Suchergebnisse

From November 2011 to the elections in February 2013, Italy was led by a technocratic government, appointed to implement austerity measures in the context of the Eurozone debt crisis. While most of the political parties formally supported the government, some actors built their campaign around anti-system themes. This study proposes and discusses empirically two mechanisms by which such a blurred situation may have led Italian voters to discount ideological (left-right) considerations as a guideline for their own political identification and preference formation. Using data from a repeated cross-sectional survey running from March 2011 to February 2013, we investigate whether changes of the macro context affected the strength of the association between ideological self-positioning and the propensity to vote for the coalition leaders of the two ideologically rival blocks, i.e. the left-wing Democratic Party (Pd) and the right-wing People of Freedom (Pdl). Results show that our expectations are only partly corroborated by the data. First, we find that the effect of ideological labels on both parties? evaluations remains strong and persistent over time. Second, both the existence of a technocratic government and worsening economic conditions have had an impact on the evaluation of the Pdl, but not on the evaluation of the Pd. Adapted from the source document.

Party members are often depicted as loyal voters that supply the party with a small but steady electoral base. Research, however, suggests that party members occasionally vote for other parties in general elections. This might either be a strategic choice or an indication of their discontent, possibly preceding a choice to exit the party. Using original survey data on more than 9000 party members in Flanders (Belgium) and Britain, this article aims to extend our understanding of why party members defect. We test hypotheses that take into account both individual and party-level considerations (ideological concerns, leadership evaluations and strategic choices) and the conditioning effects of party and electoral systems. Our analysis shows that institutional settings are crucial for strategic voting, whereas ideological concerns and leadership evaluations matter equally in both countries. As such, our study provides important insights in the attitudes and behaviour of party members, contributing to current debates on the contemporary meaning of party membership.

Do local political party members reflect the views of voters in their constituencies? Since candidate selection by local party members is the most common form of candidate selection in the United Kingdom, it is important to understand local party members' views, and how those views relate to views in the local area. We investigate the degree to which individual members' views match local opinion by combining the results of a large-scale survey of party members in the United Kingdom with estimates of local opinion created using multilevel regression and post-stratification. We find that individual party members' views are moderately to strongly associated with local opinion on both left-right and liberty-authority dimensions. Even so, party members are not entirely congruent with opinion in the local area, having opinions which are either to the left or right of voters in their local area, and which are uniformly more liberal than party supporters.

This article investigates the remarkable surge in individual membership of the Labour Party after the general election of May 2015, particularly after Jeremy Corbyn was officially nominated as a candidate for the leadership in June of that year. Using both British Election Study and Party Members Project data, we explain the surge by focussing on the attitudinal, ideological and demographic characteristics of the members themselves. Findings suggest that, along with support for the leader and yearning for a new style of politics, feelings of relative deprivation played a significant part: many 'left-behind' voters (some well-educated, some less so) joined Labour for the first time when a candidate with a clearly radical profile appeared on the leadership ballot. Anti-capitalist and left-wing values mattered too, particularly for those former members who decided to return to the party.

This paper investigates the nature of the remarkable surge in individual membership of the Labour Party after the general election of May 2015, particularly after Jeremy Corbyn was officially nominated as a candidate for the leadership in June of that year. Using both British Election Study (BES) and Party Members Project (PMP) data, we explain the surge by focusing on the attitudinal, ideological and demographic characteristics of the members themselves. Findings suggest that, along with support for the leader and yearning for a new style of politics, feelings of relative deprivation played a significant part: many 'left behind' voters (some well-educated, some less so) joined Labour for the first time when a candidate with a clearly radical profile appeared on the leadership ballot. Anti-capitalist and left-wing values mattered too, particularly for those former members who decided to return to the party.

This article investigates the remarkable surge in individual membership of the Labour Party after the general election of May 2015, particularly after Jeremy Corbyn was officially nominated as a candidate for the leadership in June of that year. Using both British Election Study and Party Members Project data, we explain the surge by focussing on the attitudinal, ideological and demographic characteristics of the members themselves. Findings suggest that, along with support for the leader and yearning for a new style of politics, feelings of relative deprivation played a significant part: many 'left-behind' voters (some well-educated, some less so) joined Labour for the first time when a candidate with a clearly radical profile appeared on the leadership ballot. Anti-capitalist and left-wing values mattered too, particularly for those former members who decided to return to the party.

"This accessible, rigorously researched and highly revealing book lifts the lid on political party membership. It represents the first in-depth study of the UK's six biggest parties - Labour, the Conservatives, the SNP, the Lib Dems, UKIP and the Greens - carried out simultaneously, thereby providing invaluable new insights into members' social characteristics, attitudes, activities and campaigning, reasons for joining and leaving, and views on how their parties should be run and who should represent them. In short, at a time of great pressure on, and change across parties, this book helps us discover not only what members want out of their parties but what parties want out of their members. This text is essential reading for those interested in political parties, party membership, elections and campaigning, representation, and political participation, be they scholars and students of British and comparative politics, politicians, journalists and party members - in short, anyone who cares about the future of representative democracy"--

We explore the attitudes of the Spanish towards the online tools put forward by the political figures during the Spanish general elections in 2008. We analyze six discussion groups according to age, ideology, and their level of involvement in political in ; Exploramos las actitudes de los españoles hacia las herramientas en línea presentadas por las figuras políticas durante las elecciones generales españolas en 2008. Analizamos seis grupos de discusión según la edad, la ideología y su nivel de participación

This article reviews the empirical research literature on campaign and media effects on vote choice at national elections in European countries for the post-World War II period. Particular efforts are undertaken to obtain a comprehensive picture by including publications in many different languages. With regard to the amount of research, but also the topics addressed, the survey reveals considerable differences between countries. Studies of campaign effects have focused on the temporal dynamics of campaigns, on the modes of campaign communications (such as personal contacts at the local level, advertising on TV and in the press or online social media) and on certain aspects of its content. Research on media effects has explored the role of partisan bias and certain topical categories of news (climate of opinion, issue and candidate coverage) as well as specific new media formats, notably televised candidate debates and vote advice applications (VAA). Overall, the review reveals that there is little in the way of an integrated and consolidated body of campaign and media effects research on national elections in Europe. While political communication research increasingly acknowledges the potential importance of news media and political parties' electioneering for voting behaviour, there appears as of yet to be little convergence regarding approaches and research findings. Particularly striking is the degree to which research questions are guided by national institutional contexts.