Social Cleavages, Political Institutions and Party Systems: Putting Preferences Back Into the Fundamental Equation of Politics A
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SOCIAL CLEAVAGES, POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND PARTY SYSTEMS: PUTTING PREFERENCES BACK INTO THE FUNDAMENTAL EQUATION OF POLITICS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Heather M. Stoll December 2004 c Copyright by Heather M. Stoll 2005 All Rights Reserved ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. David D. Laitin, Principal Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Beatriz Magaloni-Kerpel I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Morris P. Fiorina Approved for the University Committee on Graduate Studies. iii iv Abstract Do the fundamental conflicts in democracies vary? If so, how does this variance affect the party system? And what determines which conflicts are salient where and when? This dis- sertation explores these questions in an attempt to revitalize debate about the neglected (if not denigrated) part of the fundamental equation of politics: preferences. While the com- parative politics literature on political institutions such as electoral systems has exploded in the last two decades, the same cannot be said for the variable that has been called social cleavages, political cleavages, ideological dimensions, and—most generally—preferences. The dissertation revisits the ways in which preferences, the societal inputs into the po- litical process, interact with political institutions to shape party systems. It lays conceptual groundwork by drawing upon the constructivist literature; evaluates the literature that at- tempts to account for variance in the number of parties competing in elections; develops new measures of the conflicts both dividing political elites and latent within society-at-large; constructs and empirically tests new hypotheses about the link between these conflicts and the number of parties; and endogenizes elite-level conflicts. The empirical analysis, which employs an original time series cross-sectional data set, is primarily quantitative and cross- national although based around advanced industrial (and specifically Western European) democracies. Measurement and model specification issues that most empirical studies ignore are explored. Striking variation in the fundamental conflicts within societies is identified, which sug- gests that common assumptions of one-dimensional political competition are untenable. While the dissertation concludes that the nature and number of these conflicts matter, it disagrees with existing studies about the ways in which they matter. It argues against the traditional approach of relating what are usually called social cleavages to the number of political parties. Instead, it suggests linking latent conflicts within society-at-large to the political agenda itself, the elite-level conflicts that divide political parties. Features of soci- ety such as ethnic heterogeneity are only weakly and non-linearly related to the number of competitors but strongly related to the types of issues that dominate the political agenda, which we might view as a more normative attribute of party systems. v Preface Since business comes before pleasure, I will initially note that the contents of some chapters of this thesis were originally prepared for presentation elsewhere as detailed below. • Chapter 3: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September 2–4 2004. Earlier version presented at the Graduate Student Retreat of the Society for Comparative Research, University of California–San Diego, La Jolla, CA, May 15–16 2004. • Chapter 5: Portions of this chapter presented at the poster session of the Annual Sum- mer Meeting of the Society for Political Methodology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, July 29–31 2004. But now on to pleasure. It is always difficult to decide who merits acknowledgment at times like these: so many people have contributed to this dissertation in so many ways that it would be an impossible task to recognize them all. Consequently, I open with an apology to those who are not mentioned here. An easy place to begin the acknowledgments is with my committee, all of whom have my gratitude for putting up with numerous scheduling difficulties related to the defense. Administrative issues aside, an off-hand comment that Mo Fiorina made on my original prospectus was the genesis of the project: it launched the dissertation in a new direction that ultimately became its focus. This kind of profound and creative insight will surprise no one who knows Mo. I can only aspire to both his clarity of thinking and writing. To Beatriz Magaloni-Kerpel, what needs to be said about her unparalleled command of the literature and knack for seeing to the heart of the matter? For serving on the committee, several classes, directed readings, and frank conversations about careers in academia over the years, I owe her much. Continuing on the academic front, thanks also go to Jonathan Wand for serving on the examination committee. He has prompted me to think carefully about fundamental issues of research design: to confront more honestly the truths about what regression analysis can and cannot do for us. truths that we in comparative politics have ignored for too long. Jonathan Bendor’s gracious agreement to serve as the oral examination committee chair at the last minute and at some personal hardship made the whole thing possible, which I will not forget. His class on bounded rationality was one of the most important learning experiences I had at Stanford. It is reassuring to know that there are people like him working in political science, who impart rigor and clarity to all that they touch. Last but not least is David Laitin. He has been a fabulous mentor over the years, steering me judiciously at critical moments but always doing so with a light hand. Where vi vii his hand has been heaviest has been in always forcing me to think about the big picture: the “why should we care?” question that every graduate student (and every graduated academic) dreads. The benefits of the mindset that he has encouraged are innumerable. I don’t think that I will ever sit down to write without asking myself the question and my work is certainly the richer for it. On a personal note, I have the deepest admiration for his breadth of knowledge. He is truly a renaissance academic and individual: there is very little in which he is not conversant, both within comparative politics and without. It has been a pleasure to be surrounded by his intellectual energy, and if even a smidgen of it has rubbed off on me, I will be content. Stanford University has been a wonderful place to pursue a doctorate. The collegial atmosphere that pervades relationships among students and between students and faculty has diffused much of the tension from the doctoral enterprise save that which is inherent in it. Funding in the form of a Stanford University doctoral fellowship is gratefully acknowledged. Of my colleagues, special thanks go to Nahomi Ichino, Kenneth McElwain, David Patel, Jeremy Pope, Shawn Treier, Ebru Erdem, Eve Piscina (now d’Onfrio), and Jennifer Lawless (in no particular order) for both fun and helpful discussions about political science and, more generally, life. Nahomi, Jeremy, and Shawn created a productive office environment for two years. The department staff, particularly Jeanette Lee-Oderman and Eliana Vasquez, have been stalwart in always coming through for me when something needed to be done. Simon Jackman, Terry Moe, Anne Wren, Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Jim Fearon, David Abernethy, and Isabela Mares have all at various points contributed to my development as a scholar. Closing the book on academic acknowledgments, recognition must be given to Gary King and the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences at Harvard University, where I was a visiting research assistant during the year when the bulk of the dissertation was written, for their generous support. CBRSS is a place of remarkable intellectual vitality and I learned much during that year, particularly from Gary. He is another for whom I have deep admiration. He manages to juggle real concern for his students with an administrative and academic work load that would quail most of us, and he does it with a smile. I gained a broader perspective on what it means to do social science from him, as well as presentation skills that will be of use in perpetuity. Finally, my family and friends have patiently put up with many excuses for the past few years. Hopefully the phrase that I “don’t have the time” will if not disappear (too many horror stories of life as an assistant professor have been flung my way) then at least ameliorate in frequency. My husband has suffered the most. He has been deluged with numerous LATEX questions, foregone treasured social activities to allow me time to work, and shouldered an unfair share of the household cooking. Without his love and support, this thesis would not now be filed (and I would be very hungry). Contents iv Abstract v Preface vi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 PreferencesMatter,Too . 4 1.2 RelationshiptoOtherLiteratures . ...... 8 1.2.1 SpatialTheory .............................. 8 1.2.2 PoliticalBehavior ............................ 10 1.3 OrganizationoftheThesis. 12 I Reviewing Existing Scholarship 14 2 Conceptual and Measurement Issues 15 2.1 DefiningPreferences .............................. 16 2.1.1 DefinitionalIssues ............................ 16 2.1.2 AndtheDefinitionIs...? ........................ 21 2.2 ExistentOperationalizations. ...... 27 2.2.1 LatentCleavages ............................. 27 2.2.2 PoliticizedCleavages . 30 2.2.3 ParticizedCleavages .