Jae-Jae Spoon

A Vote Against Europe? Explaining Defection at the 1999 and 2004 European Parliament Elections

Governing parties generally win fewer votes at European Parliament elections than at national electionsmost common explanation for this is that European elections are ‘second order national elections’ acting as mid-term referendums on government performance. This article proposes an alternative, though complementary, explanation: voters defect because governing parties are generally far more pro-European than the typical voter. Additionally, the more the campaign context primes Eurosceptic sentiments, the more likely voters are to turn against governing parties. A multi-level model is used to test these propositions and analyse the effects of individual and contextual factors at the 1999 and 2004 European Parliament elections. Both European and domestic concerns matter to voters; moreover, campaign context plays an important role in shaping vote choices.

Political Survival of Small Parties in Europe

It is often thought that small party survival or failure is a result of institutional constraints, the behavior of large parties, and the choices of individual politicians. Jae-Jae Spoon, in contrast, argues that the decisions made by small parties themselves determine their ability to balance the dual goals of remaining true to their ideals while maximizing their vote and seat shares, thereby enabling them to survive even in adverse electoral systems. Spoon employs a mixed-methods approach in order to explore the policy, electoral, and communication strategies of West European Green Parties from 1980 to the present. She combines cross-national data on these parties with in-depth comparative case studies of two New Politics parties, the French and British Green Parties, that have survived in similar national-level plurality electoral systems. Both of these Green Parties have developed as organizations and now run candidates in elections at the local, national, and European levels in their respective countries. ThepartiesAE survival, Spoon asserts, results from their ability to balance their competing electoral, policy, and communication goals.

Going green: explaining issue competition on the environment

This study addresses the dynamics of the issue space in multiparty systems by examining to what extent, and under what conditions, parties respond to the issue ownership of other parties on the green issue. To understand why some issues become part and parcel of the political agenda in multiparty systems, it is crucial not only to examine the strategies of issue entrepreneurs, but also the responses of other parties. It is argued that the extent to which other parties respond to, rather than ignore, the issue mobilisation of green parties depends on two factors: how much of an electoral threat the green party poses to a specific party; and the extent to which the political and economic context makes the green issue a potential vote winner. To analyse the evolution of the green issue, a time-series cross-section analysis is conducted using data from the Comparative Manifestos Project for 19 West European countries from 1980-2010. The findings have important implications for understanding issue evolution in multiparty systems and how and why the dynamics of party competition on the green issue vary across time and space.

Holding Their Own Explaining the Persistence of Green Parties in France and the UK

In his seminal work, Kirchheimer (1966) argued that as larger parties transformed into catch-all parties we would see the disappearance of small parties. We know, however, that Green parties are one example of small parties that have persisted in many European party systems. In this article, I seek to explain this inconsistency. I argue that Kirchheimer did not anticipate the development and growth of the New Politics agenda or of Green parties. These parties, moreover, have endured because of their desire to gain electoral representation and maintain their distinct policy positions. To test this argument, I examine the electoral strategies and policy preferences of the British and French Green parties over the past decade. The results confirm my hypotheses. The findings not only update Kirchheimer’s theory, but also have important implications for our understanding of Green party behaviour and potential for longevity more generally.

Who Responds? Voters, Parties and Issue Attention

Do parties listen to their voters? This article addresses this important question by moving beyond position congruence to explore whether parties respond to voters’ issue priorities. It argues that political parties respond to voters in their election manifestos, but that their responsiveness varies across different party types: namely, that large parties are more responsive to voters’ policy priorities, while government parties listen less to voters’ issue demands. The study also posits that niche parties are not generally more responsive to voter demands, but that they are more responsive to the concerns of their supporters in their owned issue areas. To test these theoretical expectations, the study combines data from the Comparative Manifestos Project with data on voters’ policy priorities from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and various national election studies across eighteen European democracies in sixty-three elections from 1972–2011. Our findings have important implications for understanding political representation and democratic linkage.

Differentiated party response: The effect of Euroskeptic public opinion on party positions

Do parties respond to voters’ preferences on European integration in elections to the European Parliament? In this article, we argue that political parties do respond to voters’ Euroskeptic attitudes, but that party type conditions responsiveness. In particular, we posit that larger parties are more responsive and that governing parties are less responsive to aggregate Euroskepticism. To test our theoretical expectations, we use data from the Euromanifestos Project and European Election Study from 1989 to 2009 for 252 parties across 26 European Union Member States. Our findings have important implications for understanding democratic representation in the European Union and the second-order nature of elections to the European Parliament.

How salient is Europe? An analysis of European election manifestos, 1979–2004

What determines how ‘European’ a party’s manifesto is? This article examines the salience of European issues in national parties’ Euromanifestos during the 1979–2004 period. I argue that domestic politics, including voter, party, and party system factors, influence the European content of a party’s Euromanifesto. Using data from the Euromanifestos Project for 14 member states, I find that the differential emphasis on European issues in the national party system, intra-party dissent on European integration, voter ambivalence on membership of the European Union, and party type all influence the salience of European issues in a party’s manifesto. These findings have important implications for understanding both how parties use manifestos to manipulate the political agenda and the dimensions of contestation in elections to the European Parliament.

Voter polarisation and party responsiveness: Why parties emphasise divided issues, but remain silent on unified issues

How does voter polarisation affect party responsiveness? Previous research has shown that political parties emphasise political issues that are important to their voters. However, it is posited in this article that political parties are not equally responsive to citizen demands across all issue areas. The hypothesis is that party responsiveness varies considerably with the preference configuration of the electorate. More specifically, it is argued that party responsiveness increases with the polarisation of issues among voters. To test these theoretical expectations, party responsiveness is analysed across nine West European countries from 1982 until 2013. Data on voter attention and voter preferences with regard to specific policy issues from a variety of national election studies is combined with Comparative Manifestos Project data on parties’ emphasis of these issues in their election manifestos. The findings have major implications for understanding party competition and political representation in Europe

Alone or together? How institutions affect party entry in presidential elections in Europe and South America

Prior research has shown that institutions affect parties’ incentives to coordinate within elections or compete on their own. However, no study to date has examined with institutional effects when parties coordinate in the most important of electoral contests: the presidential race. In this article, we explain which institutions encourage parties to run as part of pre-electoral coalitions (PECs) or shun them and run on their own in the race for the presidency. Using an original dataset of over 1400 parties that sponsored a candidate on their own or ran as part of an alliance in presidential elections across 23 democracies in Europe and South America from 1975 to 2009, we find that the powers of the presidential office, electoral rules and multi-level governance determine when parties decide to enter the race on their own or form an alliance. Our findings have important implications for understanding party competition in semi-presidential and presidential systems.

Bringing salience back in Explaining voting defection in the European Parliament

What explains when Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) defect from their EP party group? While previous research has focused on the policy distance between an MEP’s national party and her party group, it has been overlooked that not all issues are equally important to national parties. As parties prioritize certain issues over others, we argue that it is both the distance and the salience of the issue for the MEP’s national party that explains defection. To test our theoretical claim, we explore more than 400,000 vote decisions across 1,948 different roll-call votes in four issue areas – agriculture, environment, social policy and external trade – from 1979 until 1999. To measure policy salience and distance, we combine roll-call analysis with data from the Euromanifestos Project. Our findings have important implications for understanding the dynamics of party competition and the role that national parties play in the European Parliament.