20 years of niche parties being ‘fundamentally different’: Party constituency versus mean voter representation on multiple issues

Abstract

The literature on the concept of niche parties is rapidly growing. Characterized by a narrow electorate with extreme issue positions or salience and their responsiveness to this electorate, debate remains as to their operationalization and multidimensional behavior. This paper explores the variation in definitions used to identify niche parties or “nicheness” and analyzes their implications for the validity of findings about the strategic behavior of niche parties. Specifically, we replicate a much cited article, which argues that niche parties are more responsive to their supporters than mainstream parties while mainstream parties are more responsive to the general electorate. Using manifesto, expert, and survey data covering more than 81 European parties in the period 2006-2019, we show that this key finding is surprisingly robust to various niche party definitions. Beyond this, we demonstrate that niche parties are more responsive to their voters in multidimensional space, while mainstream parties are primarily responsive to the general electorate. The multidimensional responsiveness of niche parties - to their narrower electorate - ought to be taken into account by future scholars of party-voter linkages.