Intra-Party Politics and European Multiparty Governments
Final Report Abstract
The project explored three interrelated research questions. First, can we use social media statements by individual politicians to draw valid conclusions about the extent of ideological conflicts within parties? Second, which factors explain why some parties are ideologically more homogeneous than others? Lastly, are ideologically heterogeneous parties advantaged or disadvantaged throughout the lifecycle of democratic governments? To answer these questions, the project implemented a data infrastructure to collect and process over 20 million individual tweets from Members of Parliament (MPs) in 27 European parliamentary democracies between 2017 and 2022. It revealed the following key findings. Concerning the first research question, the results of our cross-validation with other position estimates of both individual MPs and aggregate parties suggest that social media statements allow placing MPs on a general left-right continuum in many European parliamentary democracies. At the same time, they provide a valid alternative measure of intra-party conflict, especially for highly disciplined parties, where roll-calls offer only limited insights. Regarding the determinants of intra-party heterogeneity, the results of the project indicate that (parliamentary) party leaders select ideologically moderate MPs to speak on behalf of their party during parliamentary debates, particularly in countries where they have significant control over floor access. In terms of the consequences of ideological heterogeneity for multiparty governments, our results highlight that ideologically heterogeneous parties are more successful in securing portfolios in core policy areas. Finally, the project results revealed that voters tend to misperceive party positions if parties are heterogeneous on the economic dimension, but less so if they are heterogeneous on the sociocultural dimension. An additional deliverable beyond the project’s substantive research results is a rich data set on the Twitter activities of elected MPs in 27 European parliamentary democracies in the time period between 2017 and 2022. These data are publicly available in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union (EU) and Twitter Inc.’s developer policy and agreement. We are confident that these data will enable additional comparative research on communication on social media, political elites, and parties and governments in the foreseeable future.
Publications
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“Measuring Policy Positions Using 280 Characters or Less. Introducing a New Data Set on Intra-Party Preference Heterogeneity.” Paper presented at the EPSA conference 2020.
Imre, Michael
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Do party supporters accept policy compromises in coalition governments?. European Journal of Political Research, 61(1), 214-229.
PLESCIA, CAROLINA; ECKER, ALEJANDRO & MEYER, THOMAS M.
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Coalition Mood in European Parliamentary Democracies. British Journal of Political Science, 53(1), 104-121.
Imre, Michael; Ecker, Alejandro; Meyer, Thomas M. & Müller, Wolfgang C.
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Intra-party heterogeneity and voter perceptions of party positions. Electoral Studies, 83, 102623.
Imre, Michael
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Who tweets, and how freely? Evidence from an elite survey among German politicians. Research & Politics, 10(1).
Bauer, Paul C.; Ecker, Alejandro; Imre, Michael; Landesvatter, Camille & Malich, Sonja
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“Asset or liability? Intra-party heterogeneity, government formation, and the allocation of ministerial portfolios.” Paper presented at the MPSA conference 2023 and the EPSA conference 2023.
Ecker, Alejandro, Michael Imre
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Intra-party determinants of the allocation of legislative speeches. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 31(3), 740-764.
Imre, Michael & Ecker, Alejandro
