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Party Mobilization and Electoral Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2017

Ignacio Lago ,
Sandra Bermúdez ,
Marc Guinjoan ,
Kelly Rowe  and
Pablo Simón
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Abstract

How party strategies vary by electoral system remains largely unexplored in election studies. Using qualitative and quantitative data from Spanish national and European elections, we test how party strategies diverge between districted electoral systems and systems using a single national district. We use the number of visits to districts by the party leaders to determine if targeted party strategies are driven by district magnitude, the share of the population entitled to vote in every district, the number of districts or the strength of parties’ local organizations. Our results show that only the frequency of visits to districts by large parties are clearly affected by electoral systems and, more specifically, by the number of districts and district population.

Keywords

party strategiesmobilizationelectoral systemsparty competitiondistrict magnitude
Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

Ignacio Lago is Associate Professor of Political Science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). Contact email: ignacio.lago@upf.edu.

Sandra Bermúdez is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). Contact email: sandra.bermudez@upf.edu.

Marc Guinjoan is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Contact email: marc.guinjoanc@uab.cat.

Kelly Rowe works as a Policy Advisor for Infrastructure Canada. Contact email: kelly.rowe@canada.ca.

Pablo Simón is Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University Carlos III, Madrid. Contact email: pablo.simon@uc3m.es.

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