Ruud Koole

From May’s Laws to May’s legacy On the opinion structure within political parties

For over 40 years now, the debate on the hierarchical opinion structure within political parties has been colored by May’s laws of General and Special curvilinear disparity. Their essence is that, compared to non-leaders and top leaders, the mid-level of sub-leaders of parties consists of radicals as regards their ideological, substantive positions. Persistent as this vision is, however, there have been few comprehensive empirical tests. In this paper such a test is employed for Dutch parties, consisting of: a) a comparison of average positions on issues and in terms of left and right of voters, members and MPs; b) a comparison of the full opinion distributions on particular political issues for these groups; and c) an exploration of perceptions among top leaders and sub-leaders of the opinion structure within their party. We conclude that there is not enough support to uphold May’s laws any longer. His laws should be dismissed, but May’s legacy should consist of a more open study of the opinion structures of parties, which are still crucial actors in Western representative democracies.

Political Data in 2000

In contrast to 1999, in which the Kosovo crisis and the election of the European Parliament imposed some commonality on politics, at least within the NATO and EU member states, the year 2000 was characterized by important, but largely unrelated, political events in the 28 countries reviewed in this issue.1 There were, however, several exceptions to this pattern of national idiosyncrasy. Three exceptions focused on the European Union. Among the European non-members, the prospect, or desirability, of membership were virtually universally important issues. In the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, the on-going negotiations for accession and the economic reforms required were important issues. In Iceland, Malta, and Switzerland, on the other hand, the question was whether or not it would be desirable to join the EU at all The second EU-related commonality primarily revolved around EMU and the economic constraints imposed on governments by the Maastricht criteria. The specific manifestation of this issue depended on whether or not the country was part of the euro-zone, and on national economic circumstances. With its booming economy, Ireland was falling afoul of the allowable limits on inflation, while in Greece (newly admitted to the euro-zone) the problem was inflation coupled with persistently high unemployment, and in Austria the problem was deficit reduction. In Sweden, the question of EMU membership divided the Social Democratic Party (which after avoiding the issue took a pro-EMU position), as well as dividing the minority Social Democratic government from the Euro-sceptic Left and Green parties on which it often depended for parliamentary support; the Swedish Christian Democrats changed their position on EMU from opposition to support, reflecting a general consensus among the European political elite (with the obvious – or perhaps only the strategic B exception of the British) that EMU mem-