The Strength of the Partisan Component of Left-Right Identity

Abstract

This article examines left-right party polarization among the mass publics in a longitudinal comparative perspective. The analysis comprises eight countries - Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands - and trends are analysed from the early 1970s to the early 1990s. The strength of the relationship between party choice and left-right self-placement is analysed by three different measures: a standardized measure and two alternative unstandardized measures. The standardized measure produces a high degree of stability in the strength of the partisan component, while the unstandardized measures show that the partisan component has declined. The analysis shows that party voters locate themselves, quite consistently, more centrist. It is the changing left-right location of voters for the larger established parties in the party system that accounts for most of the change in the partisan component. The centrist tendency is particularly large for voters of the larger established parties in Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands.