Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:19:59.791Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2013

Abstract

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.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Department of Political Science, Yale University (email: eleanor.powell@yale.edu) and Wilf Family Department of Politics, New York University (email: joshua.tucker@nyu.edu). All statistical analyses were conducted using Stata 11.0. Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago, IL; the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Toronto, Ontario and the Conference on Vote-Maximizing Strategies of Political Parties at Washington University, St. Louis, 6–7 November 2009. We thank Sarah Birch and the editors at the British Journal of Political Science, anonymous reviewers, Josephine Andrews, Kevin Deegan-Krause, Daniel Kselman, Kenneth Greene, Alex Herzog, Kristin Michelitch, Margit Tavits, the Comparative Politics Seminar at Yale University and the Comparative Parties Reading Group at NYU for helpful suggestions and comments. We are particularly grateful to Mik Laver, whose comments on a different paper inspired this one. We thank as well Grigore Pop-Eleches for comments and suggestions as well as generous access to data he originally collected. We are also extremely grateful for Rebecca Greenberg's excellent research assistance. Data replication sets are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0007123412000531 (and also https://files.nyu.edu/jat7/public/pubs.html and http://www.eleanorneffpowell.com), and the appendix is available online at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0007123412000531.

References

Armingeon, Klaus, Careja, Romana. 2007. Comparative Data Set for 28 Post-Communist Countries, 1989–2007, Institute of Political Science, University of Berne. Available from http://www.ipw.unibe.ch/content/team/klaus_armingeon/comparative_political_data_sets/index_ger.html, accessed 4 February 2012.Google Scholar
Bartolini, StefanoMair, Peter. 1990. Identity, Competition, and Electoral Availability. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Birnir, Johanna K. 2006. Ethnicity and Electoral Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Birch, Sarah. 2001. Electoral System and Party System Stability in Post-Communist Europe. Paper presented at the 2001 Annual Conference of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, CA, 26–29 August.Google Scholar
Birch, Sarah. 2003. Electoral Systems and Political Transformation in Post-communist Europe. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary. W. 1997. Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World's Electoral Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elff, Martin. 2007. Social Structure and Electoral Behavior in Comparative Perspective: The Decline of Social Cleavages in Western Europe Revisited. Perspectives on Politics 5 (2):277294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferree, Karen. 2004. How Fluid is Fluid? The Mutability of Ethnicity and Electoral Volatility in Africa. Working Paper, San Diego, CA.Google Scholar
Frye, Timothy, Hellman, Joel, Tucker, Joshua A.. 2012[2000] (in progress update). Data Base on Political Institutions in the Post-Communist World. Unpublished Dataset.Google Scholar
Golosov, Grigorii. 2010. The Effective Number of Parties: A New Approach. Party Politics 16 (2):171192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jurkynas, Mindaugas. 2005. The 2004 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Lithuania. Electoral Studies 24 (4):770777.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, Honaker, James, Joseph, AnneScheve, Kenneth. 2001. Analyzing Incomplete Political Science Data: An Alternative Algorythm for Multiple Imputation. American Political Science Review 95 (1):4969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitschelt, Herbert. 1995. The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, Herbert, Manfeldova, Zdenka, Markowski, RadoslawToka, Gabor. 1999. Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klasnja, Marko, Kevin, Deegan-Krause, Tucker, Joshua A.. 2011. It's the Bribe, Stupid! Pocketbook vs. Sociotropic Corruption Voting. APSA 2011 Annual Meeting Paper. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1899944, accessed 12 November 2012.Google Scholar
Kselman, DanielTucker, Joshua A.. 2011. A Model of Party Entry in Parliamentary Systems with Proportional Representation. In Political Economy of Democratic Institutions, edited by Norman Schofield and Gonzalo Caballero, 373388. Springer Press.Google Scholar
Kuenzi, MichelleLambright, Gina. 2005. Party Systems and Democratic Consolidation in Africa's Electoral Regimes. Party Politics 11 (4):423446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laakso, MarkuTaagepera, Rein. 1979. Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe. Comparative Political Studies 12:327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Paul G. 2000. Political Parties in Post-Communist Eastern Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lindberg, Stefan I. 2007. Institutionalization of Party Systems? Stability and Fluidity among Legislative Parties in Africa's Democracies. Government and Opposition 42 (2):215241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madrid, Raul. 2005. Ethnic Cleavages and Electoral Volatility in Latin America. Comparative Politics 38 (1):120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mainwaring, ScottScully, Timothy R.. 1995. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott, Espana, Annabella, Gervasoni, Carlos. 2009. Extra System Volatility and the Vote Share of Young Parties. Paper presented at 2009 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Ottawa, Canada, 27–29 May.Google Scholar
Markowski, RadoslawTucker, Joshua A.. 2010. Euroskepticism and the Emergence of Political Parties in Poland. Party Politics 16 (4):532548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meguid, Bonnie M. 2008. Party Competition between Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millard, Frances. 2003. The Parliamentary Elections in Poland, September 2001. Electoral Studies 22: 367374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mozaffar, ShaheenScarritt, James R.. 2005. The Puzzle of African Party Systems. Party Politics 11 (4):399421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owen, AndrewTucker, Joshua A.. 2010. Past is Still Present: Micro-level Comparisons of Conventional vs. Transitional Economic Voting in Three Polish Elections. Electoral Studies 29 (1):2539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pacek, Alexander, Pop-Eleches, GrigoreTucker, Joshua A.. 2009. Disenchanted or Discerning? Voter Turnout in Post-Communist Countries. The Journal of Politics 71 (2):473491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pedersen, Mogens. 1983. Changing Patterns of Electoral Volatility in European Party Systems, 1948–1977. In Western European Party Systems: Continuity and Change, edited by Hans Daalder and Peter Mair, 2966. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Roberts, Kenneth M.Wibbels, Erik. 1999. Party Systems and Electoral Volatility in Latin America: A Test of Economic, Institutional, and Structural Explanations. American Political Science Review 93 (3):575590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, RichardMunro, Neil. 2003. Elections and Parties in New European Democracies. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Seawright, Jason W. 2006. Crisis of Representation: Voters, Party Organizations, and Party-system Collapse in South America. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Sikk, Allan. 2005. How Unstable? Volatility and the Genuinely New Parties in Eastern Europe. European Journal of Political Research 44: 391412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taagepera, Rein. 1997. Effective Number of Parties for Incomplete Data. Electoral Studies 16 (2):145151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tavits, Margit. 2005. The Development of Stable Party Support: Electoral Dynamics in Post-Communist Europe. American Journal of Political Science 49 (2):283298.Google Scholar
Tavits, Margit. 2008. Party Systems in the Making: The Emergence and Success of New Parties in New Democracies. British Journal of Political Science 38:113133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, Joshua A. 2006. Regional Economic Voting: Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, 1990–1999. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Powell Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download Powell Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 184 KB