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dc.contributor.advisorRohrschneider, Robert
dc.contributor.authorMiller, Sara Laren
dc.date.accessioned2020-01-17T22:52:52Z
dc.date.available2020-01-17T22:52:52Z
dc.date.issued2019-05-31
dc.date.submitted2019
dc.identifier.otherhttp://dissertations.umi.com/ku:16532
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1808/29892
dc.description.abstractPolitical discontent appears to be growing across the aging democratic world, with an increase in popular support in many nations for niche or populist parties. Although often connected to this declining support for mainstream parties and the rise of these competitors, it is unclear precisely what is contributing to this diminishing political trust across varying electorates. This dissertation suggests that political discontent may be driven by parties failing to represent voters, a possibly long standing behavior, first envisaged by Katz and Mair (1995) in the form of the cartel party theory. The cartel party theory suggests that as party systems mature, party behavior ultimately undermines representative connections with voters, with parties becoming increasingly reliant on their relationship with the state and their rivals to maintain their positions in government. If cartelistic behaviors have emerged, it is expected that parties will show broken voter-party linkages and increased collusive relationships with rival parties, thus limiting competition, while undermining representation. Furthermore, the issues that are presented to voters across elections should show signs of manipulation, meaning that parties should fail to respond to voters while coordinating to manipulate their issue positions with their rivals. These two central expectations have guided the following research, testing whether parties appear to be colluding with their rivals and disregarding voter sentiments and if the issue spaces that are presented to voters remains representative or manipulated, as suggested by the cartel party theory. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), the European Social Survey (ESS) and the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), this work tests whether voter-party linkages appear intact across the left/right issue dimension, multidimensional issues, and party types. The findings suggest that mainstream parties are colluding with their rivals to limit inter-party competition, while presenting increasingly manipulated issue spaces to voters, suggesting that deepening discontent across advanced democracies may be connected to representative failures of parties participating in cartelistic collusion. rivals to limit inter-party competition, while presenting increasingly manipulated issue spaces to voters, suggesting that the increasing discontent across advanced democra- cies may be connected to representative failures of parties participating in cartelistic collusion.
dc.format.extent171 pages
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherUniversity of Kansas
dc.rightsCopyright held by the author.
dc.subjectPolitical science
dc.subjectcarte party theory
dc.subjectcollusion
dc.subjectissue space
dc.subjectparty behavior
dc.subjectrepresentation
dc.subjectvoter-party linkage
dc.titleCollusion or Representation?: The Cartel Party Theory Reexamined
dc.typeDissertation
dc.contributor.cmtememberKennedy, John
dc.contributor.cmtememberAvdan, Nazli
dc.contributor.cmtememberWebb, Clayton
dc.contributor.cmtememberMaynard-Moody, Steven
dc.thesis.degreeDisciplinePolitical Science
dc.thesis.degreeLevelPh.D.
dc.identifier.orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-8558-6714
dc.rights.accessrightsopenAccess


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