Missing Links in Party-System Polarization: How Institutions and Voters Matter

This article aims to understand the determinants of party-system polarization by moving beyond the (almost exclusive) emphasis placed in the literature on the role of the electoral system and the number of parties. We propose a larger menu of explanatory variables that includes both institutional an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of politics 2012-04, Vol.74 (2), p.460-473
Main Authors: Curini, Luigi, Hino, Airo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coalition Formation
Coalition governments
Cross-national analysis
Democracy
Determinants
Elections
Electoral Systems
Electorate
Expectations
Government cabinets
Institutions
Party politics
Party systems
Polarization
Political analysis
Political campaigns
Political cleavages
Political parties
Presidential elections
Presidents
Spatial models
Voter behavior
Voters
Voting
Voting behavior
Voting behaviour
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Summary:This article aims to understand the determinants of party-system polarization by moving beyond the (almost exclusive) emphasis placed in the literature on the role of the electoral system and the number of parties. We propose a larger menu of explanatory variables that includes both institutional and voters-related factors. Regarding the institutional factors, we highlight the consequences of expectations of coalition formations as well as office-related elections (e.g., Presidential ones) on party-system convergence in legislative elections. For the voters-related factors, we address the importance of specific characteristics of the electorate following insights from the spatial theory of voting. To test our hypotheses, we use survey data covering 33 nations and 67 elections. While hypotheses derived from electoral systems and number of parties find little empirical support, the new variables that we consider involving institutions and voters matter significantly.
ISSN:0022-3816
1468-2508
DOI:10.1017/S0022381611001721