May’s law may prevail
Evidence from Sweden
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6316618 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Oskar Hultin Bäckersten (0000-0003-4765-0580, Uppsala University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 680-690 |
| Publication date | 2022-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Party Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1354-0688 • E-ISSN: 1460-3683 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354068821997398 |
| OpenAlex | W3135087754 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 22 |
Are party members more radical than voters and party elites? This is the expectation according to May’s Law, which has faced significant challenges from recent scholarship. Utilizing several survey sources covering four levels of all Swedish parliamentary parties between 1985 and 2018, this paper shows that the Swedish case follows May’s propositions with some qualifications. The parties organized along the left-right dimension follow the pattern of the mid-level being more radical in this respect, while on a secondary GAL-TAN dimension the parties that organize along this dimension rather exhibit a pattern of elite polarization. Additionally, the relative order of groups within parties is stable over the considered time period, when party membership is sharply declining. This suggests that party members are not becoming less ideologically representative over time, while they are consistently more radical than respective parties’ voters and elites
Dimension (graph theory · Elite · Ideology · Polarization (electrochemistry · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Populism, Right-Wing Movements
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The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Immigration Policies
Structuring Intra-Party Politics
Labour’s Grass Roots
Identity in Democracy
The Oxford Handbook of Swedish Politics
Going, going, . . . gone? The decline of party membership in contemporary Europe
The Logic of Collective Action
An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy
Political Parties
Measuring party positions in Europe
Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration
A party system in flux
Losing Touch? The Political Representativeness of Swedish Parties, 1985–1994
Are Party Activists the Party Extremists? The Structure of Opinion in Political Parties
Political Representation in Sweden
The Internal Politics of Parties
Pragmatists, Ideologues and the General Law of Curvilinear Disparity
Opinion Structure of Political Parties
The Structure of Opinion in American Political Parties
May's Law of Curvilinear Disparity Revisited
Emancipated party members
From May’s Laws to May’s legacy
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |