Adapt or Perish? How Parties Respond to Party System Saturation in 21 Western Democracies, 1945–2011
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6227366 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marc Van De Wardt (0000-0001-7302-7640, Ghent University, corresponding author), A Van Witteloostuijn (0000-0002-0287-5965, Antwerp Management School) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 16-38 |
| Publication date | 2021-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-1234 • E-ISSN: 1469-2112 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0007123419000152 |
| OpenAlex | W2948784348 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 72 |
This study examines whether (and how) parties adapt to party system saturation (PSS). A party system is oversaturated when a higher effective number of parties contests elections than predicted. Previous research has shown that parties are more likely to exit when party systems are oversaturated. This article examines whether parties will adapt by increasing the nicheness of their policy platform, by forming electoral alliances or by merging. Based on time-series analyses of 522 parties contesting 357 elections in twenty-one established Western democracies between 1945 and 2011, the study finds that parties are more likely to enter – and less likely to leave – electoral alliances if PSS increases. Additionally, a small share of older parties will merge. The results highlight parties’ limited capacity to adapt to their environments, which has important implications for the literature on party (system) change and models of electoral competition
Business · Economics · Merge (version control · Political economy · Political science · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Public Administration · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Managing the grumbles
Survival of the fittest. Comparing entry and exit among niche and mainstream parties in advanced democracies, 1945-2011
Past the saturation point
One More Time? Parties’ Repeated Electoral Entry in Younger Democracies
Adapt or Perish? How Parties Respond to Party System Saturation in 21 Western Democracies, 1945–2011
Party systems and voter alignments
Multicandidate Spatial Competition
The Transformation of European Social Democracy
Making Votes Count
The Population Ecology of Interest Representation
Party Competition between Unequals
Organizational Ecology
Relaxing the Rule of Ten Events per Variable in Logistic and Cox Regression
Advances in the spatial theory of voting
The Reforming Organization
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country
Pre-electoral commitments and government formation
Rational expectations in elections
Explaining the survival of public organizations
An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy
Organizations Evolving
Marriages of Convenience
Cleavage theory meets Europe’s crises
The survival and termination of party mergers in Europe
The Past in the Present
Policy Adjustment by Parties in Response to Rival Parties’ Policy Shifts
Avoidance or Engagement? Issue Convergence in U.S. Presidential Campaigns, 1960–2000
Improving Tests of Theories Positing Interaction
Making Candidates Count
Why Do Parties Change Position? Party Organization and Environmental Incentives
Electoral Volatility and Party Decline in Western Democracies
Crowded Space, Fertile Ground
Issue Ownership Stability and Change
Party collapse and new party entry
Defining and measuring niche parties
Party novelty and congruence
Party System Change
Dimensionality and the number of parties in legislative elections
Towards a renewal of the niche party concept
The Effective Number of Parties
Policy agendas and births and deaths of political parties
Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada
Centrifugal Incentives in Multi-Candidate Elections
An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change
Valence Competition in the Spatial Stochastic Model
Ecologies of ideologies
Who sets the agenda and who responds to it in the Danish parliament? A new model of issue competition and agenda‐setting
Effective” Number of Parties
Rehabilitating Duverger’s Theory
Mainstream or Niche? Vote-Seeking Incentives and the Programmatic Strategies of Political Parties
Marginal Effects in Interaction Models
How Aspiration to Office Conditions the Impact of Government Participation on Party Platform Change
Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems
Coalitional Stability of Multi-Party Systems
A New Approach to Voter Uncertainty in the Downsian Spatial Model
Unpacking LogM
A New Spatial Theory of Party Competition
The Electoral Payoffs of Fission and Fusion
Parties' Policy Programmes and the Dog that Didn't Bark
Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation in Parliamentary Democracies
Adapt or Perish? How Parties Respond to Party System Saturation in 21 Western Democracies, 1945–2011
Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy
Mutualism, resource competition and opposing movements amongTurkish organizations inAmsterdam andBerlin, 1965-2000
Structural Inertia and Organizational Change
Explaining the effective number of parties
A comparative spatial analysis of majoritarian and proportional elections
Pre-electoral coalitions in comparative perspective
Issue Yield
Policy and the Dynamics of Political Competition
Competition Between Unequals
Setting the Record Straight on Organizational Ecology
Institutionalized Organizations
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |