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Electoral competition after party splits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2019

Raimondas Ibenskas
Raimondas Ibenskas*
Affiliation:
Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
*
*Corresponding author. Email: raimondas.ibenskas@uib.no
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Abstract

While party splits are a relatively frequent phenomenon in many new and established democracies, the systematic empirical research on electoral competition after schisms is limited. The analysis of more than 200 splits across 25 European countries in the post-war period addresses this gap in the research. The study shows that the vote shares of rump and splinter parties in the first election after fission are related to their membership strength and the share of splinter legislators. This relationship is present in both Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe. Additionally, economic growth affects the support of rump parties that hold government office while party system fragmentation and party funding regulations correlate with the electoral performance of splinter parties.

Keywords

Political partieselectoral competitionparty splitsEurope
Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 45 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2019 

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