A NEW MEASURE FOR PARTY COHERENCE: APPLYING A PHYSICS-BASED CONCEPT TO THE SWISS PARTY SYSTEM
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The paper revives a theoretical definition of party coherence as being composed of two basic elements, cohesion and factionalism, to propose and apply a novel empirical measure based on spin physics. The simultaneous analysis of both components using a single measurement concept is applied to data representing the political beliefs of candidates in the Swiss general elections of 2003 and 2007, proposing a connection between the coherence of the beliefs party members hold and the assessment of parties being at risk of splitting. We also compare our measure with established polarization measures and demonstrate its advantage with respect to multi-dimensional data that lack clear structure. Furthermore, we outline how our analysis supports the distinction between bottom-up and top-down mechanisms of party splitting. In this way, we are able to turn the intuition of coherence into a defined quantitative concept that, additionally, offers a methodological basis for comparative research of party coherence. Our work serves as an example of how a complex systems approach allows to get a new perspective on a long-standing issue in political science.
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Existing formal measures of polarization are often specific to the analyzed dataset or topic, not fully formalized, not evaluated against other measures, or composite of the measures presented here.
“In those cases in which a formal measure is provided (see Christen, Ott, & Schwarz, 2013;DiMaggio et al., 1996;Fiorina et al., 2010;Estaban & Ray 2012), it may be specific to the analyzed dataset or topic of interest, not fully formalized, not evaluated compared to other measures and/or presented as a measure that is a composite of the measures presented here.”
From Disambiguation of social polarization concepts and measures (2016) · cites this paper as Christen, Ott, & Schwarz, 2013
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Disambiguation of social polarization concepts and measures
Bramson, A., Grim, P., Singer, D. J., Fisher, S., Berger, W., Sack, G., & Flocken, C. (2016) · The Journal of Mathematical Sociology · doi:10.1080/0022250x.2016.1147443 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
- Authors
- CHRISTEN, M., OTT, T., & SCHWARZ, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Zurich (CH)
- ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences (CH)
- London School of Economics and Political Science (GB)
- Venue
- Advances in Complex Systems
- Publisher
- World Scientific Pub Co Pte Ltd
- Published
- 2013-08
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 06
- Pages
- 1350011
- ISSN
- 0219-5259 (ISSN-L)
- 1793-6802
- OpenAlex
- W2138692340
- Cited by
- 1
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 1.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.zora.uzh.ch
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Advances in Complex Systems (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- BORIS (University Library Bern) (submittedVersion)
- Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften digital collection (Zurich University of Applied Sciences) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Political Analysis
- Keywords
- party cohesion, factionalism, spin physics, political polarization, Swiss party system, complex systems
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