POLITICAL LEARNING AND THE NUMBER OF PARTIES: WHY AGE MATTERS by Ekaterina R. Rashkova MA, Washington University, 2006 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2010 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE This dissertation was presented by Ekaterina R. Rashkova It was defended on April 16, 2010 and approved by Scott Morgenstern, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh Alberta Sbragia, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh Steven Finkel, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh Venelin Ganev, Department of Political Science, Miami University in Ohio Dissertation Director: Scott Morgenstern, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright c by Ekaterina R. Rashkova 2010 iii POLITICAL LEARNING AND THE NUMBER OF PARTIES: WHY AGE MATTERS Ekaterina R. Rashkova, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2010 Party system fractionalization was re-invented as an unsolved puzzle after the fall of the Berlin Wall. While scholars agree that the stability of the party system is imperative for the proper functioning of democracy, many note the high number of political parties in the East European states. Still, we lack a systematic analysis of party system development in those countries. A possible reason for this gap is that extant theories on the number of parties were written with established democracies in mind and are thus unequipped to explain the dynamics taking place in young democracies. This dissertation attempts to fill this gap providing at least preliminary answers for the variation in the number of parties between new and more established democracies. My theory proposes that learning the effect of institutions is crucial to whether they actually have an effect or not and is integral to understanding the number of parties in a given system. Furthermore, I argue that certain institutional arrangements, for example the translation of votes into seats, may play a more important role than the district magnitude when present. I view learning as coming from trial-and-error experience which elite members get by political participation over time, as well as experience with a changing institutional environment both within and external to the party system as such. To test my propositions I use a three-level hierarchical model on district data of 20 European democracies. The results show that at the district level, age of democracy has a positive effect on the level of party system convergence and the effect is stronger in young democracies. The analysis further reveals that pre-electoral institutional constraints such as signatures and deposits have a positive and significant effect on party system convergence, iv while in the presence of EU-related events the convergence index drops, likely due to the additional incentives for political competition that such events bring. Public funding does not prove significant and the effect of age of democracy on party system convergence in mature democracies remains inconclusive as alternate specifications elicit varying results. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ......................................... xii 1.0 STRATEGIC VOTING AND STRATEGIC ENTRY - DO WE HAVE THE WHOLE STORY? .............................1 1.1 Introducing Party System Convergence.....................1 1.2 The Problem...................................4 1.2.1 Spatial Theory Models..........................6 1.2.2 Electoral Systems Models......................... 10 1.2.3 Why Parties................................ 16 1.3 The Puzzle.................................... 18 1.4 A Possible Solution................................ 19 1.5 Research Design................................. 21 2.0 TOWARDS A THEORY OF POLITICAL LEARNING ......... 22 2.1 Political Learning................................. 26 2.2 Studying the Number of Parties - National vs. District Level......... 36 2.3 Party Systems Change.............................. 40 2.3.1 Party Splits................................ 41 2.3.2 Party Mergers............................... 44 2.3.3 New Parties and Party Dissolution.................... 48 2.4 Conclusion.................................... 49 3.0 POLITICAL LEARNING IN WESTERN AND EASTERN EUROPE: A DISTRICT-LEVEL EMPIRICAL TEST ................. 51 3.1 The TENP and the Party System Convergence Index............. 53 vi 3.2 Data & Operationalization of Independent Variables............. 61 3.3 Model Specification and Methodology..................... 71 3.4 Empirical Results................................. 76 3.5 Conclusion.................................... 82 4.0 POLITICAL LEARNING AND THE NUMBER OF PARTIES: THE CASE OF BULGARIA ............................. 88 4.1 Why Bulgaria?.................................. 92 4.2 Political Learning at the District Level..................... 94 4.2.1 Electoral Competition in Bulgaria - an overall view.......... 95 4.2.2 Electoral Competition at the District Level............... 99 4.3 Politics-on-the-go................................. 106 4.3.1 The Legislative Parties.......................... 112 4.4 Conlusion..................................... 122 5.0 POLITICAL LEARNING: WHAT MAKES IT OR BREAKS IT? EV- IDENCE FROM 3 (OTHER) SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN DEMOC- RACIES ....................................... 127 5.1 Slovenia...................................... 131 5.2 Croatia...................................... 139 5.3 Romania..................................... 145 5.4 Conclusion.................................... 150 6.0 THE EFFECT OF EP PARTICIPATION ON NATIONAL PARTY SYSTEMS ...................................... 155 6.1 Europeanization and the New European Democracies............. 157 6.2 The Reductive Hypothesis............................ 161 6.3 Empirics..................................... 168 6.3.1 The Case of Bulgaria........................... 169 6.3.2 The Case of Romania........................... 178 6.3.3 The Case of Slovenia........................... 182 6.3.4 Additional evidence and the negative case................ 186 6.4 Conclusion.................................... 189 vii 7.0 CONCLUSION: POLITICAL LEARNING AND THE NUMBER OF PARTIES - WHAT LESSONS CAN WE DRAW .............. 195 APPENDIX. ....................................... 204 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................... 207 viii LIST OF TABLES 1 Predicting the number of political parties in European democracies...... 67 2 Summary Statistics................................ 69 3 Correlation Matrix................................. 70 4 The Effect of Democratic Maturity on Party System Convergence....... 84 5 The Effect of Institutional Factors on Party System Convergence....... 85 6 The Effect of EU Factors on Party System Convergence............ 86 7 The Impact of GDPppp per capita on Party System Convergence....... 87 8 Electoral Competition Overview......................... 96 9 District-level Characteristics of Bulgaria's Party System............ 114 10 District-level Effective Number of Parties in Bulgaria.............. 115 11 Party System Convergence in Bulgaria...................... 116 12 Legislative Results for the period between 1991-2009.............. 117 13 District-level Characteristics of Slovenia's Party System............ 133 14 District-level Effective Number of Parties in Slovenia.............. 134 15 Party System Convergence in Slovenia...................... 137 16 District-level Characteristics of Croatia's Party System............. 142 17 District-level Effective Number of Parties in Croatia.............. 143 18 Party System Convergence in Croatia...................... 145 19 District-level Characteristics of Romania's Party System............ 152 20 District-level Effective Number of Parties in Romania............. 153 21 Party System Convergence in Romania..................... 154 22 The number of political parties in post-communist Bulgaria, 1990-2005.... 174 ix 23 Bulgarian EP election results, 2007........................ 175 24 The number of political parties in Romania, 1992-2004............. 180 25 Romanian EP election results, 2007....................... 192 26 The number of political parties in post-communist Slovenia, 1992-2008.... 192 27 Slovenian EP election results, 2004........................ 193 28 Representation in the European Parliament................... 194 29 District-level Ethnic Heterogeneity Data Snapshot............... 206 x LIST OF FIGURES 1 Level of Party System Convergence....................... 68 2 Do Politicians Learn Over Time?......................... 69 3 Growth trajectories of party system convergence................ 73 4 Party System Change in 3 Bulgarian Districts.................. 97 5 Party System Change in 3 Slovenian Districts.................. 138 6 Party System Change in 3 Croatian Districts.................. 144 7 Party System Change in 3 Romanian Districts................. 147 xi PREFACE Upon the successful completion of this massive task called dissertation and during the years of my graduate student life I have become indebted to many people who deserve much more than I can express in words. First, I would like to thank Scott Morgenstern and Norman Schofield, without whom none of this would have taken place. Scott chaired my dissertation and was my advisor and guide through all the struggles of the graduate career. His constructive criticism, selfless character, and most of all his believing in me, really pushed me forward and helped me see this