Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Party Instability and Democratic Elections

政治学博士论文研究：政党不稳定与民主选举

• 批准号: 1065761
• 负责人: Timothy Hellwig
• 金额: $ 0.68万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-06-01 至 2012-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1065761&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Party Instability and Democratic ElectionsWhat do change and flux in political party organizations imply for democratic elections and democratic performance? This project assesses the extent to which voters can discern electoral information and make reasoned decisions in elections characterized by instability in party organizations. The significance of the project's central question is illustrated by the 2002 parliamentary election in Latvia. Several new parties and party coalitions appeared on the ballot that year: the socially conservative Latvia's First Party, which formed shortly before the election campaign began; the Union of Greens and Farmers, which merged two existing parties with only partially consistent policy programs; and a three-party merger of the prominent National Harmony Party and two markedly more conservative pro-Russian parties. In addition to these new party formations, two existing parties competed for reelection, each headed by a new party chairman. An informed voter in this election would have needed to learn the policy positions of the brand new party, reconcile the ideological inconsistencies within each of the two party mergers, and make sense of what the leadership changes meant for the policy goals and competences of the two preexisting parties. This project constructs and analyzes an original dataset on instability in party organizations in order to examine the consequences of such instability for political representation and accountability in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe as well as the established democracies of Western Europe.The intellectual merit of the research lies in its contribution to enhancing our understanding of electoral information processing and of democratic governance more generally. Building on extant research in political psychology, the project develops theoretical expectations about the conditions under which party cues are useful to voters. It also contributes to understanding of the processes of democratic representation and electoral accountability, both of which are indispensable for the functioning of any election that adheres to the tenets of representative democracy. Moreover, the project will yield a dataset on party instability in a diverse set of political systems. The dataset will enable other scholars to investigate the causes and consequences of party instability.The study will also make several broader contributions. It will shed light on the importance of party stability for the practice of democracy. If indeed party instability poses a threat to the functioning of democratic elections, then policy makers, nongovernmental organizations, and citizen coalitions would be well advised to turn their attention and resources to the stabilization of party organizations. The findings of this research are relevant not only for new democracies, where political parties are not well-established, but also, and increasingly so, for the long-standing democracies where parties have destabilized over the past four decades. Furthermore, the dataset on party instability produced in this project will be relevant to government agencies and nongovernmental organizations interested in the impact of party instability on corruption, economic performance, and good governance.

政治学博士论文研究：政党不稳定与民主选举政党组织的变化和变迁对民主选举和民主绩效意味着什么？该项目评估选民在政党组织不稳定的选举中辨别选举信息并作出合理决定的程度。2002年拉脱维亚议会选举说明了该项目中心问题的重要性。几个新的政党和政党联盟出现在那一年的选票上：社会保守的拉脱维亚第一党，在竞选开始前不久成立;绿党和农民联盟，合并了两个现有的政党，只有部分一致的政策纲领;以及著名的民族和谐党和两个明显更保守的亲俄政党的三党合并。除了这些新的政党组成，两个现有的政党竞争连任，每个政党由一个新的党主席领导。在这次选举中，知情的选民需要了解新政党的政策立场，调和两党合并中的意识形态不一致，并理解领导层的变化对两个先前存在的政党的政策目标和能力意味着什么。本项目构建并分析了一个关于政党组织不稳定性的原始数据集，以研究这种不稳定性对中欧和东欧新民主国家以及西欧老牌民主国家政治代表和问责制的影响。该研究的学术价值在于它有助于加深我们对选举信息处理和民主治理的理解，一般来说。在政治心理学现有研究的基础上，该项目开发了关于政党线索对选民有用的条件的理论预期。它还有助于了解民主代表制和选举问责制的进程，这两者对于任何符合代议制民主原则的选举的运作都是不可或缺的。此外，该项目还将产生一个关于不同政治制度下政党不稳定性的数据集。该数据集将使其他学者能够调查政党不稳定的原因和后果。该研究还将做出几个更广泛的贡献。它将阐明党的稳定对民主实践的重要性。如果政党不稳定确实对民主选举的运作构成威胁，那么政策制定者、非政府组织和公民联盟最好将注意力和资源转向党组织的稳定。这项研究的结果不仅与新的民主国家有关，因为在这些国家，政党尚未建立，而且也越来越多地与长期存在的民主国家有关，因为在过去四十年中，政党已经动摇。此外，本项目中产生的政党不稳定性数据集将与对政党不稳定性对腐败，经济表现和善治的影响感兴趣的政府机构和非政府组织相关。