Stability and change in the choice available to voters : the set of potential leaders of government: an aggregate level study of eleven European countries, 1950-1999

Abstract

Choice is an integral aspect of the democratic system. This thesis is about stability and change in choices available to voters. In particular, it is about the choice of potential leaders of government available to voters. Many regard the office of prime minister as the most important political office in parliamentary democracies. In parliamentary democracies. the parties most likely to fulfil their ambitions of leading government are those that control the largest shares of seats in the legislature. By focusing on seat share, I am suggesting an alternative way of looking at the choices available to voters. On the one hand, there are the largest parliamentary parties, the potential leaders of government. On the other hand, there are the parties that can at best expect to play a supporting role in government. In this thesis, my dependent variable is stability and change in the set of potential leaders of government parties. Stability in the set of potential leaders of government implies that the parties controlling the largest shares of seats in the most recently elected legislature are also the parties that controlled the largest shares of seats in the outgoing legislature. Change in the set of leading parties implies that one or both, of the parties that controlled one of the largest shares of seats in the outgoing legislature no longer does so. I examine four explanations of stability and change in he party system: electoral instability, changes in the distribution of voters’ preferences, the systemic and institutional context of the electoral decision and the actions of political parties.