Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T03:37:16.163Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Passing Time, Changing Minds? The Determinants of Faction Membership After Party Fusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2017

Nicola Martocchia Diodati
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Even if the non-unitary nature of parties has come back into the party politics agenda, many of its features are still largely understudied. Specifically, an encompassing explanation of individual faction membership and of the role of party fusions in fostering faction membership is still missing. By performing a diachronic analysis, this article proposes a new approach to study the determinants of faction membership, highlighting the fundamental role of ideological, policy- and career-related factors. Moreover, the article uses as an explanatory factor a key element that has hitherto never been taken into account in intra-party analyses: psychological social identity, a variable that strongly conditions party members’ behaviour in situations where parties are merging. The analysis also shows the crucial role of party fusion in shaping individual faction membership determinants, highlighting that the effect of these determinants varies considerably the more time has elapsed since the party’s merger.

Keywords

factionssocial identityparty fusionmerging partyintra-party politics
Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 54 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 585 - 606
Copyright
© The Author(s). Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Nicola Martocchia Diodati is a PhD candidate in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence. Contact email: nicola.martocchiadiodati@sns.it.

References

Adams, J., Clark, M., Ezrow, L. and Glasgow, G. (2006), ‘Are Niche Parties Fundamentally Different from Mainstream Parties? The Causes and the Electoral Consequences of Western European Parties’ Policy Shifts, 1976–1998’, American Journal of Political Science, 50(3): 513–529.Google Scholar
Alvarez, R. and Nagler, J. (1998), ‘When Politics and Models Collide: Estimating Models of Multiparty Elections’, American Journal of Political Science, 42(1): 55–96.Google Scholar
Bakker, R., Edwards, E., Hooghe, L., Jolly, S., Marks, G., Polk, J., Rovny, J., Steenbergen, M. and Vachudova, M. (2015), ‘2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey’ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina), http://chesdata.eu/citations.html.Google Scholar
Baldini, G. (2013), ‘Don’t Count Your Chickens before They’re Hatched: The 2013 Italian Parliamentary and Presidential Elections’, South European Society and Politics, 18(4): 473–497.Google Scholar
Bélanger, E. and Godbout, J.F. (2010), ‘Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada’, Parliamentary Affairs, 63(1): 41–65.Google Scholar
Belloni, F.P. and Beller, D.C. (1978) (eds), Faction Politics: Political Parties and Factionalism in Comparative Perspectives (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio).Google Scholar
Bettcher, K.E. (2005), ‘Factions of Interest in Japan and Italy: The Organizational and Motivational Dimensions of Factionalism’, Party Politics, 11(3): 339–358.Google Scholar
Boen, F., Vanbeselaere, N., Brebels, L., Huybens, W. and Millet, K. (2007), ‘Post-merger Identification as a Function of Pre-merger Identification, Relative Representation, and Pre-merger Status’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 37(2): 380–389.Google Scholar
Bordandini, P., Di Virgilio, A. and Raniolo, R. (2008), ‘The Birth of a Party: The Case of the Italian Partito Democratico’, South European Society and Politics, 13(3): 303–324.Google Scholar
Bordignon, F. (2014), ‘Matteo Renzi: A “Leftist Berlusconi” for the Italian Democratic Party?’, South European Society and Politics, 19(1): 1–23.Google Scholar
Bouceck, F. (2009), ‘Rethinking Factionalism: Typologies, Intra-Party Dynamics and Three Faces of Factionalism’, Party Politics, 15(4): 455–485.Google Scholar
Boyller, N., Ibenskas, R. and Keith, D. (2016), ‘The Survival and Termination of Party Mergers in Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, 55(3): 642–659.Google Scholar
Budge, I., Ezrow, L. and McDonald, M.D. (2010), ‘Ideology, Party Factionalism and Policy Change: An Integrated Dynamic Theory’, British Journal of Political Science, 40(4): 781–804.Google Scholar
Casal-Bértoa, F., Deegan-Krause, K. and Haughton, T. (2015), ‘Splitting the Difference: Measuring Institutional and Electoral Volatility’, paper presented at the Workshop on Party System Stability and Electoral Volatility: Its Measurement and Implications, 26–27 February, Nottingham.Google Scholar
Ceron, A. (2012), ‘Bounded Oligarchy: How and When Factions Constrain Leaders in Party Position-taking’, Electoral Studies, 31(4): 1–19.Google Scholar
Ceron, A. (2014), ‘Gamson Rule Not for All: Patterns of Portfolio Allocation Among Italian Party Factions’, European Journal of Political Research, 53(1): 180–199.Google Scholar
Ceron, A. (2015), ‘The Politics of Fission: An Analysis of Faction Breakaways among Italian Parties (1946–2011)’, British Journal of Political Science, 45(1): 121–139.Google Scholar
Ceron, A. (2017), ‘Intra-party Politics in 140 Characters’, Party Politics, 23(1): 7–17.Google Scholar
Chiaramonte, A. and Emanuele, V. (2017), ‘Party System Volatility, Regeneration and De-institutionalization in Western Europe (1945–2015)’, Party Politics, 23(4): 376–388.Google Scholar
Cox, G.W. (1997), Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Cox, G.W., Frances, M.R. and Thies, M.F. (1999), ‘Electoral Reform and the Fate of Factions: The Case of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party’, British Journal of Political Science, 29(1): 33–56.Google Scholar
Debus, M. and Brauninger, T. (2009), ‘Intra-party Factions and Coalition Bargaining’, in D. Giannetti and K. Benoit (eds), Intra-Party Politics and Coalition Government (New York: Routledge): 121–145.Google Scholar
Fasano, L. and Martocchia Diodati, N. (2014), ‘L’Assemblea Nazionale del PD’, in G. Pasquino and F. Venturino (eds), Il Partito Democratico secondo Matteo (Bologna: Bonomia University Press): 65–102.Google Scholar
Fisher, R.J. (1993), ‘Social Desirability Bias and the Validity of Indirect Questioning’, Journal of Consumer Research, 20(2): 303–315.Google Scholar
Giannetti, D. and Benoit, K. (2009) (eds), Intra-Party Politics and Coalition (New York: Routledge).Google Scholar
Giannetti, D. and Laver, M. (2009), ‘Party Cohesion, Party Discipline, Party Factions in Italy’, in D. Giannetti and K. Benoit (eds), Intra-Party Politics and Coalition (New York: Routledge): 146–168.Google Scholar
Giessner, S.R. and Mummendey, A. (2008), ‘United We Win, Divided We Fail? Effects of Cognitive Representations and Performance Feedbacks on Merging Groups’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 38(3): 412–435.Google Scholar
Gleibs, I.H., Noack, P. and Mummendey, A. (2010), ‘We Are Still Better than Them: A Longitudinal Field Study of Ingroup Favouritism During a Merger’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(5): 819–836.Google Scholar
Greene, Z. and Haber, M. (2017), ‘Maintaining Partisan Ties: Preference Divergence and Partisan Collaboration in Western Europe’, Party Politics, 23(1): 30–42.Google Scholar
Hanmer, M.J. and Kalkan, K.O. (2012), ‘Behind the Curve: Clarifying the Best Approach to Calculating Predicted Probabilities and Marginal Effects from Limited Dependent Variable Models’, American Journal of Political Science, 57(1): 263–277.Google Scholar
Hausman, J. and McFadden, D. (1984), ‘Specification Tests for the Multinomial Logit Model’, Econometrica, 52(5): 1219–1240.Google Scholar
Heller, W.B. and Mershon, C. (2008), ‘Dealing in Discipline: Party Switching and Legislative Voting in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 1988–2000’, American Journal of Political Science, 52(4): 910–925.Google Scholar
Hopkin, J. (1999), Party Formation and Democratic Transition in Spain: The Creation and Collapse of the Union of the Democratic Centre (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).Google Scholar
Ibenskas, R. (2016), ‘Marriages of Convenience: Explaining Party Mergers in Europe’, Journal of Politics, 78(2): 343–356.Google Scholar
Kenig, O. (2009), ‘Democratization of Party Leadership Selection: Do Wider Selectorates Produce More Competitive Contests?’, Electoral Studies, 28(2): 240–247.Google Scholar
Lijphart, A. (1971), ‘Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method’, American Political Science Review, 65(3): 682–693.Google Scholar
Mair, P. (1994), ‘Party Organization: From Civil Society to the State’, in R.S. Katz and P. Mair (eds), How Parties Organize: Change and Adaptation in Party Organizations in Western Democracies (London: Sage): 1–22.Google Scholar
Marlan, A. and Flangan, T. (2015), ‘From Opposition to Government: Party Merger as a Step on the Road to Power’, Parliamentary Affair, 68(2): 272–290.Google Scholar
Martin, L.W. and Stevenson, R.T. (2001), ‘Government Formation in Parliamentary Democracy’, American Journal of Political Science, 45(1): 33–50.Google Scholar
Martocchia Diodati, N. and Marino, B. (2017), ‘What Difference Does it Make? Explaining the Voting Behaviour of Partito Democratico’s Electorate and Selectorate in 2013’, Italian Political Science Review, 47(1): 1–20.Google Scholar
McFadden, D. (1974), ‘Conditional Logit Analysis of Qualitative Choice Behavior’, in P. Zarembka (ed.), Frontiers in Econometrics (New York: Academic Press): 105–142.Google Scholar
Meguid, B.M. (2005), ‘Competition Between Unequals: The Role of Mainstream Party Strategy in Niche Party Success’, American Political Science Review, 99(3): 347–359.Google Scholar
Merrill III, S. and Grofman, B. (1999), A Unified Theory of Voting, Directional and Proximity Satial Models (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Mershon, C. (2001), ‘Party Factions and Coalition Government: Portfolio Allocation in Italian Christian Democracy’, Electoral Studies, 20(4): 555–580.Google Scholar
Meyer, T.M. (2012), ‘Dropping the Unitary Actor Assumption: The Impact of Intra-Party Delegation on Coalition Governance’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 24(4): 485–506.Google Scholar
Mood, C. (2010), ‘Logistic Regression: Why We Cannot Do What We Think We Can Do, and What We Can Do about It’, European Sociological Review, 26(1): 67–82.Google Scholar
Panebianco, A. (1988), Political Parties: Organization and Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Rose, R. (1964), ‘Parties, Factions, and Tendencies in Britain’, Political Studies, 12(1): 33–46.Google Scholar
Sacchi, S., Carnaghi, A., Castellini, F. and Colombo, M. (2012), ‘Group Merger Between Political Parties: The Role of the Ingroup Projection Process’, Political Psychology, 34(1): 91–105.Google Scholar
Sartori, G. (1976), Parties and Party Systems: Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Schmitt, E. and Teperoglou, E. (2015), ‘The 2014 European Parliament Elections in Southern Europe: Second-order or Critical Elections?’, South European Society and Politics, 20(3): 287–309.Google Scholar
Strøm, K. (1990), ‘A Behavioral Theory of Competitive Political Parties’, American Journal of Political Science, 34(2): 565–598.Google Scholar
Strøm, K. (1997), ‘Rules, Reasons and Routines: Legislative Roles in Parliamentary Democracies’, Journal of Legislative Studies, 3(1): 155–174.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H. (1982), ‘Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations’, Annual Review of Psychology, 33: 1–39.Google Scholar
Tirole, J. (1996), ‘A Theory of Collective Reputations’, Review of Economic Studies, 63(1): 1–22.Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, E., Van Knippenberg, D. and Ellemers, N. (2003), ‘Continuing and Changing Group Identities: The Effects of Merging on Social Identification and Ingroup Bias’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(6): 679–690.Google Scholar
Volkens, A., Lehmann, P., Matthieß, T., Merz, N. and Regel, S. (2016), ‘The Manifesto Data Collection’ (Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung), https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu/datasets.Google Scholar
Zariski, R. (1960), ‘Party Factions and Comparative Politics: Some Preliminary Observations’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, 4(1): 27–51.Google Scholar
Zariski, R. (1962), ‘The Italian Socialist Party: A Case Study in Factional Conflict’, American Political Science Review, 56(2): 372–390.Google Scholar
Zariski, R. (1965), ‘Intra-Party Conflict in a Dominant Party: The Experience of Italian Christian Democracy’, Journal of Politics, 27(1): 3–34.Google Scholar