Abstract: The presence and power of national-level political parties at the local level varies among democracies. In some democracies (Canada, Australia), national (and provincial) parties as such are absent or almost absent from the local arena. If and when these political parties have any relationship with the local level, it is mainly about linkages with individual local politicians, relationships that are many times informal and unstable. In other democracies (Norway, Denmark), national parties dominate the local level, their representative hold most or all elected public posts, with hardly any contestation and election of independents and/or local candidate lists. Still in other democracies we witness a break (Israel) or at least a significant decline (Netherlands, Spain, Italy) of past monopoly of national-level political parties in local politics. The goals of the paper are, first, to identify these trends or the lack of them in more than 20 democracies. This will be done by looking at the partisan composition of the city councils of the largest five cities in each of these countries in two points in time (around 1985 and around 2015). Second, to explain the trends (or lack of them) that are apparent from the comparison of the two points in time in each country. Among the factors that may explain variance are institutional reforms at the local level, levels of decline in party membership and identity, changes in the composition and structure of the national party system, levels of trust in political parties and political culture.

Paper / Communication

Abstract: "Across advanced democracies, partisan attachments are in decline and voting behaviour is increasingly unstable. As a result, parties are losing their ‘heartlands’ and they have to engage in a more open competition for votes, which is likely to affect their behaviour. From the literature, two specific expectations emerge on how dealignment affects parties’ behaviour. First, declining levels of partisanship are assumed to cause ideological convergence (Mair, 2008). Second, scholars have claimed that weakening party attachments lead parties to “move around more freely”, thus changing their platforms more quickly (Walgrave & Nuytemans, 2009: 194-195). We test these expectations for a set of nine advanced democracies. Party system polarization as well as the adaptability of parties’ programs are measured by means of the Manifesto Project, which allows measuring parties’ positions since 1945. Information on partisanship comes from long time series of cross-sectional election studies that are available in each of these countries (for some countries since the 1950s, for other countries since the 1970s only). By matching those data sources, we show how the process of dealignment is affecting parties’ strategic and programmatic behaviour."

Abstract: In recent decades Europe has seen a dramatic rise in support for extremist political parties, particularly anti-immigrant and secessionist parties, which challenge the basic principles of the democratic system. Historically, established mainstream parties have reacted to extremist parties in a variety of ways. This article examines how established parties’ strategic responses to extremist parties affect citizen support for extremist parties. We begin by defining what we mean by extremist parties and then provide an overview of the different strategic reactions to them. We then classify extremist parties and reactions across countries. Finally, using electoral vote share and party thermometer ratings from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, we examine how these responses affect support for the extremist parties.