CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Mölder, Martin |
|---|---|
| Title | Lost in Space: Pairwise Comparisons of Parties as an Alternative to Left-Right Measures of Political Difference |
| Summary | It is ordinary and perhaps even fundamental to think about the differences between objects as distances in a space. In political science the left-right space, where the difference between parties is the distance between them on that one continuous dimension, is the most common way to think about political space and measures based on this space dominate empirical research. The left-right metaphor has a long cultural history and therefore it makes sense to assume that a left-right dimension captures the relevant differences among parties. In contrast, there is a range of research, which argues that political spaces are multidimensional and changing across countries and time. The left-right measure is used, most likely because of its simplicity, but it is also contested. The space of party differences is a perceptual space -- it is about how people see and understand those differences. There are no party differences that are separable form people's judgement about them. According to the theory of conceptual spaces, the preferred way to analyse such spaces is pairwise comparison. The difference between objects can be evaluated in pairs and these can either be used as measures in themselves or analysed further. Such measurement gives an estimate of difference that covers all possible dimensions in political space and thus allows us to uncover the dimensions that people -- voters or politicians -- use to differentiate between parties without influencing such judgements with pre-given benchmarks. Furthermore, pairwise comparisons can also be used on their own as many applications of measures of party politics -- in coalition formation, polarisation research and analysis of party change -- do not require an estimate of party position as such, just the distance between them. The current work shows how pairwise comparisons of parties can be used as a way to uncover people's perceptions of political space on the individual level and how pairwise comparisons of party manifestos through the index of similarity can be used as a direct measure of political difference in models that would otherwise rely on differences measured through the left-right dimension. The individual level analysis is based on survey data obtained from Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. The index of similarity based on the manifesto data set is compared to measures of party position on left-right dimensions derived form the same data in models for predicting coalition formation, party system polarisation, and change in the political profiles of parties. The individual level analyses show us aspects of political space that other similar research has not uncovered and those based on the manifesto data set indicate that the pairwise index of similarity outperforms the left-right measures in these contexts. A pairwise comparison of the political profiles of parties is thus a promising way to analyse party politics. |
| Supervisor | Enyedi, Zsolt |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/molder_martin.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University