Endre Borbáth
Biographic Data
| ID | 2273597 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Endre Borbáth |
| GIVEN NAMES | Endre |
| FAMILY NAME | Borbáth |
| SIGNATURE | BORBÁTH E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Heidelberg University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2980-8586 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 197 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Cleavages in Party Competition in Central and Eastern Europe
While party system volatility remains high in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), less is known about whether electoral competition has become programmatically structured. This paper examines the extent and evolution of programmatic differentiation across four CEE countries, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Romania, between the 1990s and 2023. Relying on quantitative content analysis of newspaper coverage during parliamentary election campaigns, it inv…
Electoral mobilisation in turbulent times
This symposium examines how European parties mobilize electorally in an era of recurrent crises and rapid political transformation. Building on the updated PolDem dataset, which tracks media coverage of national election campaigns across fifteen European countries from 1972 to 2023, the symposium investigates how issue salience, party positioning, and voter behaviour interact under turbulent conditions. The introduction situates the contributions…
Brand Transformation in European Politics
Political parties in Europe are undergoing profound transformations, with many abandoning traditional brands. This study analyzes party names as indicators of ideological and organizational change, combining an original content analysis across 28 European countries (1945–2023) with two conjoint survey experiments. We find that “nonparty” names have become the majority, reflecting a shift away from ideology toward alternative forms of identificati…
Party system transformation from below
Recent changes in European politics—such as the rise of so-called movement parties on both the left and the right—call for a rethinking of the links between protest dynamics and party system transformation. In this paper, we contribute to the theoretical and empirical understanding of the mechanisms that unfold in periods of intensified interactions between protest and electoral politics through a case study of the transformation of the Hungarian…
Movement parties in Europe
Research on political parties and social movements has long developed independently, separated by the disciplinary boundaries of political science and sociology. We see the recent successes of ‘movement parties’ as a push to bridge the two disciplinary traditions in order to describe this new hybrid party type accurately. To this end, we ask to what extent and under what conditions do we observe movement parties in European party systems, and how…
Environmental protests in Europe
Despite growing attention to the resurgence of environmental, and especially climate-related mobilisation in Europe, comparative assessments across countries and over time are lacking. Using classic social movement theories (grievances, opportunities, resources), we examine the frequency, profile, and drivers of environmental protest. We conduct a two-step analysis based on the updated PolDem protest event dataset covering 27 European countries f…
The Effect of Politicization on Protest Participation in Non‐Democracies
Politicization—the expansion of conflict in the political system—is often assumed to be associated with high levels of participation. Yet, this is not necessarily the case, especially in contexts of democratic backsliding. This study investigates how politicization of protest events affects individuals’ willingness to participate in protests, using Hungary as a most likely case. We examine three causal mechanisms that may mediate this effect: per…
Mobilizing individuals in crisis
The Covid-19 pandemic created a dual crisis for civil society organizations (CSOs): heightened demand for social support alongside restrictions that limited their capacity to mobilize people. This study investigates how volunteer-based CSOs fostered civic engagement amid these constraints, providing new empirical insights into their capabilities and limitations during times of crisis. Bridging research on both the demand and supply sides of civic…
Cleavage theory meets civil society
How does civil society shape the development of cleavages? While intermediary organisations, such as trade unions and churches, featured heavily in historical accounts, neo-cleavage theory tends to ignore the meso-level dynamics of the new ‘transnational’ divide beyond party politics. This agenda-setting article introduces a general framework for studying the relationship between civil society and cleavages, capable of facilitating comparisons ac…
Protest and the rise of left-nationalist challengers
The cost-of-living crisis, unfolding in the shadow of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, highlighted policy positions not traditionally represented in European party systems and protest politics. Our study asks why large-scale protests, widely anticipated during Germany's 'Hot Autumn' of 2022, did not materialize despite a severe cost-ofliving crisis. Drawing on insights from social movement studies, we test the long-standing argument that successful …
Varieties of trade union protest
The article examines varieties of trade union protest across industrial relations regimes, using protest event data for 27 European countries between 2000 and 2021. We present a large-n analysis of how the level and 'movement character' of union protest covaries with the strength and institutional settings of union movements across regimes. We show that unions remain important protest actors and that union protest in the public sphere notably out…
Differentiation in Protest Politics
The political participation literature has documented a long-term trend of the normalization of noninstitutional participation that is often equated with the conventionalization of engagement in protest politics. Less is known on the extent to which noninstitutional forms are differentiated by their mobilization context. Population surveys find it difficult to contextualize individual engagement, and on-site surveys point to effects that are hard…
Cleavage politics, polarisation and participation in Western Europe
Polarisation over cultural issues and the emergence of radical, often populist, challenger parties indicate a fundamental restructuring of political conflict in Western Europe. The emerging divide crosscuts and, in part, reshapes older cleavages. This special issue introduction highlights how the transformation of cleavage structures relates to the dynamics of polarisation and political participation. The contributions to the special issue innova…
How Do Populist Radical Right Parties Differentiate their Appeal? Evidence from the Media Strategy of the Hungarian Jobbik Party
As they become more successful, populist radical right parties face a tension between keeping their nativist credentials and moderating their appeal to gain new voters. We argue that differentiating party messages to core supporters and the wider electorate allows parties to pursue both goals. We outline and empirically illustrate the previously underexplored phenomenon of selective messaging based on the communication strategy of the Hungarian J…
Protest and Electoral Breakthrough
This paper studies party-movement interactions in Germany, focusing on Die Linke and the AfD, the two most recent additions to Germany’s multi-party system. The electoral rise of both challenger parties went along with mass protests, opposition to Hartz IV in the mid-2000s and anti-Islamic PEGIDA mobilisation in the mid-2010s. We shift the emphasis from how social movements turn into political parties, including significant organisational and per…
A Typology of Postcommunist Successor Parties in Central and Eastern Europe and an Explanatory Framework for Their (Non-)Success
This article revisits the phenomenon of postcommunist successor parties – defined as the formal successor organizations of state-socialist ruling parties – in Central and Eastern Europe three decades after the transformative events of 1989–91 and two decades after the most recent period of sustained academic interest in the topic. The article begins with a critical reexamination of the late 1990s and early 2000s comparative politics literature on…
Protesting Parties in Europe
The article provides the first large-scale study of protest activities by political parties. The empirical analysis draws on original protest event data for 30 European countries based on semi-automated coding of news agencies. The article innovates by (a) proposing a standardized indicator for the extent to which protest and electoral politics relate to each other, (b) showing that parties’ involvement in protests differs across political contex…
Two faces of party system stability
Despite extensive research on party system stability, the concept is often reduced to the survival of existing parties. This article argues for introducing programmatic stability as a separate dimension and shows how the combination of party replacement and programmatic instability shapes patterns of party competition. Based on their interaction, the article distinguishes four ideal types: stable systems, systems with empty party labels, systems …
Civic and Political Engagement during the Multifaceted Covid‐19 Crisis
Measures to cope with the COVID‐19 pandemic have put a sudden halt to street protests and other forms of citizen involvement in Europe. At the same time, the pandemic has increased the need for solidarity, motivating citizens to become involved on behalf of people at risk and the vulnerable more generally. This research note empirically examines the tension between the demobilisation and activation potential of the COVID‐19 crisis. Drawing on ori…
Different worlds of contention? Protest in Northwestern, Southern and Eastern Europe
Despite the voluminous literature on the ‘normalisation of protest’, the protest arena is seen as a bastion of left‐wing mobilisation. While citizens on the left readily turn to the streets, citizens on the right only settle for it as a ‘second best option’. However, most studies are based on aggregated cross‐national comparisons or only include Northwestern Europe. We contend the aggregate‐level perspective hides different dynamics of protest ac…
Challenges from left and right
The paper looks at how protest politics has developed in Western Europe since the 1970s and how these developments are related to changes in electoral politics. We take up arguments on the two-fold restructuration of political conflict and its different impact on protest and electoral politics. Most importantly, we highlight that the second wave of political change sweeping across Western Europe since the 1990s with increasing conflicts over immi…
Post-Communist Romania at Twenty-Five. Linking Past, Present, and Future
Post-Communist Romania at Twenty-Five. Linking Past, Present, and Future." Europe-Asia Studies, 68(7), pp. 1268–1269
Protesting Parties in Europe
The article provides the first large-scale study of protest activities by political parties. The empirical analysis draws on original protest event data for 30 European countries based on semi-automated coding of news agencies. The article innovates by (a) proposing a standardized indicator for the extent to which protest and electoral politics relate to each other, (b) showing that parties’ involvement in protests differs across political contex…
Different worlds of contention? Protest in Northwestern, Southern and Eastern Europe
Despite the voluminous literature on the ‘normalisation of protest’, the protest arena is seen as a bastion of left‐wing mobilisation. While citizens on the left readily turn to the streets, citizens on the right only settle for it as a ‘second best option’. However, most studies are based on aggregated cross‐national comparisons or only include Northwestern Europe. We contend the aggregate‐level perspective hides different dynamics of protest ac…
Protest and Electoral Breakthrough
This paper studies party-movement interactions in Germany, focusing on Die Linke and the AfD, the two most recent additions to Germany’s multi-party system. The electoral rise of both challenger parties went along with mass protests, opposition to Hartz IV in the mid-2000s and anti-Islamic PEGIDA mobilisation in the mid-2010s. We shift the emphasis from how social movements turn into political parties, including significant organisational and per…
Cleavage politics, polarisation and participation in Western Europe
Polarisation over cultural issues and the emergence of radical, often populist, challenger parties indicate a fundamental restructuring of political conflict in Western Europe. The emerging divide crosscuts and, in part, reshapes older cleavages. This special issue introduction highlights how the transformation of cleavage structures relates to the dynamics of polarisation and political participation. The contributions to the special issue innova…
Civic and Political Engagement during the Multifaceted Covid‐19 Crisis
Measures to cope with the COVID‐19 pandemic have put a sudden halt to street protests and other forms of citizen involvement in Europe. At the same time, the pandemic has increased the need for solidarity, motivating citizens to become involved on behalf of people at risk and the vulnerable more generally. This research note empirically examines the tension between the demobilisation and activation potential of the COVID‐19 crisis. Drawing on ori…
Challenges from left and right
The paper looks at how protest politics has developed in Western Europe since the 1970s and how these developments are related to changes in electoral politics. We take up arguments on the two-fold restructuration of political conflict and its different impact on protest and electoral politics. Most importantly, we highlight that the second wave of political change sweeping across Western Europe since the 1990s with increasing conflicts over immi…
Movement parties in Europe
Research on political parties and social movements has long developed independently, separated by the disciplinary boundaries of political science and sociology. We see the recent successes of ‘movement parties’ as a push to bridge the two disciplinary traditions in order to describe this new hybrid party type accurately. To this end, we ask to what extent and under what conditions do we observe movement parties in European party systems, and how…
Differentiation in Protest Politics
The political participation literature has documented a long-term trend of the normalization of noninstitutional participation that is often equated with the conventionalization of engagement in protest politics. Less is known on the extent to which noninstitutional forms are differentiated by their mobilization context. Population surveys find it difficult to contextualize individual engagement, and on-site surveys point to effects that are hard…
How Do Populist Radical Right Parties Differentiate their Appeal? Evidence from the Media Strategy of the Hungarian Jobbik Party
As they become more successful, populist radical right parties face a tension between keeping their nativist credentials and moderating their appeal to gain new voters. We argue that differentiating party messages to core supporters and the wider electorate allows parties to pursue both goals. We outline and empirically illustrate the previously underexplored phenomenon of selective messaging based on the communication strategy of the Hungarian J…
Environmental protests in Europe
Despite growing attention to the resurgence of environmental, and especially climate-related mobilisation in Europe, comparative assessments across countries and over time are lacking. Using classic social movement theories (grievances, opportunities, resources), we examine the frequency, profile, and drivers of environmental protest. We conduct a two-step analysis based on the updated PolDem protest event dataset covering 27 European countries f…
Two faces of party system stability
Despite extensive research on party system stability, the concept is often reduced to the survival of existing parties. This article argues for introducing programmatic stability as a separate dimension and shows how the combination of party replacement and programmatic instability shapes patterns of party competition. Based on their interaction, the article distinguishes four ideal types: stable systems, systems with empty party labels, systems …
Post-Communist Romania at Twenty-Five. Linking Past, Present, and Future
Post-Communist Romania at Twenty-Five. Linking Past, Present, and Future." Europe-Asia Studies, 68(7), pp. 1268–1269
Party system transformation from below
Recent changes in European politics—such as the rise of so-called movement parties on both the left and the right—call for a rethinking of the links between protest dynamics and party system transformation. In this paper, we contribute to the theoretical and empirical understanding of the mechanisms that unfold in periods of intensified interactions between protest and electoral politics through a case study of the transformation of the Hungarian…
Varieties of trade union protest
The article examines varieties of trade union protest across industrial relations regimes, using protest event data for 27 European countries between 2000 and 2021. We present a large-n analysis of how the level and 'movement character' of union protest covaries with the strength and institutional settings of union movements across regimes. We show that unions remain important protest actors and that union protest in the public sphere notably out…
Cleavage theory meets civil society
How does civil society shape the development of cleavages? While intermediary organisations, such as trade unions and churches, featured heavily in historical accounts, neo-cleavage theory tends to ignore the meso-level dynamics of the new ‘transnational’ divide beyond party politics. This agenda-setting article introduces a general framework for studying the relationship between civil society and cleavages, capable of facilitating comparisons ac…
Cleavages in Party Competition in Central and Eastern Europe
While party system volatility remains high in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), less is known about whether electoral competition has become programmatically structured. This paper examines the extent and evolution of programmatic differentiation across four CEE countries, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Romania, between the 1990s and 2023. Relying on quantitative content analysis of newspaper coverage during parliamentary election campaigns, it inv…
Electoral mobilisation in turbulent times
This symposium examines how European parties mobilize electorally in an era of recurrent crises and rapid political transformation. Building on the updated PolDem dataset, which tracks media coverage of national election campaigns across fifteen European countries from 1972 to 2023, the symposium investigates how issue salience, party positioning, and voter behaviour interact under turbulent conditions. The introduction situates the contributions…
A Typology of Postcommunist Successor Parties in Central and Eastern Europe and an Explanatory Framework for Their (Non-)Success
This article revisits the phenomenon of postcommunist successor parties – defined as the formal successor organizations of state-socialist ruling parties – in Central and Eastern Europe three decades after the transformative events of 1989–91 and two decades after the most recent period of sustained academic interest in the topic. The article begins with a critical reexamination of the late 1990s and early 2000s comparative politics literature on…
Post-Communist Romania at Twenty-Five. Linking Past, Present, and Future
Post-Communist Romania at Twenty-Five. Linking Past, Present, and Future." Europe-Asia Studies, 68(7), pp. 1268–1269
Challenges from left and right
The paper looks at how protest politics has developed in Western Europe since the 1970s and how these developments are related to changes in electoral politics. We take up arguments on the two-fold restructuration of political conflict and its different impact on protest and electoral politics. Most importantly, we highlight that the second wave of political change sweeping across Western Europe since the 1990s with increasing conflicts over immi…
Different worlds of contention? Protest in Northwestern, Southern and Eastern Europe
Despite the voluminous literature on the ‘normalisation of protest’, the protest arena is seen as a bastion of left‐wing mobilisation. While citizens on the left readily turn to the streets, citizens on the right only settle for it as a ‘second best option’. However, most studies are based on aggregated cross‐national comparisons or only include Northwestern Europe. We contend the aggregate‐level perspective hides different dynamics of protest ac…
Protesting Parties in Europe
The article provides the first large-scale study of protest activities by political parties. The empirical analysis draws on original protest event data for 30 European countries based on semi-automated coding of news agencies. The article innovates by (a) proposing a standardized indicator for the extent to which protest and electoral politics relate to each other, (b) showing that parties’ involvement in protests differs across political contex…
Two faces of party system stability
Despite extensive research on party system stability, the concept is often reduced to the survival of existing parties. This article argues for introducing programmatic stability as a separate dimension and shows how the combination of party replacement and programmatic instability shapes patterns of party competition. Based on their interaction, the article distinguishes four ideal types: stable systems, systems with empty party labels, systems …
Civic and Political Engagement during the Multifaceted Covid‐19 Crisis
Measures to cope with the COVID‐19 pandemic have put a sudden halt to street protests and other forms of citizen involvement in Europe. At the same time, the pandemic has increased the need for solidarity, motivating citizens to become involved on behalf of people at risk and the vulnerable more generally. This research note empirically examines the tension between the demobilisation and activation potential of the COVID‐19 crisis. Drawing on ori…
A Typology of Postcommunist Successor Parties in Central and Eastern Europe and an Explanatory Framework for Their (Non-)Success
This article revisits the phenomenon of postcommunist successor parties – defined as the formal successor organizations of state-socialist ruling parties – in Central and Eastern Europe three decades after the transformative events of 1989–91 and two decades after the most recent period of sustained academic interest in the topic. The article begins with a critical reexamination of the late 1990s and early 2000s comparative politics literature on…
Cleavage politics, polarisation and participation in Western Europe
Polarisation over cultural issues and the emergence of radical, often populist, challenger parties indicate a fundamental restructuring of political conflict in Western Europe. The emerging divide crosscuts and, in part, reshapes older cleavages. This special issue introduction highlights how the transformation of cleavage structures relates to the dynamics of polarisation and political participation. The contributions to the special issue innova…
How Do Populist Radical Right Parties Differentiate their Appeal? Evidence from the Media Strategy of the Hungarian Jobbik Party
As they become more successful, populist radical right parties face a tension between keeping their nativist credentials and moderating their appeal to gain new voters. We argue that differentiating party messages to core supporters and the wider electorate allows parties to pursue both goals. We outline and empirically illustrate the previously underexplored phenomenon of selective messaging based on the communication strategy of the Hungarian J…
Protest and Electoral Breakthrough
This paper studies party-movement interactions in Germany, focusing on Die Linke and the AfD, the two most recent additions to Germany’s multi-party system. The electoral rise of both challenger parties went along with mass protests, opposition to Hartz IV in the mid-2000s and anti-Islamic PEGIDA mobilisation in the mid-2010s. We shift the emphasis from how social movements turn into political parties, including significant organisational and per…
Differentiation in Protest Politics
The political participation literature has documented a long-term trend of the normalization of noninstitutional participation that is often equated with the conventionalization of engagement in protest politics. Less is known on the extent to which noninstitutional forms are differentiated by their mobilization context. Population surveys find it difficult to contextualize individual engagement, and on-site surveys point to effects that are hard…
Brand Transformation in European Politics
Political parties in Europe are undergoing profound transformations, with many abandoning traditional brands. This study analyzes party names as indicators of ideological and organizational change, combining an original content analysis across 28 European countries (1945–2023) with two conjoint survey experiments. We find that “nonparty” names have become the majority, reflecting a shift away from ideology toward alternative forms of identificati…
Party system transformation from below
Recent changes in European politics—such as the rise of so-called movement parties on both the left and the right—call for a rethinking of the links between protest dynamics and party system transformation. In this paper, we contribute to the theoretical and empirical understanding of the mechanisms that unfold in periods of intensified interactions between protest and electoral politics through a case study of the transformation of the Hungarian…
Movement parties in Europe
Research on political parties and social movements has long developed independently, separated by the disciplinary boundaries of political science and sociology. We see the recent successes of ‘movement parties’ as a push to bridge the two disciplinary traditions in order to describe this new hybrid party type accurately. To this end, we ask to what extent and under what conditions do we observe movement parties in European party systems, and how…
Environmental protests in Europe
Despite growing attention to the resurgence of environmental, and especially climate-related mobilisation in Europe, comparative assessments across countries and over time are lacking. Using classic social movement theories (grievances, opportunities, resources), we examine the frequency, profile, and drivers of environmental protest. We conduct a two-step analysis based on the updated PolDem protest event dataset covering 27 European countries f…
The Effect of Politicization on Protest Participation in Non‐Democracies
Politicization—the expansion of conflict in the political system—is often assumed to be associated with high levels of participation. Yet, this is not necessarily the case, especially in contexts of democratic backsliding. This study investigates how politicization of protest events affects individuals’ willingness to participate in protests, using Hungary as a most likely case. We examine three causal mechanisms that may mediate this effect: per…
Mobilizing individuals in crisis
The Covid-19 pandemic created a dual crisis for civil society organizations (CSOs): heightened demand for social support alongside restrictions that limited their capacity to mobilize people. This study investigates how volunteer-based CSOs fostered civic engagement amid these constraints, providing new empirical insights into their capabilities and limitations during times of crisis. Bridging research on both the demand and supply sides of civic…
Cleavage theory meets civil society
How does civil society shape the development of cleavages? While intermediary organisations, such as trade unions and churches, featured heavily in historical accounts, neo-cleavage theory tends to ignore the meso-level dynamics of the new ‘transnational’ divide beyond party politics. This agenda-setting article introduces a general framework for studying the relationship between civil society and cleavages, capable of facilitating comparisons ac…
Protest and the rise of left-nationalist challengers
The cost-of-living crisis, unfolding in the shadow of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, highlighted policy positions not traditionally represented in European party systems and protest politics. Our study asks why large-scale protests, widely anticipated during Germany's 'Hot Autumn' of 2022, did not materialize despite a severe cost-ofliving crisis. Drawing on insights from social movement studies, we test the long-standing argument that successful …
Varieties of trade union protest
The article examines varieties of trade union protest across industrial relations regimes, using protest event data for 27 European countries between 2000 and 2021. We present a large-n analysis of how the level and 'movement character' of union protest covaries with the strength and institutional settings of union movements across regimes. We show that unions remain important protest actors and that union protest in the public sphere notably out…
Cleavages in Party Competition in Central and Eastern Europe
While party system volatility remains high in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), less is known about whether electoral competition has become programmatically structured. This paper examines the extent and evolution of programmatic differentiation across four CEE countries, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Romania, between the 1990s and 2023. Relying on quantitative content analysis of newspaper coverage during parliamentary election campaigns, it inv…
Electoral mobilisation in turbulent times
This symposium examines how European parties mobilize electorally in an era of recurrent crises and rapid political transformation. Building on the updated PolDem dataset, which tracks media coverage of national election campaigns across fifteen European countries from 1972 to 2023, the symposium investigates how issue salience, party positioning, and voter behaviour interact under turbulent conditions. The introduction situates the contributions…
Politics (19 works) · Political science (18 works) · Populism, Right-Wing Movements (17 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (16 works) · Law (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Political economy (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Economics (8 works) · Social Media and Politics (6 works)