Abstract
How do governing parties respond in terms of ideological positioning when voted out of office? We study both theoretically and empirically the factors that shape parties' responses following a loss. Studying national elections in advanced industrialized democracies over the past 70 years, we show that parties tend to counter their pre-election shifts, and do so particularly strongly following defeat. The extent of these ideological shifts is more limited in parties with a larger selectorate voting on the party leadership. Moreover, we find that subsequent to loss, parties are less likely to run on a centrist platform. Notably, shifting away from the center is associated with a higher probability of returning to power. We then introduce a dynamic model of party leadership selection and platform positioning. The model produces patterns of ideological positions over time that are consistent with our empirical findings.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Political Science Research and Methods |
DOIs | |
State | Accepted/In press - 2021 |
Keywords
- Political parties
- ideological positioning
- intraparty governance
- leadership selection
- selectorate