Mapping the Unknown Terrain: Party Policy Mapping in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes
Author
Summary, in English
Oppositional pre-electoral coalition formation has, in a number of recent studies, been proven
to have an important effect on the prospects for liberalizing electoral outcomes in
authoritarian elections. Despite this recent recognition of oppositional coalitions as a trigger
for democratization, almost nothing is known about when these coalitions are formed. An
important explanation for the lack of cross-national large-N studies on this issue is the lack of
sufficient data on party policy positions, among parties operating within these authoritarian
systems. Policy differences between oppositional parties have been hypothesized to have a
negative effect on the prospects for coalitions in the more studied Western democratic
systems. In order to perform an exhaustive investigation of the prospects for oppositional
coalitions in authoritarian elections, sufficient data on party policy differences would
therefore be necessary.
In this paper different strategies for party policy mapping is presented and assessed as
methods for approximating policy distance between parties in authoritarian regimes. It is
argued that a voter-based policy mapping (VPM) approach is the best strategy for this task,
when considering both feasibility and validity aspects. In the later part of this paper an
empirical comparison is performes between approximations made by VPM and the widely
used Manifesto Research Group (MRG), using data for parties that contested post-communist
authoritarian elections in the period 1990-2004. The comparison shows a significant
correlation between the data produced with these two different strategies. Moreover, more
qualitative comparisons of widely divergent cases in the VPM and MRG data, and a
comparison with expert-survey data suggest that the VPM data is at least as reliable as the
MRG data, in this particular context.
to have an important effect on the prospects for liberalizing electoral outcomes in
authoritarian elections. Despite this recent recognition of oppositional coalitions as a trigger
for democratization, almost nothing is known about when these coalitions are formed. An
important explanation for the lack of cross-national large-N studies on this issue is the lack of
sufficient data on party policy positions, among parties operating within these authoritarian
systems. Policy differences between oppositional parties have been hypothesized to have a
negative effect on the prospects for coalitions in the more studied Western democratic
systems. In order to perform an exhaustive investigation of the prospects for oppositional
coalitions in authoritarian elections, sufficient data on party policy differences would
therefore be necessary.
In this paper different strategies for party policy mapping is presented and assessed as
methods for approximating policy distance between parties in authoritarian regimes. It is
argued that a voter-based policy mapping (VPM) approach is the best strategy for this task,
when considering both feasibility and validity aspects. In the later part of this paper an
empirical comparison is performes between approximations made by VPM and the widely
used Manifesto Research Group (MRG), using data for parties that contested post-communist
authoritarian elections in the period 1990-2004. The comparison shows a significant
correlation between the data produced with these two different strategies. Moreover, more
qualitative comparisons of widely divergent cases in the VPM and MRG data, and a
comparison with expert-survey data suggest that the VPM data is at least as reliable as the
MRG data, in this particular context.
Department/s
Publishing year
2009
Language
English
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Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Political Science
Keywords
- elections
- authoritarianism
- Manifesto Research Group
- expert surveys
- Policy-mapping
- Voter-based policy mapping
Conference name
Method Seminars
Conference date
2009-06-08
Status
Unpublished