CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2010
| Author | Borz, Gabriela Alina |
|---|---|
| Title | Determinants of Party Unity in Europe: A comparative study of parliamentary parties in twenty-three countries |
| Summary | Empirically, this thesis presents an original cross-country comparison based on raw data about 187 European political parties and their levels of unity, as influenced by party characteristics and national political institutions. Firstly, I argue that there is no significant discrepancy between the levels of behavioral unity in Central Eastern Europe and Western Europe. There is however a significant difference in the unity of attitudes between Eastern and Western Europe, and the same difference in terms of unity of attitudes is also significant when old and new democracies are compared. Secondly, the results show the supremacy of party characteristics in explaining unity of behavior. Ideological congruence is a good predictor of how united a party is going to be in parliament. High centralization and disciplinary rules contribute as well to achieving a high level of behavioral unity. Thirdly, the more importance MPs allocate to representing their constituents, the lower will be their unity of behavior in the parliament. Fourthly, contrary to expectations and against many propositions advanced earlier in the party literature, systemic factors, like federalism, parliamentarism, and electoral system perform poorly in explaining MPs’ voting unity in the legislature. Theoretically, the thesis explains party unity from state and party perspectives and advances a model which works for European political parties. First of all, I suggest that definitions of political parties which regard them as unitary actors could be revised to consider the distinction between attitudes and behavior. My PhD thesis builds on the differences between unity of behavior and unity of attitudes, a conceptualization which better addresses the complexities inherent in the issue of party unity because unity on one of these dimensions does not always guarantee the same level of unity on the other. Secondly, my thesis shows that even if institutional conditions would not favor unitary party behavior in parliament, parties adapt and use their own tools in order to become a unitary voting bloc. Consequently, whether party government is in danger or not, because of declining partisanship within the electorate or because of the convergence of parties into a mainstream consensus, party unity will always enhance it and maintain it. Thirdly, the findings of this thesis allow me to conclude that some paradoxes of representative democracy still persist. If one assumes that external democracy is achieved, then there are instances in which this happens at the expense of internal party democracy. Some parties apply high levels of central control and disciplinary rules in order to be unitary in the parliament and to vote for the policies proposed. Fourthly, the process of party formation and development are also related to unity of attitudes and unity of behavior. While unity of attitudes develops rather slowly, the latter can change more rapidly when intra-party mechanisms of coercion are applied. |
| Supervisor | Enyedi, Zsolt (Central European University); Janda, Kenneth (Northwestern University) |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2010/pphbog02.pdf |
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