Political Parties and Electoral Change: Party Responses to Electoral Markets

293 Pages·2004·1.57 MB·English

by  Peter Mair

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Political Parties and
Electoral Change
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Political Parties and
Electoral Change
Party Responses to Electoral Markets
Edited by
Peter Mair, Wolfgang C. Müller
and
Fritz Plasser
SAGE Publications
London •Thousand Oaks • New Delhi
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Chapter 1 and Conclusion © Peter Mair, Wolfgang Chapter 6 © Wolfgang C. Müller, Fritz Plasser
C. Müller and Fritz Plasser 2004 and Peter A. Ulram 2004
Chapter 2 © Paul Webb 2004 Chapter 7 © Kris Deschouwer 2004
Chapter 3 © Andrew Knapp 2004 Chapter 8 © Lars Bille and Karina Pedersen 2004
Chapter 4 © Susan E. Scarrow 2004 Chapter 9 © Peter Mair and Michael Marsh 2004
Chapter 5 © Luciano Bardi 2004
First published 2004
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or
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the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication
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the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
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Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
List of Figures x
List of Tables xi
1 Introduction: Electoral Challenges and Party Responses 1
Peter Mair, Wolfgang C. Müller, and Fritz Plasser
2 Party Responses to the Changing Electoral Market in Britain 20
Paul Webb
3 Ephemeral Victories? France’s Governing Parties, the
Ecologists, and the Far Right 49
Andrew Knapp
4 Embracing Dealignment, Combating Realignment: German
Parties Respond 86
Susan E. Scarrow
5 Party Responses to Electoral Dealignment in Italy 111
Luciano Bardi
6 Party Responses to the Erosion of Voter Loyalties in Austria:
Weakness as an Advantage and Strength as a Handicap 145
Wolfgang C. Müller, Fritz Plasser, and Peter A. Ulram
7 Political Parties and Their Reactions to the Erosion of
Voter Loyalty in Belgium: Caught in a Trap 179
Kris Deschouwer
8 Electoral Fortunes and Responses of the Social Democratic
Party and Liberal Party in Denmark: Ups and Downs 207
Lars Bille and Karina Pedersen
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vi Contents
9 Political Parties in Electoral Markets in Postwar Ireland 234
Peter Mair and Michael Marsh
10 Conclusion: Political Parties in Changing Electoral Markets 264
Peter Mair, Wolfgang C. Müller, and Fritz Plasser
Index 275
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Notes on Contributors
Luciano Bardiis Professor of Comparative Politics and International Relations
at the University of Pisa. He is author and co-author of numerous books and
articles on European Union politics and institutions and of several essays on
Italian parties and on the Italian party system, as well as co-editor of Italian
Politics. Mapping the Future (1998) and editor of Forma partito e sistemi di
partito tra due secoli (2004).
Lars Bille is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of
Copenhagen. He is the author of Partier i Forandring(1997) and Fra Valgkamp
til Valgkamp (1998) and co-editor of Partiernes Medlemmer (2003). His
English language publications include articles in West European Politics and
Party Politics.
Kris Deschouwer is Professor of Political Science at the Free University of
Brussels. He is author of Organiseren of Bewegen. De evolutie van de Belgische
partijstructuren sinds 1960 (1993), De wortels van de democratie (1996) and
co-author of Culture, Institutions and Economic Development. AStudy of Eight
European Regions (2003), and co-editor of Party Elites in Divided Societies
(2001). His articles have appeared in European Journal of Political Research,
West European Politics, Regional and Federal Studies, Environmental Politics
and in many edited volumes, including Party Organizations (1992), How
Parties Organize (1994) and Political Parties in Democratic Societies (2002).
Andrew Knapp is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of
Reading. He is author of Le Gaullisme après de Gaulle (1996) and of Parties
and the Party System in France: a Disconnected Democracy? (2004), and
co-author, with Yves Mény, of Government and Politics in Western Europe
(3rd edition, 1998) and, with Vincent Wright, of The Government and Politics
of France (4th edition, 2001).
Peter Mair is Professor of Comparative Politics at Leiden University in the
Netherlands, and is co-editor of West European Politics. He is co-author of
Representative Government in Modern Europe (3rd edition, 2000) and author
of Party System Change (1997). He is co-editor of The Enlarged European
Union (2002).
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viii Notes on Contributors
Michael Marsh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political
Science, Trinity College, University of Dublin. He has written extensively on
parties and elections, both in Ireland and elsewhere. He is the co-author of Days
of Blue Loyalty: the Politics of Membership of Fine Gael (2002), co-editor of
How Ireland Voted 2002 (2003), and co-director of the 2002 Irish election
study. His articles have appeared in journals such as European Journal of
Political Research, Party Politics, and Electoral Studies.
Wolfgang C. Müller is Professor of Political Science at the University of
Mannheim and previously taught at the University of Vienna. He is senior
author of Die österreichischen Abgeordneten, Individuelle Präferenzen und
politsiches Verhalten (2001) and co-editor of Policy, Office, or Votes? How
Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions (1999), Coalition
Governments in Western Europe (2000) (both with Kaare Strøm), and Delega-
tion and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies (2003) (with Kaare
Strøm and Torbjörn Bergman).
Karina Pedersen is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University
of Copenhagen. She is the author of Party Membership Linkage. The Danish
Case (2003).
Fritz Plasser is Professor of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck.
He is author of Parteien unter Stress (1987), co-editor of The Austrian Party
System (1989), Wählerverhalten und Parteienwettbewerb (1995), Wahlkampf
und Wählerentscheidung (1996), Das österreichische Wahlverhalten (2000),
Wahlverhalten in Bewegung (2003) and several other books. His English
language publications include Global Political Campaigning (2002) as well as
articles in West European Politics, Harvard International Journal of
Press/Politics and edited volumes.
Susan E. Scarrowis Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston.
She is author of Parties and Their Members (1996), editor of Perspectives on
Political Parties (2002), and co-editor of Democracy Transformed? (2003).
Her articles have appeared in such journals as the European Journal of Political
Research, Comparative Political Studies, Party Politics, and German Politics.
Peter A. Ulram is Director of the Department for Political Research at the
Fessel +GfK Institut and Associate Professor at the University of Vienna. Heis
author of Hegemonie und Erosion (1990), co-author of Das österreichische
Politikverständnis (2002), and co-editor of Wahlverhalten in Bewegung (2003).
His English language publications have appeared in West European Politics,
Party Politics, and in edited volumes.
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Notes on Contributors ix
Paul Webb is Professor of Politics at the University of Sussex. His research
interests focus on representative democracy, particularly party and electoral
politics. The author or editor of several volumes, including The Modern British
Party System (2000) and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Societies
(2002), he is a co-editor of both Party Politics and Representation.