Previous studies have found similarities with presidential candidates or party leaders to be an important factor in explaining voting behaviour. However, with the exception of gender, few studies have structurally studied voter-candidate similarities in intra-party electoral competition. This study investigates the Belgian case and argues that voter-candidate similarities play a role in the decision-making process of citizens when casting preferential votes. Moreover, it investigates whether underrepresented groups, and especially women, are more guided by these voter-candidate similarities than overrepresented groups. To achieve this aim voter and candidate characteristics are modelled simultaneously. This enables an investigation of the decision-making process of voters while taking into account structural inequalities at the supply side. The results demonstrate that citizens are indeed more likely to cast preferential votes for candidates similar to themselves and that these effects are stronger for underrepresented groups. Hence, preferential voting could ultimately pave the way for better descriptive representation.

Considerable research shows the presence of an economic vote, with governments rewarded or punished by voters, depending on the state of the economy. But how stable is this economic vote? A current argument holds its effect has increased over time, because of weakening long-term social and political forces. Under these conditions, short-term forces, foremostly the economic issue, can come to the fore. A counter-argument, however, sees the economic vote effect in decline, due to globalization. Against these rival hypotheses rests the status-quo argument: the economic vote effect remains unchanged. To test these claims, we estimate carefully specified models of the incumbent vote, at both the individual and aggregate levels. Western European elections provide the data, with particular attention to Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Perhaps surprisingly, we find the economic vote to be stable over time, a ‘standing decision’ rule that voters follow in national elections.

Which of the new political parties that emerged in advanced democracies faded away and which ones managed to survive and why? Considering a party as dead once it ceases to nominate candidates in any elections, we develop two sets of hypotheses to account for party death derived from two conceptions of political parties. One conceptualizes parties as vehicles formed by career-oriented politicians eager to maximize individual rewards. Failure to deliver seats or government access is therefore expected to predict an earlier death. The other conceptualizes parties as societal organizations that serve representational functions valued in themselves by elites and members alike. This conception stresses the importance of roots in society or ideological novelty. Using survival analysis, we test our hypotheses in 17 advanced democracies based on a new data set covering 144 new parties from birth until their (potential) death. Arguments derived from both conceptions have significant support stressing the complexity of the drivers underpinning parties’ very existence.

Recent societal conflicts over immigration, free trade and EU membership testify to the controversiality of globalization in Western societies. Brexit, Trump, the refugee crisis, and the debate around transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) are clear illustrations of the salience of globalization in politics. Many argue that neoliberal ideology supports and drives globalization. This raises the question whether opposition to globalization is also ideological, and how. This contribution investigates the existence of ideologies of globalization. It does so presenting a novel rigorous version of Freeden’s analytical morphological approach to ideologies, with deductive conceptualization drawing on political philosophy combined with inductive correlational analysis at the level of individual arguments. It presents original representative claims analysis data on debates over climate change, human rights, migration, trade, and regional integration in the United States, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Turkey, the European Parliament, and the United Nations General Assembly between 2004 and 2011. It shows that we are witnessing the making of four ideologies of globalization: liberalism, cosmopolitanism, communitarianism, and statism. Each has its own distinctive grouping of concepts. Their emergence may solidify a globalization cleavage in Western societies, shape democratic politics for years to come, and affect the course of globalization itself.