Title

Re-Entering Electoral Politics: Reputation And Party System Change In Spain And Greece

Keywords

Democratization; Elections; Greece; Political parties; Spain

Abstract

This article examines change in the Greek and Spanish party systems between their pre-and post-authoritarian periods. While the Greek party system displayed substantial continuity, the Spanish system showed considerable change. We connect continuity in party structure with length of interruption of competitive electoral politics. Our argument relies on the idea of reputation to explain why Spanish party leaders were far less constrained in moving their parties along the policy space than their Greek counterparts. Political parties in Spain had less reputation for established policy positions than Greek parties. Our argument and its implications are formally derived from a model developed by Bowler. We evaluate some alternative explanations and conclude that reputation is a factor accounting for variation in party system change in these two cases. At the time of the transition party leaders were presented with different opportunities to redefine their respective parties policy positions.

Publication Date

1-1-1999

Publication Title

Party Politics

Volume

5

Issue

1

Number of Pages

55-77

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068899005001004

Socpus ID

0037979300 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0037979300

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