Fleeing the Mainstream: Party Positions and Voter Perceptions in Contemporary Liberal Democracies
| Project/Area Number |
22K20119
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Review Section |
0106:Political science and related fields
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| Research Institution | Waseda University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2022-08-31 – 2024-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2022)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,860,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥660,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
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| Keywords | Party convergence / European integration / Challenger parties / Voter perceptions / Elections / Ideology / Values |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
My research builds on previous literature on European integration and party convergence and argues that the mainstream parties in the EU face signficant constraints in their strategic positioning, thereby favoring the rise of challenger parties. In contrast, in the absence of such constraints, non-EU mainstream parties have more room for strategic positioning, which allow them to reduce the space for competitors. Combining demand and supply perspectives, my research evaluates parties and voters' issue positions and value orientations.
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This research explores the relationship between the ideological positioning of traditional mainstream parties and the electoral fortunes of challenger parties across liberal democracies in and outside the European Union. It applies a wide range of empirical techniques to demonstrate that when the mainstream parties converge, voters are more likely to switch to challenger parties. The empirical analyses focus on both party ideology using manifesto data and voter perceptions using survey data. The findings are organized into two papers. A first paper examines the effects of European integration on actual and perceived mainstream party convergence using regressions and matching methods. A second paper tests the effects of party convergence on the electoral performance of challenger parties.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
The research is progressing rather smoothly. The key findings, obtained using the available data from the Comparative Manifesto Project and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, are in the expected direction.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In 2023, I will conduct a survey experiment in Italy to test the effects of European integration on perceived mainstream party convergence. Other surveys on the ideology and values of voters may be conducted in Japan, New Zealand, Germany and Italy.
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Report
(1 results)
Research Products
(3 results)
