Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T15:59:29.571Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Raising the flag among the ruins: the crisis as helping hand for opposition parties?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2019

Nicolò Conti ,
Andrea Pedrazzani Open the ORCID record for Andrea Pedrazzani [Opens in a new window]  and
Federico Russo
Nicolò Conti
Affiliation:
Unitelma Sapienza, Roma, Italy
Andrea Pedrazzani*
Affiliation:
Università degli studi di Milano, Milano, Italy
Federico Russo
Affiliation:
Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: andrea.pedrazzani@unimi.it
Get access

Abstract

Within the context of the economic downturn in southern Eurozone countries and the imposition of new constraints on national policy-making, this article examines the congruence between party issue prioritization, during and after the electoral phase. This is done through a longitudinal analysis of four countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) and use of party manifesto and parliamentary question data. We found that between the electoral and parliamentary arenas, parties tend to emphasize different issues. However, this occurs in different ways across time, countries, and parties. We propose a measurement of issue congruence in agenda framing between the pre- and post-electoral phases to assess to what extent elections provide a guide for public policies. Moreover, we propose arguments to explain different results in the analyzed countries and across parties. We show that the crisis magnified the capacity of the opposition to maintain programmatic coherence – a helping hand for opposition parties (including the radical ones) that succeeded in boosting the relevance of their signature issues.

Keywords

Agenda-settingparliamentparliamentary questionsparty manifestospolitical partiesrepresentationSouthern Europe
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , November 2019 , pp. 293 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Belchior, A, Borghetto, E, Rodrigues, R and Matias Alves, A (2015) Parliamentary questions in Portugal – 2002–2013. Project ‘Public Preferences and Policy Decision-Making. A Longitudinal and Comparative Analysis’, PTDC/IVC-CPO/3921/2012, CIES-IUL and ISCTE -IUL – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Bevan, S and Jennings, W (2014) Representation, agendas and institutions. European Journal of Political Research 53, 37–56.Google Scholar
Borghetto, E and Carammia, M (2015) Party priorities, government formation and the making of the executive agenda. In Conti, N and Marangoni, F (eds), The Challenge of Coalition Government: The Italian Case. London: Routledge, pp. 36–57.Google Scholar
Borghetto, E and Russo, F (2018) From agenda setters to agenda takers? The determinants of party issue attention in times of crisis. Party Politics 24, 65–77.Google Scholar
Budge, I and Farlie, D (1983) Explaining and Predicting Elections: Issue Effects and Party Strategies in Twenty-Three Democracies. London/Boston: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Budge, I and Hofferbert, RI (1990) Mandates and policy outputs: U.S. party platforms and federal expenditures. American Political Science Review 84, 111–131.Google Scholar
Budge, I, Klingemann, H-D, Volkens, A, Bara, J and Tanenbaum, E (eds) (2001) Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments, 1945–1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Carammia, M, Borghetto, E and Bevan, S (2018) Changing the transmission belt: the programme-to-policy link in Italy between the First and Second Republic. Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica 48, 275–288.Google Scholar
Chaqués-Bonafont, L, Palau, AM and Baumgartner, FR (2015) Agenda Dynamics in Spain. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Charalambous, G, Conti, N and Pedrazzani, A (2018) The political contestation of European integration in Southern Europe: friction among and within parties. Party Politics 24, 39–51.Google Scholar
Conti, N and Marangoni, F (eds) (2015) The Challenge of Coalition Government. The Italian Case. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Duncan, OD and Duncan, B (1955) A methodological analysis of segregation indexes. American Sociological Review 20, 210–217.Google Scholar
Franklin, MN and Norton, P (eds) (1993) Parliamentary Questions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Green-Pedersen, C and Mortensen, PB (2010) Who sets the agenda and who responds to it in the Danish parliament? A new model of issue competition and agenda-setting. European Journal of Political Research 49, 257–281.Google Scholar
Hofferbert, RI and Budge, I (1992) The party mandate and the Westminster model: election programmes and government spending in Britain, 1948–85. British Journal of Political Science 22, 151–182.Google Scholar
Hutter, S, Kriesi, H and Vidal, G (2018) Old versus new politics: the political spaces in Southern Europe in times of crises. Party Politics 24, 10–22.Google Scholar
Jennings, W and John, P (2009) The dynamics of political attention: public opinion and the Queen's speech in the United Kingdom. American Journal of Political Science 53, 838–854.Google Scholar
Jones, BD and Baumgartner, FR (2005) A model of choice for public policy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 15, 325–351.Google Scholar
Khramov, V and Lee, JR (2013) The Economic Performance Index (EPI): an intuitive indicator for assessing a country's economic performance dynamics in an historical perspective. IMF Working Papers 13/214.Google Scholar
Klingemann, H-D, Volkens, A, Bara, J, Budge, I and McDonald, MD (2006) Mapping Policy Preferences II: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments in Eastern Europe, European Union, and OECD 1990–2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Louwerse, T (2012) Mechanisms of issue congruence: the Democratic Party mandate. West European Politics 35, 1249–1271.Google Scholar
Meguid, BM (2005) Competition between unequals: the role of mainstream party strategy in niche party success. American Political Science Review 99, 347–359.Google Scholar
Otjes, S and Louwerse, T (2018) Parliamentary questions as strategic party tools. West European Politics 41, 496–516.Google Scholar
Pedrazzani, A (2017) Fare le leggi nella Seconda Repubblica. Come cambia il Parlamento. Milano: Egea.Google Scholar
Petrocik, JR (1996) Issue ownership in presidential elections, with a 1980 case study. American Journal of Political Science 40, 825–850.Google Scholar
Rabe-Hesketh, S and Skrondal, A (2012) Multilevel and Longitudinal Modeling Using Stata. College Station, TX: Stata Press.Google Scholar
Russo, F and Cavalieri, A (2016) The policy content of the Italian question time. A new dataset to study party competition. Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche 11, 1722–1137.Google Scholar
Russo, F and Wiberg, M (2010) Parliamentary questioning in 17 European parliaments: some steps towards comparison. The Journal of Legislative Studies 16, 215–232.Google Scholar
Soroka, SN (2002) Agenda-setting Dynamics in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Soroka, SN and Wlezien, C (2010) Degrees of Democracy: Politics, Public Opinion, and Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Steenbergen, MR and Jones, BS (2002) Modeling multilevel data structures. American Journal of Political Science 46, 218–237.Google Scholar
Stimson, JA, Mackuen, MB and Erikson, RS (1995) Dynamic representation. American Political Science Review 89, 543–565.Google Scholar
Sulkin, T (2005) Issue Politics in Congress. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vliegenthart, R and Walgrave, S (2011) Content matters: the dynamics of parliamentary questioning in Belgium and Denmark. Comparative Political Studies 44, 1031–1059.Google Scholar
Vliegenthart, R, Walgrave, S, Baumgartner, FR, Bevan, S, Breunig, C, Brouard, S, Chaqués-Bonafont, L, Grossman, E, Jennings, W, Mortensen, PB, Palau, AM, Sciarini, P and Tresch, A (2016) Do the media set the parliamentary agenda? A comparative study in seven countries. European Journal of Political Research 55, 283–301.Google Scholar
Vliegenthart, R, Walgrave, S and Zicha, B (2013) How preferences, information and institutions interactively drive agenda-setting: questions in the Belgian parliament, 1993–2000. European Journal of Political Research 52, 390–418.Google Scholar
Volkens, A, Bara, J, Budge, I, McDonald, MD and Klingemann, H-D (eds) (2013) Mapping Policy Preferences from Texts: Statistical Solutions for Manifesto Analysts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walgrave, S, Soroka, S and Nuytemans, M (2008) The mass media's political agenda-setting power: a longitudinal analysis of media, parliament, and government in Belgium (1993 to 2000). Comparative Political Studies 41, 814–836.Google Scholar
Wiberg, M (1994a) Parliamentary Control in the Nordic Countries. Helsinki: The Finnish Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Wiberg, M (ed.) (1994b) Parliamentary Control in the Nordic Countries: forms of Questioning and Behavioral Trends. Helsinki: The Finnish Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Conti et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Conti et al. supplementary material(File)
File 97.8 KB
Supplementary material: Link

Conti et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/YELBKE
Link