The Consequences of Neglecting the Median: Major Party Vote Shares in Seven Western Democracies

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The Consequences of Neglecting the Median Major
Party Vote Shares in Seven Western Democracies

• Robin Best
• Syracuse University
• rbest1_at_gmail.com
• March 24th, 2007

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The Project

• To examine the effects of major party positioning
  on the Two-Party vote share.
• Two-Party vote share total of the vote
  received by the two major parties.
• Motivation
• Party systems in virtually all advanced
  democracies have become increasingly fragmented
  over the post-WWII era.
• The total of the vote share received by the two
  major parties has often significantly declined
  over the post-WWII era.

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The Effective Number of Electoral Parties by Time
Period
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Red Line Two-Party Vote Black
Line ENP
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Red Line Two-Party Vote Black
Line ENP
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Polarization and Bracketing

• McDonald 2006 McDonald et. al. 2006.
• In the long-term, representation is accurate and
  responsive, even when parties diverge.
• Long-term representational prospects are best
  when the two-parties bracket the median voter on
  each issue.
• I focus on the short-term consequences of party
  polarization and bracketing
• How does the failure of major parties to converge
  (i.e. party polarization) affect the Two-Party
  vote share?
• How does the failure of major parties to bracket
  the median voter affect the Two-Party vote share?

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Party Polarization

• How would party divergence affect the Two-Party
  vote?
• Downs Converging is the vote-maximizing
  strategy.
• But maybe notParties may benefit when they
  diverge, capitalizing on valence, voter biases,
  etc.
• Converging may lose votes to smaller, more
  extreme parties.
• McDonald et. al. In the short run, incongruence
  is larger when polarization is high.  If voters
  care that the two major parties aren't very close
  to their policy preferences, we may see voters
  supporting alternative parties.
• Polarization should decrease the Two-Party vote
  in the presence of a small centrist party (e.g.
  the Liberal Democrats in the U.K., the FDP in
  Germany).

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Bracketing

• Failing to bracket the median voter on an issue
  may increase support for smaller parties and
  (conversely) decrease support for the two-major
  parties.
• Two forms of failure to bracket
• Both major parties position themselves on the
  issue, but fail to bracket the median voter.
• At least one of the two major parties fails to
  position themselves on the issue.
• Research on new party entries suggests new
  parties are likely to emerge and receive votes
  when an important issue is being neglected by one
  or more major parties (e.g. Hug 2001).
• Importance of New Politics issues.

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Data and Measurement

• Dependent Variable Total of the vote received
  by the two major
• parties.
• Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, New
  Zealand, U.K., U.S.,
• 1950-2002
• Polarization the ideological distance between
  the two-major parties on
• the left-right dimension (CMP 2006).
• Bracketing
• Failure of the two major parties to bracket the
  median voter on Welfare, International Peace,
  Planned Economy, Market Economy.
• of New Politics issues where at least one of
  the two major parties fails to take a position
  (i.e. CMP coding of zero).

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Expectations

• OLS Regression
• Dependent Variable Two-Party Vote Share
• Independent Variable Expected Effect
• Two-Party Vote t-1
• Planned Economy -
• Market Economy -
• Welfare -
• Peace -
• of New Politics Issues -
• Polarization
• PolarizationCenter Party -
• SMD

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• Party Polarization, Bracketing, and Two-Party
  Vote Share, 1950-2002
• __________________________________________________
  ______________________
• Variable Coefficient (Std. Err.)
• __________________________________________________
  ______________________
• Two-Party Vote t-1 .40 (.09)
• Market Economy -.30 (1.57)
• Planned Economy .68 (1.06)
• Welfare -3.45 (1.80)
• Peace 2.39 (1.09)
• New Politics Issues .21 (.21)
• Polarization .06 (.03)
• Center Party 5.46 (4.16)

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Yellow Line FPÖ left-right position Black
Line ENP
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Party Positioning, Two-Party Vote Shares, and
Party System Fragmentation

• Major party bracketing appears to matter little
  for (combined) major party vote shares.
• Issue salience to voters?
• Length of time of neglect?
• Major-party polarization appears to encourage
  fragmentation when there is a small centrist
  party, and limit fragmentation when there is not.
  
• Does this leave room for centrist parties to
  emerge?
• How might the positioning of other (smaller)
  parties matter for major party positioning, vote
  shares, and party system fragmentation?
• E.g. Austria