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European elections have been described as second-order phenomena for voters, the media, but also parties. Yet, since 2009, there exists evidence that not only voters, but also political parties assign increasing significance to European elections. While initially 'issue entrepreneurs' were held responsible for this development, the latest campaigns have raised the question of whether mainstream parties are finally also campaigning on European issues. In this article, we examine European Union (EU) salience in the 2019 European Parliament (EP) campaigns of government and opposition parties and the predictors of their strategic behaviours. We test the relevance of factors derived from the selective emphasis and the co-orientation approach within an integrated model of strategic campaign communication based on expert evaluations of 191 parties in 28 EU member states. Results show that the traditional expectation that government parties silence EU issues does not hold anymore; instead, the average EU salience of government and opposition parties is similar on the national level. The strongest predictors for a party's decision to campaign on EU issues are the co-orientation towards the campaign agendas of competing parties, and party's EU position.

Ultimately, electoral democracy is about governments doing what citizens want. However, considerable evidence shows that parties influence citizens' preferences. Most studies on party influence rely on experimental designs that present participants with parties' positions. The disadvantage of experiments is that many citizens are already aware of those positions, thus underestimating party influence. Very few studies assess reactions to real changes in party positions, which avoids this limitation. We break new ground by assessing the impact of changes in coalition governments, which lead parties to express different positions for reasons that are partly exogenous to elite and mass preferences, on partisans' attitudes. Using panel data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), we leverage a major coalition change by Angela Merkel in Germany in 2013. We find that this change influenced the preferences of partisans of the coalition parties. Our findings have significant implications for how we think about democratic representation in multi-party contexts.

The Republic of Türkiye was founded on Ottoman parliamentary tradition introduced in 1878. However, debates on system change have always been on the agenda. The Turkish political elite has occasionally presented proposals on the need to shift from a parliamentary to a presidential system. The times of political crises set a suitable ground for such favourable arguments. This article focuses primarily on the realisation of the systemchange witnessed under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s leadership. In the first part, it argues that the three-phase strategy of the AK Party has made its political dreams come true. An issue is fi rst popularised, then narrativised, and fi nally securitised. Consequently, the new presidential government system was adopted with the April 16th, 2017 referendum. The article analyses how the system change has modifi ed the formation of such alliances among the political parties beyond customary ways. It questions to what extent this novel dimension of party politics would be sustainable. The second part thus elaborates on the formation of alliances and the efforts to make them functional on the way to consensual politics. Lijphart’s classification of democracies as majoritarian governments versus consensus governments has provided a theoretical base for a discussion on the return to a strengthened parliamentary system. The article sheds light on the new dynamics of government/opposition relations and their influence on Turkish democracy.

Party attachments shape perceptions of the political context, but neither are they fixed nor do they completely blind supporters to political reality. When severe challenges like the European sovereign debt or refugee crises force parties to change their policies or make formerly inconsequential positions salient, party identifiers may find their policy preferences at odds with their party identification. This may lead them to adopt their party's position. However, if inconsistent positions are sufficiently important, party identifiers may also loosen their party ties. The chapter uses survey data from the GLES campaign panels 2009-2017 to show how these crises prompted identifiers to follow the party line in some cases but more often weakened or even eroded party attachments among supporters with strong issue positions. In effect, the Euro crisis and, in particular, the refugee crisis appears to have contributed to an issue-based reshuffling of the partisan balance in German politics.

Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht, (1) inwieweit Unterschiede in der Ausgestaltung der Migrationspolitik auf substaatlicher Ebene in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bestehen und (2) wodurch sich die Policy-Varianz zwischen den deutschen Ländern erklären lässt. Während bestehende Studien ähnlich gelagerte Fragen meist nur auf Basis eines spezifischen Indikators der Migrationspolitik untersucht haben - wie etwa der Ausgaben - schlagen wir ein mehrdimensionales Messkonzept vor, das sechs unterschiedliche Dimensionen der Migrationspolitik auf Länderebene unterscheidet: (1) die Art der Unterbringung, (2) die Art der Leistungserbringung, (3) die Gesundheitsversorgung, (4) die Aufnahmepraxis, (5) die Abschiebepraxis, sowie die (6) bundesstaatliche Positionierung am Beispiel der "sicheren Herkunftsländer". Zur Analyse möglicher Pfade zur Erklärung der Unterschiede zwischen den Bundesländern nutzen wir eine fuzzy-set QCA-Analyse und greifen auf Parteipolitik, sozioökonomischen Kontext und die Einstellungen der Bevölkerung als Bedingungen zurück. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass in der Tat substanzielle Unterschiede zwischen den Bundesländern bestehen. Zudem finden wir, dass die parteipolitische Zusammensetzung der Regierung in unterschiedlichen Pfaden eine wichtige Bedingung für das Vorliegen restriktiver bzw. permissiver Migrationspolitik ist. In keinem einzigen kausalen Pfad der fsQCA-Analyse ist überhaupt eine Erklärung restriktiver bzw. permissiver Migrationspolitik ohne Berücksichtigung der Parteiideologie möglich - ein Ergebnis, das klar für die hohe Relevanz der parteipolitischen Zusammensetzung der Regierung spricht. Die Einstellungsmuster der Bevölkerung in dem jeweiligen Bundesland, die Migrationspolitik und die sozioökonomischen Bedingungen scheinen hingegen nur eine untergeordnete Rolle zu spielen.

Die Türkei durchläuft seit einigen Jahren einen Prozess der Autokratisierung mit demokratischer Zustimmung. Dieser ist durch eine Verengung der demokratischen Freiheiten und Möglichkeiten, die Umfärbung staatlicher Institutionen, der Begünstigung von regierungsnahen Unternehmer:innen sowie die zunehmende Personalisierung der Macht in den Händen von Präsident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gekennzeichnet. Einen Höhepunkt erreichte die Autokratisierung in Folge des gescheiterten Putschversuches im Jahr 2016 und der Einführung des Präsidialsystems im Jahr 2018 in Folge eines Referendums 2017. Diese Entwicklungen blieben nicht ohne Auswirkungen auf die Gestaltung der türkischen Außen- und Nachbarschaftspolitik. Hier kam es zu einer immer stärkeren Verwischung der Grenzen zwischen Innen- und Außenpolitik. Die Außenpolitik wurde zusehends zu einer Erweiterung der Innenpolitik und ist durch die politischen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen der Regierungspartei AKP (Partei für Gerechtigkeit und Aufschwung) und ihres Vorsitzenden Recep Tayyip Erdoğan geleitet. Eine prononcierte Identitätspolitik positioniert Präsident Erdoğan, seine Partei und die Türkei als Fürsprecherin von unterdrückten, marginalisierten Muslim:innen in der Welt. Demnach verteidigt Präsident Erdoğan die Rechte und die Würde einer imaginierten transnationalen Umma nicht nur gegenüber dem "Westen", sondern auch den eigenen korrupten Eliten. Die Identitätspolitik geht mit knallharten wirtschaftlichen und politischen Interessen des Präsidenten bzw. seiner Partei einher. Die Kurzanalyse erläutert wie Außen- und Nachbarschaftspolitik zu einer Plattform für parteiische Interessen wurden und wie dies die Handlungsoptionen der Türkei mittel- bis langfristig einschränkt. Sie zeigt dies anhand der Politik gegenüber migrantischen Communities in Europa, Muslim:innen auf dem Balkan sowie gegenüber dem Nahen Osten auf.

Die SPD hat im Wahlkampf, nach der verlorenen Bundestagswahl und auch noch nach dem Scheitern der Jamaika-Verhandlungen die Große Koalition ausgeschlossen, weil sie diese für die Existenzkrise der Partei verantwortlich gemacht hat. Nach der Intervention des Bundespräsidenten soll es nun doch wieder eine Große Koalition werden. Diese radikale Kehrtwende kann nur gelingen, wenn sich die SPD davon überzeugt, dass nicht die erfolgreiche und populäre Große Koalition, sondern vielmehr ihre Verleugnung in den Wahlkämpfen seit 2005 für die Misere der Partei verantwortlich ist. Eine erfolgreiche Erneuerung der SPD in der Großen Koalition setzt die aktive Bejahung dieser Koalition und programmatische Adjustierungen in der Flüchtlings-, Europa- und Wirtschaftspolitik voraus, die in die entgegengesetzte Richtung der von der Partei gewünschten Linkswende weisen.

Vor dem Hintergrund der politikwissenschaftlichen Diagnose über eine zunehmende Ununterscheidbarkeit des (lokal-)politischen Wahlangebots analysiert der Artikel, inwiefern sich kommunalpolitische Parteien, Wählervereinigungen und Wahllisten in Sachfragen tatsächlich unterscheiden und entlang welcher Dimensionen sich der lokalpolitische Wettbewerb strukturiert.

This chapter asks how electoral competition changed from 2013 to 2017 in East and West Germany. Following Sartori's understanding of party systems as systems of interactions resulting from inter-party competition, it focuses on the content-related properties of the German party system. Combining data from the GLES 2013 and 2017 voter and candidate surveys, it investigates, first, the extent of electoral competition in terms of overlapping electoral support of party pairs and, second, how the establishment of the AfD changed the substantial structure underlying electoral competition in East and West Germany. Findings suggest that electoral competition in Germany is best described as three-dimensional. Whereas regional differences result from different voter preferences regarding policy issues, temporal differences are essentially the result of the changing relevance of the socio-economic and socio-cultural issue dimensions but also a newly emerged populist-pluralist divide.

This article aims to contribute both theoretically and empirically to the study of political parties in the EU context, focusing on party organisation. Theoretically, it draws on insights from various literatures to develop a novel typology of multilevel party organisation specific to the EU context. It argues that parties are goal-seeking actors that choose their organisation based on a cost-benefit analysis, involving both party characteristics and the institutional context. Empirically, the article applies this framework on the Flemish political parties. It finds that rational goal-seeking behaviour cannot fully account for parties' organisational choices. Results show that normative and historical considerations play a crucial role in parties' cost-benefit analysis. It therefore calls upon future research to expand the number of comparative studies and to further assess parties' goal-seeking behaviour regarding their multilevel organisation.

This article traces the evolution of representative claim-making by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 up to the present day. Based on the analysis of official political discourses on the mass line, the Three Represents and more recent ongoing discourses on digitalization, we demonstrate the change and continuity of claim-making by the CCP. We show that while representative claim-making has undergone a significant transformation from the CCP as the representative of the working class to the sole representative of the Chinese people and nation, the CCP has been consistent throughout decades in maintaining its hegemony over representative claim-making.

Between 2006 and 2017, the political power in the Republic of Macedonia was predominantly held by the Christian-democratic party VMRO-DPMNE. Its increasing opposition to gender and sexual equality manifested, inter alia, in the imposition of an antidiscrimination law, which did not explicitly recognise sexual orientation as a ground of discrimination, the replacement of the rather liberal abortion law with a restrictive one, and the two attempts to constitutionally define marriage as a heterosexual union. Building upon earlier inquiries into the development of the LGBT movement in Macedonia and the introduction of the new abortion law, I examine here the discourse which the ruling coalitions used to justify the removal of the term 'sexual orientation' from the antidiscrimination law, and the need for a constitutional definition of marriage. I explore further how the authorities pushed their conservative agenda by undermining democracy through infringement of the official legislative procedures and suppression of dissent. In closing, I underline the retrograde impact of de-democratisation on the already and the yet to be attained progressive legislation and practices in the realm of gender and sexual equality.

The German federal election of 2021 reshuffled Germany's party-political hierarchy, but left the six-party system intact. For the first time since 2002, the SPD narrowly overtook the CDU/CSU to become the party with the largest vote share. The Greens and the FDP also gained votes while the CDU/CSU and the Left party suffered high losses and the AfD minor losses. Crucially, party system continuity coexists with severe challenges for German policy makers, namely regional and global insecurity, decline in the country's infrastructure and social coherence, as well as the highly divisive management of the Covid crisis. While the electorate still focusses mostly on social protection and economic security, it is unclear whether Germany's political class can deliver on such expectations in a multi-crisis context. Crucially, technocratic updating at the expense of liberal democracy and constitutional order will worsen rather than improve the current situation.

While the structure of party competition evolves slowly, crisis-like events can induce short-term change to the political agenda. This may be facilitated by challenger parties who might benefit from increased attention to issues they own. We study the dynamic of such shifts through mainstream parties’ response to the 2015 refugee crisis, which strongly affected public debate and election outcomes across Europe. Specifically, we analyse how parties changed their issue emphasis and positions regarding immigration before, during, and after the refugee crisis. Our study is based on a corpus of 120,000 press releases between 2013 and 2017 from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. We identify immigration-related press releases using a novel dictionary and estimate party positions. The resulting monthly salience and positions measures allow for studying changes in close time-intervals, providing crucial detail for disentangling the impact of the crisis itself and the contribution of right-wing parties. While we provide evidence that attention to immigration increased drastically for all parties during the crisis, radical right parties drove the attention of mainstream parties. However, the attention of mainstream parties to immigration decreased toward the end of the refugee crisis and there is limited evidence of parties accommodating the positions of the radical right.

This article advances understandings of secessionist strategies by examining how and why secessionist movements make the case for creating a new sovereign state. It draws on new empirical data to examine the ways in which pro-independence parties in Catalonia have justified their calls for the creation of an independent Catalan Republic between 2008 and 2018. The findings challenge the widespread scholarly assumption that secessionist mobilisation is underpinned by grievances - cultural, economic, and political - against the state. We find that arguments for an independent Catalonia rarely include cultural claims. Instead, independence is advocated as a way of resolving political and economic grievances and of creating a better, more democratic, and just Catalan society. Such justifications are highly influenced by the political context in which pro-independence parties try to advance towards secession. These insights advance on extant explanations of secessionist mobilisation by highlighting the distinctive nature of, and the motives for, secessionist claims.

Is electoral behaviour affected by the current challenges of the EU and, if it is, through which channels and mechanisms? This study offers a cross-national analysis together with a broad understanding of both the crisis phenomenon and electoral behaviour. To investigate this research question appropriately, we first distinguish at the most general level between the two main behavioural alternatives at play when it comes to electoral behaviour, namely abstention and vote choice. Second, and no less important, we differentiate between the mechanisms that mediate the relationship between the ‘EU under stress’ and electoral behaviour, namely egocentric and sociotropic economic voting motivations. Drawing on data from the European Election Study 2014, our article provides important insights into the study of electoral behaviour in an EU under stress. First, we are able to show that the multiple crises that have hit the EU have the potential to determine both turnout and the decision to vote for a Eurosceptic party. Second, different mechanisms are in play for each of the two behavioural alternatives: Turnout is clearly related to egocentric determinants and thus depends on individuals' personal exposure to the financial crisis. Conversely, the decision to vote for a Eurosceptic party is based on a different mechanism. Voters - without necessarily being personally affected by the crisis - have a higher propensity to vote for a Eurosceptic party if they perceive their country to be threatened by such an EU under stress. These findings add to a better understanding of the EU’s multi-level democracy.

Based on original data, this article analyses the politicization of European issues in European elections. Contrary to scholarly expectations, our findings show a higher level of politicization of European issues compared to national elections. However, politicization has been declining in both electoral arenas from the early 2000s until 2014 despite the increasing visibility of radical Eurosceptic parties. This paper suggests that this decline in politicization is a consequence of relatively low levels of emphasis put on the EU issue by mainstream political parties. It argues that Eurosceptic parties have had a paradoxical effect on politicization, since mainstream parties have responded to the former's mobilizing efforts by de‐emphasizing European issues rather than pursuing a confrontational strategy. This finding is corroborated by the 2019 elections, where we observe remarkably high levels of politicization in those countries where mainstream parties have been forced to open the debate around European issues.

Überblick über die Entwuicklung der Luxemburger Presselandschaft in der 2. Hälfte des 20. und den ersten Jahrzehnten des 21. Jahrhunderts, vom Quasi-Monoplo des Luxemburger Wort zum Quasi-Monopol von RTL

This paper proposes an updated approach to explaining two outcomes unforeseen by the existing comparative literature on post-communist successor parties: 1) the electoral stabilization (and even growth) and 2) the divergent developments of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS; later DIE LINKE) in Germany and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM). The paper proceeds by integrating a critical reexamination of earlier studies' organizational and programmatic explanations of electoral success with an analysis of the party-system level of government-opposition signaling and positioning vis-à-vis other parties, which can be expected to take on heightened importance in 'third-generation elections.' It is argued that both parties’ successes were tied to a strategic orientation toward going beyond their confinement in a delimited electoral 'milieu' and occupying a wider electoral ‘vacuum’ to the left of their Social Democratic competitors, albeit with early programmatic modernization and delayed organizational centralization in the PDS as opposed to a near-total continuity of programmatic non-reform and decentralized organization in the KSČM. The findings suggest that earlier studies specifically overlook the impact of subsequent ('third-generation') iterations of party competition on successor-party success as well as the mediation of organizational and programmatic factors by the party-system level.

This article analyses the formal and lived organisation of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, Alternative for Germany). We show that the party is exceptional among what is usually understood as the populist radical right (PRR) party family, at least from an organisational perspective: The AfD sharply contradicts the “standard model” of PRR party organisation, which emphasises "charismatic" leadership and the centralisation of power as key features. Instead, studying the AfD's efforts to adopt some elements of a mass-party organisation and its relatively decentralised decision-making underlines the importance of "movement-party" strategy, collective leadership, and internal democracy - concepts that are usually associated with Green and left-wing parties. Our analysis shows how the party’s organisation is essential for understanding its development more broadly as it reflects and reinforces sharp intra-party conflict. From this perspective, the case of the AfD sheds new light on the relationship between PRR party organisation and electoral success, indicating the importance of strong ties to parts of society over effective internal management as long as demand for anti-immigration parties is high. We conclude that even though AfD quickly built up a relatively inclusive organisational structure, the role of both its leadership and its rank-and-file is still a matter of controversy.

Die Bekämpfung und Vermeidung von Kinderarmut stellen eine der großen Herausforderungen der deutschen Sozialpolitik dar. Insbesondere Kinder und Jugendliche aus alleinerziehenden und/oder kinderreichen Haushalten sind von Armut bedroht. Zwar wird das Konzept einer Kindergrundsicherung als Vermeidungsinstrument von Kinderarmut besprochen, jedoch wurde es bislang nicht implementiert. Der Beitrag fragt daher nach den Vetos für ihre bisher ausgebliebene Implementierung. Nach der inhaltsanalytischen Untersuchung des systembewahrenden Konzepts "Neues Kindergeld" (SPD) sowie der systemverändernden Reformvorschläge "Grüne" und "Linke Kindergrundsicherung" kommen die Autoren zum Schluss, dass Pfadabhängigkeit einerseits sowie parteipolitische und institutionelle Vetospieler andererseits nicht nur die Durchsetzung, sondern bereits die Verabschiedung der Konzepte verhindert haben., Combating and preventing child poverty constitutes a major challenge in German social policy. Children and adolescents from single-parent and/or larger families in particular are at risk of poverty. While there are discussions about a basic income for children as a means to prevent child poverty, such a basic income has not yet been implemented. The following article delineates the vetos for the hitherto absent implementation of a basic income for children. Following a content analysis of the path dependent concept "Neues Kindergeld" by the Social Democratic Party of Germany and reform proposals for a basic income for children by the two political parties Alliance 90/The Greens and The Left, the authors conclude that: Path dependence combined with partisan and institutional veto players have not only prevented the implementation, but also the passing of the concepts.

The article analyses the consequences of elite polarization at the mass level in the centre-periphery dimension. We analyse the rapid rise in support for independence in Catalonia, focusing on the role of party competition around the centre-periphery cleavage. We argue that mainstream actors' adoption of centrifugal party strategies with respect to the national question produced a polarizing dynamic in the party system that eventually caused voters' attitudes regarding the centre-periphery issue to harden. Indeed, we posit that this increase in mass polarization was a consequence of party agency that subsequently helped to drive attitudes regarding independence. To test this hypothesis, we measure centre-periphery polarization (as perceived by voters) by adopting two different perspectives - inter-party distances (horizontal polarization) and party-voter distances (vertical polarization) - and then run logistic regressions to explain support for independence. The findings show an asymmetrical effect on polarization. While the centrifugal strategy implemented by Catalan regionalist parties paved the way for a radicalization of voters on the Catalan nationalist side, among voters for non-regionalist parties, attitudes towards independence were initially less conditioned by this polarization. The results provide evidence of the political effects of elite polarization.

The article analyses the organisation of the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [PiS]) in Poland. The case of PiS does not only allow us to explore the organisational features of a strongly institutionalized, incumbent party which uses populist radical right (PRR) politics. PiS, we argue, is also an ideal case to contrast what such parties might rhetorically declare and substantively do about their organisational features. Using party documents, press reports, quantitative data, and insights from the secondary literature based on interviews with activists, we evaluate the extent to which PiS has developed a mass-party-related organisation, and centralized its intra-party decision-making procedures. We find that while PiS made overtures to some aspects of mass-party-like organisation for electoral mobilization, the party remained reluctant to actively expand its membership numbers and put little effort into fostering the integration and social rootedness of its members through everyday intra-party activities. Furthermore, despite attempts to enact organisational reinvigoration, in practice PiS continued to revolve around strongly centralized structures and, in particular, the absolutist leadership style of the party’s long-time Chair Jarosław Kaczyński. The analysis contributes to assessing the variety and functions of organisational features and appeals within the comparative study of PRR parties. Most particularly, it invites further research into the still relatively under-researched interactions between PRR party organisation and active party communication.

The #MeToo movement has had a profound cultural impact on US society, and notably on US party politics. While many studies have addressed the #MeToo-related controversy arising from the Brett Kavanaugh nomination to Supreme Court Justice in 2018, the relationship between #MeToo and US politics before this event has remained understudied. This article, therefore, addresses this gap by looking at the role of politics at the beginning of the #MeToo movement. Focusing on the first six months of online activity on Twitter (October 2017 - April 2018), over 2 million tweets with the #MeToo hashtag are analyzed to identify the main activity patterns across the dataset and to gain insight on user behavior and participation in the conversation. Results point to the weaponization of #MeToo in the political context from its inception. It is suggested that #MeToo reflects the polarized political climate in the US and that it can be conceptualized as part of the wider "culture wars" (Hunter 1991) that characterize the public debate.

Left-right partisan conflict has been a key driver of welfare state expansion and retrenchment over time and across countries. Yet, we know very little about how left-right differences in party appeals vary across social policy domains. Why are some issues contentious while there is broad consensus on others? This paper starts from the simple premise that partisan conflict is a function of how popular a certain policy is. Based on this assumption, it argues that the left-right gap should be (1) larger for revenue-side issues than for expenditure-side issues, (2) larger for policies targeted at groups that are viewed as less deserving and (3) larger for more redistributive programs than less redistributive ones (e.g. means-tested versus earnings-related benefits). These expectations are tested on fine-grained policy data coded from 65 Austrian party manifestos issued between 1970 and 2017 (N = 18,219). The analysis strongly supports the revenue-expenditure hypothesis and the deservingness hypothesis, but not the redistribution hypothesis.

This article seeks to explain the increase in the German Green party votes in 2019 European elections through the East-West cleavage. Using the 2018 German General Social Survey data, it identifies and compares the Green Party electorate in both regions in terms of conventional and supposed determinants of Green voting. Results of the multivariate analysis equally support both models, indicating left-wing voters as the main source of the Greens’ electoral gains across Germany. However, while in the East the Greens were supported primarily by the electorate of the Social Democratic party dissatisfied with the activity of this party, Western Germans exhibited a trend of left-leaning voters’ backlash against the rise of the radical right party Alternative for Germany through Green voting. This realignment is explicated by the persistent specifics of German regional party politics combined with intrinsic value distinctions of their dwellers, and recent shifts in party-voters ties.