Dr. Matthew Richard Golder, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Michael Barth Berkman, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
partisan ideology centrifugal forces median voter electoral strategy multipartism political party
Abstract:
Previous research has indicated that partisan ideology plays a significant role in securing votes (Adams and Somer-Topcu, 2009). However, relatively little research has examined how electoral conditions (e.g. the number of competing parties and the ideology of the median voter) affect partisan ideology. I report a series of regressions using measures of partisan and median voter ideology that indicate that 1) partisan ideological diversity does increase with multipartism, however 2) contrary to expectations, the weighted average of the ideological positions of the parties tends to collapse towards the median voter as the number of viable parties increases. 3) Parties experience significantly greater success as their own policy preferences approach those of the median voter; and 3) these effects hold regardless of the “Left” or “Right” orientation of the party in question. My findings have important implications for ideological diversity and party strategy.
