Centre Parties: Polarization and Competition in European Parliamentary DemocraciesWhat kind of impact do centre parties have in parliamentary democracies? How does the existence and growth of centre parties affect party system polarization, electoral competition and government stability? This text reassesses the perception of centre parties as a force of moderation. The author argues that this intuitive judgement, which has become accepted by political scientists is dubious, if not incorrect. He examines contemporary centre parties in Europe and asserts that the opposing tendency of centre parties contributes to party system polarization. |
Contents
Centre Parties Party Systems Electoral Competition and Government Stability | 3 |
What is a Centre Party? | 20 |
The Model | 39 |
Assessing a Relationship | 41 |
Generating a Model | 53 |
Testing Movement of Voter Support | 60 |
Examining Shifts in Party Positions | 76 |
Empirical Inquiry | 87 |
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analysis bloc cent centre and extreme centre and middle centre category centre parties centre tendency Centre's percentage centripetal Christian Democratic Appeal continuum correlation countries cross-national Daalder Danish party system decline Democrats 66 Denmark Dutch party system election electoral competition explanation extreme left parties extreme parties extremist parties Folketing ideological impact large centre left parties left-right scale level of party level of polarization level of systemic Liberals major centre major poles mean location middle parties moderate and extreme moderate left parties moderate parties move multiparty systems negative Netherlands old party system outliers parliamentary strength party system polarization pattern percentage of parliamentary polariza polarization scores position PSDI PvdA Reformed Political Party religious parties result Sartori scatterplot share of parliamentary share of seats significant small centre stable strategy of polarization strength of centre Table tion trend Tweede Kamer two-party system vote voters