Der Wettbewerb zwischen Parteien der Extremen Rechten und der linken Mitte

Seit den fruhen 1980er Jahren gehoren Parteien, die der „Extremen“, „Radikalen“, „Populistischen“ oder „Neuen Rechten“ zugerechnet werden, zur Realitat westeuropaischer Parteiensysteme. Die Etablierung dieser neuen Parteienfamilie stellt die westeuropaischen Demokratien vor eine Vielzahl von Herausforderungen. Dabei ist der Aspekt der Konkurrenz um Stimmen von zentraler Bedeutung. Es gibt gute Grunde zu vermuten, das die Extreme Rechte auch und gerade den sozialistischen und sozialdemokratischen Parteien Europas zusehends Konkurrenz machen konnte. Die neuen Rechtsparteien haben ihre ursprunglich oft marktliberale Rhetorik abgeschwacht und umwerben die Arbeiterschaft mit protektionistischen …

A New Multinomial Accuracy Measure for Polling Bias

In this article, we propose a polling accuracy measure for multi-party elections based on a generalization of Martin, Traugott, and Kennedy's two-party predictive accuracy index. Treating polls as random samples of a voting population, we first estimate an intercept only multinomial logit model to provide proportionate odds measures of each party's share of the vote, and thereby both unweighted and weighted averages of these values as a summary index for poll accuracy. We then propose measures for significance testing, and run a series of simulations to assess possible bias from the resulting folded normal distribution across different sample sizes, finding that bias is small even for polls…

Der ökonomische Ansatz

Der Beitrag stellt, ganz wesentlich orientiert an Downs‘ Modell, den okonomischen Ansatz und das damit verbundene Forschungsprogramm in der Wahlforschung vor. Es werden die zentralen Modellannahmen dargestellt und daraus wichtige Schlusfolgerungen, etwa die rationale Ignoranz und das Wahlparadoxon, abgeleitet. Anschliesend werden Anwendungen und Erweiterungen, u.a. Informationskosten, Ideologien, mehrere Politikdimensionen, Naherungs- und Richtungsmodelle, die Salienztheorie und Economic Voting, diskutiert. Zudem werden verschiedene Losungsansatze fur das Wahlparadoxon vorgestellt. Abschliesend wird der Wert des Rational-Choice-Ansatzes fur die Wahlforschung diskutiert.

Explaining Electoral Support for the Radical Right

The literature on the radical right’s electorate offers a plethora of potential explanations as to why people vote for the radical right. This chapter organizes the presumptive causes of right-wing voting along the lines of the familiar micro-meso-macro scheme, focusing both on a number of landmark studies and on some of the latest research. In doing so, it weighs the evidence in favor of and against some prominent hypotheses about the conditions for radical right party success, including the pure-protest hypothesis, the charismatic-leader hypothesis, and the silent-counterrevolution hypothesis. It also discusses the existing knowledge on the effects of a host of meso- and macro-level facto…

Jung, dynamisch, Nichtwähler? Der Einfluss von Lebensalter und Kohortenzugehörigkeit auf die Wahlbereitschaft

Die Kernaussage dieses Zitats von Hessenauer, in dem er seine Erfahrungen aus der politischen Jugendarbeit nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zusammenfasst, konnte sich in ahnlicher Weise auch ohne weiteres in einer zeitgenossischen Jugendstudie finden — sowohl, was die Tatsachenbeschreibung, als auch, was deren Interpretation betrifft. Altere Menschen zweifeln offenbar seit jeher an der Bereitschaft (und oft auch an der Befahigung) der Jugend, sich in gebuhrender Form in das politische Leben einzufugen, das heist in der reprasentativen Demokratie vor allem: in Parteien mitzuarbeiten und sich an Wahlen zu beteiligen. Dieser Argwohn wird in gewisser Weise von der Empirie gedeckt: Nichtwahlerstudien …

Candidate localness and voter choice in the 2015 General Election in England

Previous research has demonstrated a significant relationship between the geographical distance from a voter to a candidate and the likelihood of the voter choosing that candidate. However, models of this relationship may be mis- or under-specified, by not taking into account voters’ perceptions of distance or not controlling for other possible factors related to a candidate’s ‘localness’ which may influence vote choice. Using a two-wave panel survey carried out during the 2015 UK General Election, this article tests a more fully specified alternative-specific multinomial probit model of candidate-voter distance. We show that, although the effect size is smaller than in previous tests, cand…

How the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and their voters veered to the radical right, 2013–2017

Abstract Until 2017, Germany was an exception to the success of radical right parties in postwar Europe. We provide new evidence for the transformation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to a radical right party drawing upon social media data. Further, we demonstrate that the AfD's electorate now matches the radical right template of other countries and that its trajectory mirrors the ideological shift of the party. Using data from the 2013 to 2017 series of German Longitudinal Elections Study (GLES) tracking polls, we employ multilevel modelling to test our argument on support for the AfD. We find the AfD's support now resembles the image of European radical right voters. Specifically, g…

An Absolute Majority for the SPD as an Unintended Consequence? The Land Election in Rhineland-Palatinate 2006

The state election of 2006 in Rheinland-Pfalz resulted in a (bare) majority of seats for the SPD, which allows the party to govern alone for the first time in the history of the state. The CDU, on the other hand, received slightly less than one-third of the vote, an all-time low in its former stronghold. This result was by and large determined by factors at the state level. Yet it had a considerable impact at the federal level: it signalled the end of a string of devastating losses for the SPD, enhanced the standing of minister president Kurt Beck (now the SPD's chairman), and brought to an end the last coalition between the SPD and the FDP. These repercussions notwithstanding, there is no …

Secular citizens, pious MPs: why German attitudes about genetic testing are much more permissive than German laws

Germany has lifted its total ban on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD, a form of genetic testing), but the new rules are still much stricter than those in other European countries. Results fro...

Conceptual Confusion is Not Always a Bad Thing – The Curious Case of European Radical Right Studies

Over the course of many years, as a teacher, scholar, and friend, Ruth Zimmerling has impressed on me the importance of precisely defining one’s concepts. After all, if there is no agreement on the intension and extension of a concept, it is impossible “to assess the truth or falsity or, more generally, the correctness or incorrectness, of propositions, hypotheses or theories” (Zimmerling 2005: 15). The statement is almost self-evident: Without precisely defined concepts, the whole endeavour of science becomes pointless, and scholarly discourses are bound to turn into dialogues of the deaf.

A partial micro-foundation for the ‘two-worlds’ theory of morality policymaking: Evidence from Germany

The two-worlds framework is currently the most important account of morality policymaking in Europe. For this theory of elite behaviour to be valid, a number of implicit assumptions about political belief systems at the mass level must hold. This contribution spells out these assumptions and tests them within a structural equation modelling framework, using original survey data from Germany, a country that constitutes a crucial case for the two-worlds theory. The results showed that the implicit individual-level preconditions of the two-worlds framework were fulfilled. Political secularism and partisanship were strongly associated. Political secularism also had strong effects on morality p…

Estimating Polling Accuracy in Multiparty Elections Using Surveybias

Any rigorous discussion of bias in opinion surveys requires a scalar measure of survey accuracy. Martin, Traugott, and Kennedy (2005, Public Opinion Quarterly 69: 342-369) propose such a measure A for the two-party case, and Arzheimer and Evans (2014, Political Analysis 22: 31-44) demonstrate how measures A'i, B, and Bw for the more common multiparty case can be derived. We describe the commands surveybias, surveybiasi, and surveybiasseries, which enable the fast computation of these binomial and multinomial measures of bias in opinion surveys. While the examples are based on pre-election surveys, the methodology applies to any multinomial variable whose true distribution in the population…

Geolocation and voting: Candidate–voter distance effects on party choice in the 2010 UK general election in England

The effect of geographical distance between candidate and voter on vote-likelihood in the UK is essentially untested. In systems where constituency representatives vie for local inhabitants' support in elections, candidates living closer to a voter would be expected to have a greater probability of receiving that individual's support, other things being equal. In this paper, we present a first test of this concept using constituency data (specifically, notice of poll address data) from the British General Election of 2010 and the British Election Survey, together with geographical data from Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail, to test the hypothesis that candidate distance matters in voters' cho…

Die Alternative fuer Deutschland. Programmatik, Entwicklung und politische Verortung

As an object of study, Germany’s new(-ish) Alternative fuer Deutschland party (AfD) is a moving target. Since its inception in early 2013, the party has gone from strength to strength and won parli...

Inside the Radical Right: The Development of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe

Inside the Radical Right: The Development of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe By David Art Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011, 288 pp., £60.00, ISBN 9780521896245 (hbk) Over the la...

Wahlverhalten in Ost-West-Perspektive

Immer noch zeigen sich charakteristische Unterschiede im Wahlverhalten von Ost- und Westdeutschen, vor allem bei der Hohe der Wahlbeteiligung und dem Abschneiden der Linkspartei. Die Differenzen sind jedoch geringer als bei den Wahlen von 1994–2009, wahrend es innerhalb der Regionen betrachtliche Unterschiede gibt. Anders als fruher wird das Parteiensystem von Ost- und Westdeutschen mittlerweile in ahnlicher Weise wahrgenommen.Auch die politischen Orientierungen der Burger entfalten in Ost und West nun sehr ahnliche Wirkungen. Die Verteilung dieser Einstellungen unterscheiden sich aber nach wie vor stark. Neben der seit langem bekannten Beurteilung des Sozialismus betrifft dies in noch star…

Beispiele und Anwendungen

Die Beispiele in diesem und im folgenden Kapitel basieren auf der „Allgemeinen Bevolkerungsumfrage der Sozialwissenschaften“ (ALLBUS, http://www.gesis.org/allbus/allbus-home/) und dem European Social Survey (ESS, http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/). Beide Studien werden als offentlich finanziertes Infrastrukturprojekte im Abstand von jeweils zwei Jahren durchgefuhrt; der ALLBUS seit 1980, der ESS seit 2002. Auch die Struktur beider Studien ist ahnlich: Die Daten decken eine Vielzahl von politik- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen ab, sind von anerkannt hoher Qualitat und fur die Zwecke von Forschung und Lehre frei im Internet zuganglich. Neben einem Kern von Items, der in jeder …

Strange bedfellows: the Bundestag’s free vote on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) reveals how Germany’s restrictive bioethics legislation is shaped by a Christian Democratic/New Left issue-coalition

Germany’s bioethical legislation presents a puzzle: given structural factors, the country should be at the forefront of reproductive medicine, but its embryology regime remains one of the strictest in Western Europe. Past research has linked this fact to an unusual coalition of Christian and New Left groups, which both draw a connection from modern embryology to eugenics under the Nazis. In this article, the workings of this alleged alliance are demonstrated at the micro-level for the first time. The behaviour of individual MPs in a crucial free vote on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is modelled using data on their political, sectoral and religious affiliations. Identifying as a …

Regionalvertretungswechsel von links nach rechts? Die Wahl der Alternative für Deutschland und der Linkspartei in Ost-West-Perspektive

Nach der Bundestagswahl 2017 machte der Tagesspiegel einen neuen „Trend zum Regionalen“ aus. (https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/parteien-in-deutschland-ein-trend-zum-regionalen/20792814.html) Die Zeit identifizierte die Linke, die „einstige Volkspartei der Ostdeutschen“, als Mitschuldige fur den Aufstieg der AfD in den neuen Landern, (https://www.zeit.de/2018/19/ostdeutschland-linke-afd-aufstieg) und die Huffington Post verzeichnet lapidar, dass „Rechtsextreme vielen Ostdeutschen ein neues Wir-Gefuhl verschafft“ hatten und die AfD „zu einer echten Regionalpartei geworden [sei], die ein Lebensgefuhl“ vertrete.

“Don't Mention the War!” how Populist Right‐Wing Radicalism Became (Almost) Normal in Germany

Candidate geolocation and voter choice in the 2013 English County Council elections

The degree of ‘localness’ of candidates, including their residential location, has long been theorised to influence voters at election time. Individual-level tests of distance effects in the 2010 British general elections demonstrated that, controlling for standard explanations of vote, the distance from a voter’s home to that of the candidate was negatively associated with the likelihood of voting for that candidate. To test this theory in a sub-national electoral context more likely to produce distance effects than a national election, this paper builds upon previous analysis by using the 2013 English County Council elections. It improves upon the previous analysis in a number of ways, a…

‘Dead men walking?’ Party identification in Germany, 1977–2002

Abstract Scholars engaged in the discourse on ‘Parteienverdrossenheit’ claim that a breakdown of party attachments in West Germany occurred during the early 1990s. Employing data from a series of monthly polls that were conducted from 1977 to 2002, this paper demonstrates that the notion of such a rapid decline is wrong. Rather than being swept away by political crises, party identification declines slowly and fairly constantly over time, which is in line with theories of a secular dealignment. Furthermore, it can be shown that this dealignment is driven by a weakening of traditional social ties, while cognitive mobilization and change in the composition of the society have no effect on par…

Sports Cars, Sleaze and Gamma Rays: Rhineland-Palatinate Elects its First Red-Green Government

The 2011 election in Rhineland-Palatinate was a political earthquake: Following a string of political scandals, the SPD lost almost ten percentage points of their support, while the CDU could hardly improve on their disastrous 2006 result. The FDP is no longer represented in the state parliament. The Greens more than tripled their last result, allowing them to enter a coalition with the SPD for the first time. Analyses at the municipal level show that the party improved most in their urban strongholds while still showing a (relatively) weak performance in rural areas. This will make it difficult to sustain the momentum of their victory. Moreover, the SPD is battered and bruised and needs to…

Political interest furthers partisanship in England, Scotland, and Wales

ABSTRACTAccording to much of the literature, partisanship in Britain exercises little independent influence on the vote but merely reflects voters’ prospective and retrospective evaluations of the parties’ performance with regard to their management of the economy, national security, and public services. In this view, partisanship comes close to Fiorina’s model of a “running tally” of political experiences. Similarly, Dalton’s notion of “cognitive mobilization” suggests that seeking out political information should undermine both the need for and the likelihood of party identification. Applying Mixed Markov Latent Class Analysis to the British Election Study Panel 1997–2000, we challenge th…

Die Wahl extremistischer Parteien

Der Beitrag gibt einen Uberblick uber die Forschung zur Wahl extremistischer Parteien. Extremistische Parteien zu identifizieren ist voraussetzungsvoll. Daher wird der Begriff des Extremismus von verwandten Begriffen unterschieden. Zur Erklarung derartigen Wahlverhaltens werden exemplarisch ein raumliches Modell des Parteienwettbewerbs sowie die „Theorie des Rechtsradikalismus in westlichen Industriegesellschaften“ vorgestellt und diskutiert. Abschliesend wird ein Uberblick uber Wahlverhalten zugunsten extremistischer Parteien sowie uber die Wahler der Flugelparteien in der Bundesrepublik gegeben.

Information – Wahrnehmung – Emotion

„Democracy requires an active citizenry because it is through discussion, popular interest, and involvement in politics that societal goals should be defined and carried out in a democracy“, so hat es Dalton (1996: 40) formuliert und weiter pointiert zugespitzt: „Democracy should be a celebration of an involved public”. Man konnte hinzufugen, dass diese Offentlichkeit nicht nur eine involvierte, sondern auch eine informierte sein sollte. Zwar mit viel Enthusiasmus, aber basierend auf faktisch falschen Grundlagen – so sollte Demokratie wohl auch nicht funktionieren.

Angus Campbell/Philip E. Converse/Warren E. Miller/Donald E. Stokes, The American Voter, New York 1960

„American Voter“ gehort zu den am haufigsten zitierten Publikationen in der Wahlforschung. Seine herausragende Bedeutung erklart sich weniger aus den substantiellen Ergebnissen der Autoren — obwohl diese teils heute noch Gultigkeit haben — als vielmehr aus dem Erklarungsansatz, den die vier Autoren entwickelt haben. Zusammen mit Anthony Downs’ „Economic Theory of Democracy“ (→ Downs 1957) und „The People’s Choice“ von Lazarsfeld/Berelson/Gaudet (→ Lazarsfeld/Berelson/Gaudet 1944) bildet der „American Voter“ deshalb jene Trias von Klassikern, auf die sich die drei theoretischen Hauptstromungen der Wahlforschung — Rational Choice-Ansatz, (mikro-)soziologischer und sozialpsychologischer Ansatz…

Wahlforschung in der Vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft

In den 1970er-Jahren hat sich die bis dahin US-amerikanisch gepragte Wahlforschung internationalisiert. Seit den 1990er-Jahren ist der Mainstream der Wahlforschung vergleichend ausgerichtet, da sich die Wirkung institutioneller und anderer kontextueller Variablen nur so kontrollieren lasst. Eine leistungsfahige Forschungsinfrastruktur hat diese Entwicklung ermoglicht und vorangetrieben.

Political interest furthers partisanship in England, Scotland, and Wales

According to much of the literature, partisanship in Britain exercises little independent influence on the vote but merely reflects voters’ prospective and retrospective evaluations of the parties’ performance with regard to their management of the economy, national security, and public services. In this view, partisanship comes close to Fiorina’s model of a “running tally” of political experiences. Similarly, Dalton’s notion of “cognitive mobilization” suggests that seeking out political information should undermine both the need for and the likelihood of party identification. Applying Mixed Markov Latent Class Analysis to the British Election Study Panel 1997–2000, we challenge these perc…