Cargando…

The time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems

Does economic globalization influence the positioning of parties and, as a consequence, the ideological characteristics of party systems? Answering this question is important because we need to understand the constraints that parties face in formulating policies from which voters have to choose. In...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Rohlfing, Ingo, Schafföner, Tobias
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6392286/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30811519
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212945
_version_ 1783398447789899776
author Rohlfing, Ingo
Schafföner, Tobias
author_facet Rohlfing, Ingo
Schafföner, Tobias
author_sort Rohlfing, Ingo
collection PubMed
description Does economic globalization influence the positioning of parties and, as a consequence, the ideological characteristics of party systems? Answering this question is important because we need to understand the constraints that parties face in formulating policies from which voters have to choose. In our paper, we take a systemic perspective and conceptualize a party system’s ideological center of gravity as the outcome of interest. We define the center of gravity as the weighted mean position of all parliamentary parties in a country that represents the position to which parties gravitate. We start by formulating static hypotheses on the effect of imports and exports on the center of gravity and derive their underlying mechanisms. We further derive dynamic hypotheses stipulating varying effects over time based on the premise that partisan attitudes toward globalization have undergone multiple changes over the last decades. A time-series cross-section analysis of 129 elections in 15 Western European countries from 1974 to 2015 finds evidence for opposite effects of exports and imports in the pooled data. Additionally, a moving-window analysis indicates that the relationship between globalization and the center of gravity varies over time. This is a significant finding because it suggests that economic globalization has an influence on party systems and that it is important to test for time-varying effects.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6392286
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-63922862019-03-08 The time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems Rohlfing, Ingo Schafföner, Tobias PLoS One Research Article Does economic globalization influence the positioning of parties and, as a consequence, the ideological characteristics of party systems? Answering this question is important because we need to understand the constraints that parties face in formulating policies from which voters have to choose. In our paper, we take a systemic perspective and conceptualize a party system’s ideological center of gravity as the outcome of interest. We define the center of gravity as the weighted mean position of all parliamentary parties in a country that represents the position to which parties gravitate. We start by formulating static hypotheses on the effect of imports and exports on the center of gravity and derive their underlying mechanisms. We further derive dynamic hypotheses stipulating varying effects over time based on the premise that partisan attitudes toward globalization have undergone multiple changes over the last decades. A time-series cross-section analysis of 129 elections in 15 Western European countries from 1974 to 2015 finds evidence for opposite effects of exports and imports in the pooled data. Additionally, a moving-window analysis indicates that the relationship between globalization and the center of gravity varies over time. This is a significant finding because it suggests that economic globalization has an influence on party systems and that it is important to test for time-varying effects. Public Library of Science 2019-02-27 /pmc/articles/PMC6392286/ /pubmed/30811519 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212945 Text en © 2019 Rohlfing, Schafföner http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rohlfing, Ingo
Schafföner, Tobias
The time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems
title The time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems
title_full The time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems
title_fullStr The time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems
title_full_unstemmed The time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems
title_short The time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems
title_sort time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6392286/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30811519
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212945
work_keys_str_mv AT rohlfingingo thetimevaryingrelationshipbetweeneconomicglobalizationandtheideologicalcenterofgravityofpartysystems
AT schaffonertobias thetimevaryingrelationshipbetweeneconomicglobalizationandtheideologicalcenterofgravityofpartysystems
AT rohlfingingo timevaryingrelationshipbetweeneconomicglobalizationandtheideologicalcenterofgravityofpartysystems
AT schaffonertobias timevaryingrelationshipbetweeneconomicglobalizationandtheideologicalcenterofgravityofpartysystems