragmentation, government participation, and electoral volatility are key to understanding these differences. [source]