Suchergebnisse

A normative ideal of political representation is that governmental policy should reflect the will of a majority of the voters. The responsible party model (RPM) emphasizes a number of conditions that must be fulfilled in order to achieve meaningful representation. The model presumes that parties will present stable and divergent policy programs - that is, prospective mandates - during election campaigns, thereby giving voters meaningful electoral choices. An underlying assumption that can be deduced from the RPM is that an electorate with clear and shared perceptions of the party space is an important prerequisite for successful political representation. This article is focused on how the extent of agreement in voters' perceptions of parties' policy positions is affected by: (1) the behavior of the parties in terms of the degree of stability and divergence in their policy positions and (2) the various party characteristics such as the electoral size, the age and the labels of the parties. The study is based on data from election studies in Norway, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands with 26 parties covered in 35 elections. The results show that both the degree of stability and divergence in the parties' left-right positions are of considerable importance for the perceptual agreement among voters, while electoral size of the parties has a negative effect. In contrast to the vast literature on voting behavior that emphasizes the role of well-informed and knowledgeable voters as an important ingredient in effective policy representation, this article shows that responsible parties that present stable and divergent policy positions are needed as well. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Several studies have demonstrated a gap in support for the political system between electoral winners and losers. This research has generated a large stock of knowledge about the causes and effects of this winner–loser gap. However, we know little about the dynamics of the winner–loser gap over time. Drawing on a unique Swedish panel survey, this study investigates the stability of the winner–loser gap among Swedish voters over an electoral cycle of four years. The empirical analyses demonstrate a substantial consistency of the gap over time also when controlling for other determinants. The winner–loser gap thus seems to be a stable phenomenon rather than a short-lived election effect. The results are robust to different specifications and statistical techniques.