Profiles of Citizen-Party Linkages in Global Comparison 2008-9 to 2022-4

• In Event: Political Partisan Linkages in Competitive Party Systems: DALP II 2022-24 Survey

Abstract

Based on the DALP I and DALP II survey, the paper will present “linkage profiles” of parties and party systems globally from 2008-9 (DALP I) to 2022-4 (DALP II). The unit of analysis, then, is not the effort parties make to cultivate an individual linkage type—programmatic appeals, clientelism, descriptive group and party identity, personalistic candidate features, party competence/valence, etc.—but the way parties (and at the aggregate level: entire party systems) pattern the relationship among linkage types.

The paper will first introduce measures of linkage types and compare their changing incidence across time and geographical areas. It will next explore the clustering of linkage patterns related to well-known subjects in this area of research: To what extent—if any—is there a trade-off between programmatic and clientelistic party-citizen linkages? And how do these linkages relate to personalistic, group identity and valence-based linkage strategies?

It will be in the nature of this first presentation of DALP II data, shortly after the completion of the dataset, to be more descriptive than explanatory. The paper will suggest hypotheses to account for observed patterns, but leave it to subsequent research to test their validity and probe into underlying causal mechanisms that produce relevant correlations.

 To what extent are different linkage mechanisms substitutes for one another or act as mutually reinforcing complements, once put in place?
 Do linkage configurations of parties and party systems change with the increasing age of democracies? Or do they change with the quality of democracies, i.e. with rising or declining propensity of a polity to secure liberal-democratic freedoms and opportunities?
 Do economic development and quality of governance relate to democratic linkage configurations over time, and if so in a linear, curvilinear, or even more complex patterns?

[1908 characters & spaces]

Authors

• Herbert Kitschelt, Duke University

• Kerem Yildirim, Bilkent University