My dissertation seeks to answer two important questions in African American politics: What accounts for the new electoral success of African American candidates in non-minority majority districts, and is there some sort of specific rhetoric used in the campaign speeches of these African American politicians? I seek to show that rhetoric matters and that there is a consistent post-racial language found in the speeches of successful African American elected officials. In experimental studies, I show that that this post-racial language is effective in shaping perceptions of these politicians and is a contributing factor to their success. In addition, I show that the language found in the speeches of successful African American elected officials is not found in the speeches of unsuccessful African American politicians running for a similar office. I engage in this research by conducting experiments using campaign speeches from 2010 primary and general election candidates, conducting quantitative text analysis, and performing ethnographical interviewing with successful African American elected officials.

This dissertation addresses two important questions: what constitutes regionalist party success and what factors explain this success? Regionalist parties are political parties that compete within a confined geographic region and focus on gaining greater political autonomy. This differentiates them from mainstream parties who prefer to emphasize traditional left-right political issues and compete across the entire country. I argue that to better understand the electoral outcomes of these parties, their results need a more nuanced categorization: breakthrough, failure, and persistence. Breakthrough occurs when a party has a large surge in support. Electoral failure happens when a party suffers a precipitous decline in vote shares, diminishing its political relevance. Persistence results when a party replicates its previous electoral outcome with minimal change. I used a supply-side and demand-side theoretical framing to consider the influences on regionalist party outcomes. Demand-side or “bottom-up” based theories state that political parties are primarily responsive organizations that adapt to changes in public attitudes. Thus, they must respond and closely align with the social, cultural, and economic positions of the public. I hypothesized, however, that supply-side factors best explain a regionalist party’s fate. Supply-side or “top-down” theories maintain factors outside of public demand can shape elections. These include institutional arrangements and party strategies, such as the positions the parties take and salience they give to particular issues. In this framework, the choices parties make can impact citizens’ voting. To explain breakthrough, failure, and persistence, I found three factors most relevant: the emphasis mainstream parties put on issues related to regional autonomy compared to left-right issues, the positions mainstream parties take on decentralizing power, and the positions that regionalist parties adopt regarding regional autonomy. When all of these align favorably in an election a party is more likely to breakthrough. In instances where all of them align unfavorably the probability of failure increases. Persistence is most probable when one or two of the factors is beneficial, but not all of them. I analyzed these questions using a mixed-methods approach that included multiple regression analyses and case studies of eight different elections in Scotland.

Why does the extreme right grow in some parts of Europe while the radical left rises in others? In studies about both party groups, the hypothesis that economic distress provides them with opportunity is frequently tested. Yet, little effort has been employed in comparing their performances under different economic conditions. This article fills this gap through panel data analysis, with disaggregated data from eight countries in election years between 2002 and 2011. It finds that voting for extreme right parties increases significantly after the financial crisis outbreak of 2008, with no corresponding evidence for radical left parties. Also, extreme right support has a positive link to regional GDP per capita and a negative link to unemployment rates. In contrast, radical left parties perform better where unemployment is higher. The results suggest that economic downturns are mostly beneficial to extreme right parties, but this effect is increasingly neutralized in regions of high unemployment. / Por que a extrema direita cresce em alguns países europeus, ao passo que a esquerda radical cresce em outros? Em estudos sobre ambas as categorias de partido, testa-se frequentemente a hipótese segundo a qual eles têm janelas de oportunidade em crises. Ainda assim, pouco esforço vem sendo feito para comparar como eles se saem sob diferentes contextos econômicos. Este artigo preenche tal lacuna através de análise de dados em painel, com dados desagregados de oito países, em eleições entre 2002 e 2011. O artigo aponta que a votação da extrema direita aumenta significativamente com o desenrolar da crise de 2008, ao passo que não se encontram evidências correspondentes para a esquerda radical. Ademais, o apoio eleitoral à extrema direita é positivamente ligado a índices regionais de PIB per capita, e negativamente ligado a taxas de desemprego. Por contraste, partidos de esquerda radical se saem melhores onde o desemprego é alto. Os resultados sugerem que quedas na atividade econômica são majoritariamente benéficas à extrema direta, mas que tal efeito é crescentemente neutralizado em regiões de alto desemprego.

Why does the extreme right grow in some parts of Europe while the radical left rises in others? In studies about both party groups, the hypothesis that economic distress provides them with opportunity is frequently tested. Yet, little effort has been employed in comparing their performances under different economic conditions. This article fills this gap through panel data analysis, with disaggregated data from eight countries in election years between 2002 and 2011. It finds that voting for extreme right parties increases significantly after the financial crisis outbreak of 2008, with no corresponding evidence for radical left parties. Also, extreme right support has a positive link to regional GDP per capita and a negative link to unemployment rates. In contrast, radical left parties perform better where unemployment is higher. The results suggest that economic downturns are mostly beneficial to extreme right parties, but this effect is increasingly neutralized in regions of high unemployment. / Por que a extrema direita cresce em alguns países europeus, ao passo que a esquerda radical cresce em outros? Em estudos sobre ambas as categorias de partido, testa-se frequentemente a hipótese segundo a qual eles têm janelas de oportunidade em crises. Ainda assim, pouco esforço vem sendo feito para comparar como eles se saem sob diferentes contextos econômicos. Este artigo preenche tal lacuna através de análise de dados em painel, com dados desagregados de oito países, em eleições entre 2002 e 2011. O artigo aponta que a votação da extrema direita aumenta significativamente com o desenrolar da crise de 2008, ao passo que não se encontram evidências correspondentes para a esquerda radical. Ademais, o apoio eleitoral à extrema direita é positivamente ligado a índices regionais de PIB per capita, e negativamente ligado a taxas de desemprego. Por contraste, partidos de esquerda radical se saem melhores onde o desemprego é alto. Os resultados sugerem que quedas na atividade econômica são majoritariamente benéficas à extrema direta, mas que tal efeito é crescentemente neutralizado em regiões de alto desemprego.

In recent years a wave of right-wing populist parties has sweep in Europe. Two of these are Sweden’s Swedish Democrats and Norway’s Progress Party. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to research on how political parties are portrayed in mainstream media and how that may influence political party success in the elections. Content of two daily newspapers over two months before the last parliamentary elections in Sweden and Norway is examined within the study. The method used is a quantitative content analysis. The result was added to the agenda setting theory. From the result, an analysis was conducted to reveal how publication in newspapers can be expected to affect or not affect the selected parties’ successes in the elections. The result shows that the Progress Party receives more space in the daily press than the Swedish Democrats. Both parties are often mentioned in relation to other parties. In several articles, other parties want to show that there is a difference between their basic values, as opposed to the right-wing populist parties. Negative value words appear in the articles, especially in the case of the Swedish Democrats. There are both negative and neutral values in the case of the Progress Party. However, the articles often appear in a neutral way. The conclusion is that the daily press does not seem to have influence over the political parties’ successes in the elections in this case.

This thesis examines through the means of a comparative perspective, factors which have allowed the British National Party to enjoy recent electoral success at the local level under the leadership of party chairman Nick Griffin. Such electoral successes have arisen despite the seemingly relative obscurity of the party at the turn of the century. A number of different aspects are examined in order to achieve this aim. The history of the far right in the UK is examined to establish whether the BNP have changed their stance in comparison to previous far right movements. The BNP are also investigated comparatively with other West European parties who have enjoyed national success, as a means of discovering whether the party are similar to their far right neighbours and why they have not enjoyed similar national success. The press coverage of the BNP is examined at a local and national level, using content analysis and the LexisNexis database. The thesis looks at the role played by the BNP in local elections and the decline of participation in political activity, to establish if there is a link between these two factors. Finally a case study is taken of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, to establish directly if any of the above factors can be directly applied to BNP electoral success in this district. The research discovers that there are opportunities for the BNP to establish a connection with the electorate in local politics which are not necessarily available at times of general election.

This diploma thesis aims to identify the possible causes of the success of pirate parties in Iceland and the Czech Republic. The success is defined as entering the national parliaments. This was failed by pirate parties in Sweden and Germany despite their popularity. Thus, the work examines four political parties and four countries in which these parties are located. The purpose of the analysis is to find out what makes the successful parties different from the unsuccessful ones or what the successful parties have in common. The analysis is based on testing and measuring the factors contributing to the initial success of the new political parties and to the ability of maintaining their popularity. The theoretical framework for the electoral success of pirate parties is measured by factors that are derived primarily from the theory of the rise of new challenger parties by Airo Hino and from the concept of the organizational strength of political parties by Margit Tavits. The framework is expanded with additional indicators proposed by the author. The basis of the tested groups of factors is composed of quantitative variables, that includes the institutional conditions, socio-economic conditions and political conditions of the systems in which the parties are located, as well as the strength of the...

This thesis examines through the means of a comparative perspective, factors which have allowed the British National Party to enjoy recent electoral success at the local level under the leadership of party chairman Nick Griffin. Such electoral successes have arisen despite the seemingly relative obscurity of the party at the turn of the century. A number of different aspects are examined in order to achieve this aim. The history of the far right in the UK is examined to establish whether the BNP have changed their stance in comparison to previous far right movements. The BNP are also investigated comparatively with other West European parties who have enjoyed national success, as a means of discovering whether the party are similar to their far right neighbours and why they have not enjoyed similar national success. The press coverage of the BNP is examined at a local and national level, using content analysis and the LexisNexis database. The thesis looks at the role played by the BNP in local elections and the decline of participation in political activity, to establish if there is a link between these two factors. Finally a case study is taken of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, to establish directly if any of the above factors can be directly applied to BNP electoral success in this district. The research discovers that there are opportunities for the BNP to establish a connection with the electorate in local politics which are not necessarily available at times of general election.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:15:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5542.pdf: 1791474 bytes, checksum: e1597ab89d4b863b29ded81628351bcd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-12-04 / The public position filled by appointment directly affects the governability and governance in the Brazilian political system, either for maintenance of a stable parliamentary basis or for the formulation and implementation of effective public policies. In the current democratic scenario, the appointment of policy makers with political responsibility and technical capability becomes a key element to the success of the government and enlarges its chance of electoral success. This work argues that the appointment criteria which were used by political parties have clear influence in the increase or decrease of the respective success electoral rates; from this perspective, the electoral result of the parties in the state of São Paulo in the post-redemocratization is here shown. Lastly, in a local case study, the appointment criteria which were used by mayors from parties whose programming and ideological fields are distinct will be shown. / A nomeação de cargos de livre provimento para a administração pública afeta diretamente a governabilidade e a governança no sistema político brasileiro, seja para a manutenção de uma base parlamentar estável ou para formulação e implementação de políticas públicas eficazes. No atual contexto democrático, a nomeação de decisores com responsabilidade política e capacidade técnica torna-se peça chave para o sucesso do governo e amplia sua chance de sucesso eleitoral. Este trabalho argumenta que os critérios de nomeação utilizados pelos partidos políticos tem influência clara no aumento ou redução das respectivas taxas de sucesso eleitoral, nessa perspectiva, aqui é demonstrado o resultado eleitoral dos partidos no estado de São Paulo no pós-redemocratização. Por fim, em um estudo de caso local, são demonstrados os critérios de nomeação utilizados por prefeitos de partidos cujos campos programáticos e ideológicos são distintos.

This essay examines the recent electoral success of the Sweden Democrats (SD) in the Swedish municipal election in 2006 and 2010. By using statistical methods it aims to explain which of three contradicting theoretical frameworks best can explain how a populist radical right party could penetrate one of the most stable party systems in the world. The theoretical approaches tested in this essay are: a demand-side, an external supply-side and an internal supply-side approach. By using theoretically anchored proxies to determine the effect of the contradicting theoretical approaches this essay concludes that the internal supply-side explanation measuring the local party organizational ability of the SD had the most substantial effect when it comes to explaining their recent electoral success in the Swedish municipalities, as opposed to a more commonly believed demand-side driven explanation.