Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles
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In: Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 30, No. 10, 2023, p. 1961-1983.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Democracy challenged
T2 - how parties politicize different democratic principles
AU - Engler, Sarah
AU - Gessler, Theresa
AU - Abou-Chadi, Tarik
AU - Leemann, Lucas
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Scholars have paid increasing attention to how questions of multi-level governance have become politicized in the domestic political arena. Issues surrounding democratic government itself have received surprisingly little attention in this debate. In this article, we ask how political parties politicize the principles of liberal democracy within advanced democracies. We expect that challenger parties are most likely to question existing principles. The targets of their criticism, however, should vary according to their ideological origins. Conducting automated quantitative text analysis of Swiss, German and Austrian party press releases between 2006 and 2018 using a multidimensional dictionary of liberal democracy, we confirm that left-libertarian and populist radical right parties are the main challengers of the democratic status quo. The foundation of criticism, however, differs fundamentally. While left-libertarians focus on principles that strengthen individual autonomy in politics, populist radical right parties demand more forms of participation and fewer constraints by liberal elements of democracy.
AB - Scholars have paid increasing attention to how questions of multi-level governance have become politicized in the domestic political arena. Issues surrounding democratic government itself have received surprisingly little attention in this debate. In this article, we ask how political parties politicize the principles of liberal democracy within advanced democracies. We expect that challenger parties are most likely to question existing principles. The targets of their criticism, however, should vary according to their ideological origins. Conducting automated quantitative text analysis of Swiss, German and Austrian party press releases between 2006 and 2018 using a multidimensional dictionary of liberal democracy, we confirm that left-libertarian and populist radical right parties are the main challengers of the democratic status quo. The foundation of criticism, however, differs fundamentally. While left-libertarians focus on principles that strengthen individual autonomy in politics, populist radical right parties demand more forms of participation and fewer constraints by liberal elements of democracy.
KW - automated text analysis
KW - dictionary
KW - left-libertarian parties
KW - Liberal democracy
KW - politicization of democracy
KW - populist radical right parties
KW - Politics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85134691828&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/e109df24-e149-3b94-ace6-b5497df689d9/
U2 - 10.1080/13501763.2022.2099956
DO - 10.1080/13501763.2022.2099956
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:85134691828
VL - 30
SP - 1961
EP - 1983
JO - Journal of European Public Policy
JF - Journal of European Public Policy
SN - 1350-1763
IS - 10
ER -