TY - JOUR

T1 - Party novelty and congruence

T2 - A new approach to measuring party change and volatility

AU - Sikk, Allan

AU - Köker, Philipp

N1 - Funding information: Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2013 ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop ‘Party System Dynamics’ and the 2012 ECPR Research Session ‘A Comprehensive Framework for Understanding Party System Change’. We would like to thank Fernando Casal Bértoa, Michael Coppedge, Kevin Deegan-Krause, Seán Hanley, Tim Haughton, Richard Katz, Rein Taagepera and all participants of the workshops, and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and comments. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

PY - 2019/11/1

Y1 - 2019/11/1

N2 - We propose a new three-dimensional approach to party newness and an interval index of party congruence/novelty. Building on this, we also propose a split-vote-by-congruence (SBC) approach to electoral volatility that employs the index. Four elections from different countries that exhibited different forms of party change are used to illustrate the approach. The congruence/novelty index corresponds to our qualitative case knowledge, and the SBC approach leads to meaningful volatility scores. Ad hoc coding of parties as new/old or singular successors/predecessors can seriously over- or underestimate volatility that explains divergence among volatility scores in literature. By eliminating the need for dichotomous and often controversial coding decisions, the SBC approach allows for a substantially more reliable calculation of volatility.

AB - We propose a new three-dimensional approach to party newness and an interval index of party congruence/novelty. Building on this, we also propose a split-vote-by-congruence (SBC) approach to electoral volatility that employs the index. Four elections from different countries that exhibited different forms of party change are used to illustrate the approach. The congruence/novelty index corresponds to our qualitative case knowledge, and the SBC approach leads to meaningful volatility scores. Ad hoc coding of parties as new/old or singular successors/predecessors can seriously over- or underestimate volatility that explains divergence among volatility scores in literature. By eliminating the need for dichotomous and often controversial coding decisions, the SBC approach allows for a substantially more reliable calculation of volatility.

KW - electoral coalitions

KW - new parties

KW - party change

KW - splits and mergers

KW - volatility

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074260170&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1354068817747512

DO - 10.1177/1354068817747512

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85074260170

VL - 25

SP - 759

EP - 770

JO - Party politics

JF - Party politics

SN - 1354-0688

IS - 6

ER -