Adversarial Politics, Civic Virtues and Partisanship in Eastern and Western Europe (original) (raw)

Abstract

nature of party competition and the existence of institutions that foster clear governmental responsibility also contribute to the level of partisanship. Eastern Europe differs from Western Europe only in few-but nonetheless noteworthy-regards. In the East, for example, partisanship increases radicalism, while in the West it strengthens satisfaction with democracy. It appears, therefore, that while the sources of partisanship are similar the consequences of partisanship differ between East and West. Partisanship at the individual level A great deal of the literature on the sources of partisanship has been concerned with the analysis of parental influence and the 'inheritance' of political allegiances (Campbell 1960; Jennings and Nemi 1968; Butler and Stokes 1969, 1974). This focus on the family is understandable. After all, the family is the central institution in most societies and it is where most individuals learn their roles (Monroe et al. 2000; Smith and Mackie 2007). The process of social learning, moreover, occurs before citizens acquire any direct experience of politics and can help structure later political attitudes. The causal arrows thus flow unambiguously from family to partisanship. The focus on family also helps to distinguish partisan identification from attitudes that are the product of political experiences and of rational considerations of benefits (cf. Achen 2002). 2 But the focus on family may lead to the underestimation of the social and political character of the phenomenon, and may produce trivial findings. In this chapter, therefore, we look at both the more remote and more political variables. Accordingly we exclude from the analysis factors like the ideological distance from the preferred party, liking of the party 248 leader or electoral choice. The theoretical rationale for the selection of the analysed variables is explained below. Attachment to a party can be a direct function of the mobilisation effort of the parties. The voters of leftist or religious mass parties typically exhibit more intensive commitment (Norris 2004). Alternatively, partisanship can be conceived as an element of social integration, reflecting membership of the most affluent and dynamic parts of the society. According to empirical findings the typical partisan tends to be indeed male, old, married, an urban dweller and a higher status citizen (Campbell 1960; Miller and Shanks 1996;

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References (6)

  1. Needless to say, these two features allow only a very rough assessment of the underlying phenomenon.
  2. The Comparative Political Data Set 1960-2003 (Klaus Armingeon, Philipp Leimgruber, Michelle Beyeler, Sarah Menegale, Institute of Political Science, University of Berne) and the Comparative Data Set for 28 Post-Communist Countries 1989-2004 (Klaus Armingeon and Romana Careja, Institute of Political Science, University of Berne).
  3. Some other examples, like the Dutch (2002) one, with r = 0.22, are more supportive. 14 Note that the East has m ore i deol ogical radi calism (7.7 com pared wi th 5.3), m ore affective polarization (3.1 compared with 2.6), more polarized perception of the party system (3.2 compared with. 2.7) and more dissatisfaction with democracy (2.6 compared with 2.
  4. than the West. The regional differences on the other political variables are not significant (all the calculations take into account the complex sample design).
  5. Right wingers had stronger party identification in Denmark 2001, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Lithuania, Portugal 2002, and Romania, while the left was more identity-based in Switzerland 2003, Spain 1996, Russia and Sweden. The direction of the relationship changed from positive (1997) to negative (2001) in Poland.
  6. The correlation was particularly high in Bulgaria (0.30), Switzerland 2003 (0.29), Czech Republic 1996 (0.36), Iceland 1999 (0.30), Poland 1997 and 2001 (both 0.30), and Russia 2000 (0.35).