Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Confrontation still? Examining parties’ policy positions in Greece

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Comparative European Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

Recent research has shown that, in several countries, the Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP) estimates of party positions do not seem to perform well in terms of face validity and reliability. A fairly typical example of such a deviant case is that of Greece, where for the most part the findings based on this approach seem to suggest that parties’ positions are characterized by extreme discontinuity and leapfrogging. Employing a different coding methodology whose departure point is that party competition is still a matter of direct confrontation between parties, this analysis attempts to measure the positions of Greek parties on three issue dimensions: level of state intervention in the economy, support towards the political integration of the European Union and common European cultural identity. According to its findings, the traditional left–right distinction is still evident in parties’ economic stances whereas the other two issue dimensions indicate that there is an emerging new politics dimension which distinguishes between the centripetal political forces on the one hand and the extreme right and left parties on the other. Importantly, this relatively new coding procedure seems to provide estimates that outperform those stemming from the CMP data both in terms of reliability and face validity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. To the extent that the fact that zeros and empty cells are not distinguished in the model seems problematic for the analysis, we engage in sensitivity testing so as to account for possible differences in the results. We use the following formula: S χτ =∑χ=11010−γ χ τ /10 where S is the total score of party τ, χ is the score of the party in each indicator and γ is the number of missing values, that is, the number of indicators where the party appears to hold no position. In this way, a party that has references for all indicators and comes up with a mean score of +4 could be coded as 4, whereas a party which only mentions only four of the issues included in the scale and still has a total score of +4 would be coded as 1.6. Equivalently, were a party to score +1 in all issues, it would be coded as 10. Following this strategy, zeros are explicitly distinguished from missing values by the value of γ. Although the magnitude of the differences between the parties changes when this formula is employed, the final picture remains mainly unaltered, because there is no particular party with many more empty cells than average. Apart from reasons of simplicity, we choose not to report these findings in the main text because we believe that the extent to which this procedure manages to deal with the difference between neutral points and missing values more effectively is still questionable. This is because we still ignore the possibility that silence might indicate neutrality. What we did, however, in order to reduce zeros stemming from no references and to increase the validity of the results, was to code, in addition to party manifestos, a series of other documents that we believe they express the parties’ positions. These included the parties’ manifestos for the parliamentary election of 2004, which took place 2 months earlier, as well as several ‘quasi manifestos’, usually pamphlets, which were published in hard copy a few weeks before the election. The use of parliamentary manifestos for coding party positions vis-à-vis the EU is justified by findings that suggest that national parties’ manifestos are increasingly focusing on EU policy and institutions (Binnema, 2003) as well as with the view of EP elections as ‘second-order’ elections fought over national issues (Reif and Schmitt, 1980). In this sense, both types of manifestos (national and European) can be treated as roughly equal in giving us the parties’ policy positions regarding EU-related policy issues.

  2. Given that the coding procedure has only been applied to five parties, it is almost impossible to come up with reliable estimates about the measurement properties of each dimension. To address, at least partially, this issue, we also add cases from the party federations of the European Parliament. Because the coding of European parties’ manifestos is/was the starting point of this ongoing project, we add these cases so as to come up with more meaningful results. It is logical to believe that a dimension aiming to measure the positions of parties in a comparative perspective will not be severely affected by contextual case-specific factors. Having said that, it may very well be the case that some of the items provide measures of the latent dimension with less error in some cases (contexts) rather than others. If this is the case, the fact that the items were initially selected in order to measure parties stances in the three dimensions across Europe rather than in a particular country might bias the results in a favourable direction for the case of Greece. However, without data from other countries this assumption cannot be tested. In general, contextual heterogeneity can be addressed only once there are enough observations to shed light on significant between-country differences. This limitation notwithstanding, the analysis presented here is still valuable in its own right because it constitutes the first attempt to systematically examine the measurement features of this coding scheme. Of course, the results are only indicative and only a future replication of this analysis with more countries or time points can provide further insight into this issue.

  3. These two factors seem to explain all the observable deviations from monotonicity. In effect, with such a small N, the detection of monotone relationships requires only minimal noise. Under this perspective, it is probably encouraging the fact that most of the graphs show that the corresponding items adhere to this rule. Interestingly, with many more cases, a similar analysis of the CMP data for Greece yields much more problematic findings regarding the assumption of homogeneity (Dinas and Gemenis, 2009). This is important because the most common ideological scale constructed with these data is based upon the same summation logic.

  4. These figures, which were calculated with the algorithm for unstandardized variables, are slightly lower than when the standardized formula is used.

  5. As in the case with loess curves, in order to enable the estimation we added six more observations that represent the positions of six of the European parties (or federations) in each item of the three scales.

  6. To see why this is the case consider the following example: given that α=kr/1+r̄(k−1), if we assume that we have a 25-item scale measuring a single dimension, with r̄=0.1, α=0.74.Thus, without being sure about the unidimensionality of the selected items, the summated rating scales might lead to false perceptions about the sources of variation in the chosen variables.

  7. Importantly, the item-specific coefficients, which measure in a more formal way the assumption of monotone homogeneity, point to the same direction as our more informal visual analysis: problematic items (with h-score less than 0.3) are the X10, the Z3 and the Z5.

References

  • Adams, J. (2001) A theory of spatial competition with biased voters: Party policies viewed temporally and comparatively. British Journal of Political Science 31: 121–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartolini, S. and Mair, P. (1990) Identity, Competition, and Electoral Availability: The Stabilisation of European Electorates, 1885–1985. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benoit, K. and Laver, M. (2007) Benchmarks for text analysis: A response to Budge and Pennings. Electoral Studies 26: 130–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Betz, H.G. and Immerfall, S. (eds.) (1998) The New Politics of the Right: Neo Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binnema, H. (2003) How Europe Hit Parties… or not? Europeanisation of Party Programmes in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit Working Papers. Political Science 03.

  • Black, D. (1958) The Theory of Committees and Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bomberg, E. (2002) The Europeanization of Green parties: Exploring the EU's impact. West European Politics 25 (3): 29–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van der Brug, W. and Fennema, M. (2003) “Protest or mainstream?” How the European anti-immigrant parties developed into two separate groups by 1999. European Journal of Political Research 42: 55–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van der Brug, W., Fennema, M. and Tillie, J. (2000) Anti-immigrant parties in Europe: Ideological or protest vote? European Journal of Political Research 37: 77–102.

    Google Scholar 

  • Budge, I. (1994) A new spatial theory of party competition: Uncertainty, ideology and policy equilibria viewed comparatively and temporally. British Journal of Political Science 24: 443–467.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Budge, I. (2000) Expert opinions of party policy positions: Uses and limitations in political research. European Journal of Political Research 37: 103–113.

    Google Scholar 

  • Budge, I. (2001) Validating party policy placements. British Journal of Political Science 31: 220–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Budge, I. (2002) Mapping policy preferences: 21 years of the Comparative Manifestos Project. European Political Science 1 (3): 60–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Budge, I. and Klingemann, H.-D. (2001) Finally! Comparative Over-time Mapping of Policy Movement. In: I. Budge, H.-D. Klingemann, A. Volkens, J. Bara and E. Tanenbaum (eds.) Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments, 1945–1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 19–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, H.D., Sanders, D., Stewart, M.C. and Whiteley, P. (2004) Political Choice in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cole, A. (2005) Old right or new right? The ideological positioning of parties of the far right. European Journal of Political Research 44: 203–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crittenden, K.S. and Hill, R.J. (1971) Coding reliability and validity of interview data. American Sociological Review 36: 1073–1080.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diamandouros, N. (1993) Politics and Culture in Greece, 1974–91: An Interpretation. In: R. Clogg (ed.) Greece 1981–89: The Populist Decade. London: St. Martin's Press, pp. 1–25.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Dimitras, P.E. (1996) Greece: A Confused Electorate. In: C. van der Eijk and M. Franklin (eds.) Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, pp. 157–165.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dinas, E. and Gemenis, K. (2009) Measuring parties’ ideological positions with manifesto data: A critical evaluation of the competing methods. Party Politics, online publication, doi: 10.1177/1354068809343107.

  • Downs, A. (1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Brothers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitzmaurice, G., Laird, N. and Ware, J. (2004) Applied Longitudinal Analysis. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franzmann, S. and Kaiser, A. (2006) Locating political parties in policy space: A reanalysis of party manifesto data. Party Politics 12: 163–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harmel, R., Heo, U., Tan, A. and Janda, K. (1995) Performance, leadership, factions and party change: An empirical analysis. West European Politics 18 (1): 1–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hix, S. (1999) Dimensions and alignments in European Union politics: Cognitive constraints and partisan responses. European Journal of Political Research 35: 69–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2009) A postfunctionalist theory of European integration: From permissive consensus to constraining dissensus. British Journal of Political Science 39 (1): 1–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hooghe, L., Marks, G. and Wilson, C. (2002) Does left/right structure party positions on European integration? Comparative Political Studies 35: 973–976.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hotelling, H. (1929) Stability in competition. Economic Journal 39: 41–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacoby, W. (1991) Data Theory and Dimensional Analysis, Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences Series, no. 78. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kalyvas, S.N. and Marantzidis, N. (2002) Greek Communism, 1968–2001. East European Politics and Societies 16: 665–690.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinnijenhuis, J. and Pennings, P. (2001) Measurement of Party Positions on the Basis of Party Programmes, Media Coverage and Voter Perceptions. In: M. Laver (ed.) Estimating the Policy Position of Political Actors. London: Routledge, pp. 162–182.

    Google Scholar 

  • Konstantinidis, I. (2004) Metavoles sto periechomeno ton programmaton ton Hellinikon kommaton, 1974–2000: He axia tes prosarmostikotetas. [Policy changes as pictured in Greek parties’ electoral manifestos: The value of adaptability]. Greek Political Science Review 12 (2): 105–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kriesi, H., Grande, E., Lachat, R., Dolezal, M., Bornschier, S. and Frey, T. (2006) Globalization and the transformation of the national political space: Six European countries compared. European Journal of Political Research 45: 921–956.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Lange, S.L. (2007) “A new winning formula?” The programmatic appeal of the radical right. Party Politics 13: 411–435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laver, M. (2001) Position and Salience in the Policies of Political Actors. In: M. Laver (ed.) Estimating the Policy Position of Political Actors. London: Routledge, pp. 66–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laver, M., Benoit, K. and Garry, J. (2003) Estimating the policy positions of political actors using words as data. American Political Science Review 97: 311–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lyrintzis, C. (2005) The changing party system: Stable democracy, contested “modernization”. West European Politics 28 (2): 242–259.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mair, P. (2001) Searching for the Positions of Political Actors: A Review of Approaches and Critical Evaluation of Expert Surveys. In: M. Laver (ed.) Estimating the Policy Position of Political Actors. London: Routledge, pp. 10–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marks, G., Hooghe, L., Steenbergen, M.R. and Bakker, R. (2007) Cross-validating data on party positioning on European integration. Electoral Studies 26: 23–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McDonald, M.D., Mendes, S.M. and Myunghee, K. (2007) Cross-temporal and cross-national comparisons of party left-right positions. Electoral Studies 26: 62–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McIver, J.P. and Carmines, E.G. (1981) Unidimensional Scaling, Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences Series, no. 24. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Moschonas, G. (2001) The path of modernization: PASOK and European integration. Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans 3: 11–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oppenheim, A.N. (1992) Questionnaire Design, Interviewing and Attitude Measurement. London: Pinter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pappas, T.S. (2003) The transformation of the Greek party system since 1951. West European Politics 26 (2): 90–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pappas, T.S. and Dinas, E. (2006) From opposition to power: Greek conservatism reinvented. South European Society and Politics 11: 483–485.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pelizzo, R. (2003) Party positions or party direction? An analysis of party manifesto data. West European Politics 26 (2): 67–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pellikaan, H., de Lange, S. and van der Meer, T. (2007) Fortuyn's legacy: Party system change in the Netherlands. Comparative European Politics 5: 282–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pellikaan, H., van der Meer, T. and de Lange, S. (2003) The road from a depoliticized to a centrifugal democracy. Acta Politica 38: 23–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pennings, P. and Keman, H. (2002) Towards a new methodology of estimating party policy positions. Quality and Quantity 36: 55–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Petrocik, J.R. (1996) Issue ownership in Presidential Elections, with a 1980 case study. American Journal of Political Science 40: 825–850.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reif, K. and Schmitt, H. (1980) Nine second-order national elections: A conceptual framework for the analysis of European election results. European Journal of Political Research 8: 3–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, D. (1976) A Theory of Party Competition. New York: John Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanders, D. (1996) Economic performance, management competence and the outcome of the next General Election. Political Studies 44: 203–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sartori, G. (1976) Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Schuur, W.H. (2003) Mokken scale analysis: Between the Guttman scale and parametric item response theory. Political Analysis 11: 139–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Spanje, J. (2007) “Pariah parties”: The ostracism of political parties and its consequences for party competition. The Populist Radical Right Workshop; European University Institute, Florence, 7–8 February.

  • Stavrakakis, Y. (2003) Politics and religion: On the ‘politicization’ of Greek Church discourse. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 21: 153–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steenbergen, M.R. and Marks, G. (2007) Evaluating expert judgments. European Journal of Political Research 46: 347–366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stokes, D.E. (1963) Spatial models of party competition. American Political Science Review 57: 368–377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stokes, D.E. (1992) Valence Politics. In: D. Kavanagh (ed.) Electoral Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 141–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taggart, P. (1995) New populist parties in Western Europe. West European Politics 18 (1): 34–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Volkens, A. (2002) Manifesto Coding Instructions (Second Revised Edition). Berlin: WZB. Discussion Paper FS III 02–201..

  • Volkens, A. (2003) Policy Changes of European Social Democrats. In: G. Bonoli and M. Powell (eds.) Social Democratic Party Policies in Contemporary Europe. London: Routledge, pp. 21–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Volkens, A. (2007) Strengths and weaknesses of approaches to measuring policy positions of parties. Electoral Studies 26: 108–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wittman, D. (1990) Spatial Strategies When Candidates Have Policy Preferences. In: J. Enelow and M. Hinich (eds.) Advances in the Spatial Theory of Voting. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–98.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Zafeiropoulos, K. and Marantzidis, N. (2001) Gia to kommatiko systema ste metapolitefse: kritiko semeoma. [For the party system after 1974: A critical note] Greek Political Science Review 9 (2): 129–138.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice, Keele University, Keele, ST5 5BG, Staffordshire, UK

    Kostas Gemenis

  2. Department of Political and Social Science, European University Institute, Via dei Roccettini 9, I – 50014, San Domenico di Fiesole, Florence, Italy

    Elias Dinas

Authors
  1. Kostas Gemenis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elias Dinas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kostas Gemenis.

Appendices

Appendix A

A ‘Confrontational’ Coding Scheme for Estimating Political Parties’ Policy Positions for the 2004 EP Election

Dimension X: Economic reform

X1::

Privatization/liberalization of the energy market (gas or electricity)

contra (−)/pro (+)

X2::

Privatization/liberalization of public transport

contra (−)/pro (+)

X3::

Deregulation/liberalization of health care

contra (−)/pro (+)

X4::

Aviation: open skies, that is, access of airlines to slots of airports

contra (−)/pro (+)

X5::

Liberalization (flexibility and individuality) of pension (retirement) schemes

contra (−)/pro (+)

X6::

Reduction of the tax burden

contra (−)/pro (+)

X7::

Privatization/liberalization of social security

contra (−)/pro (+)

X8::

Deregulation/liberalization of the labour market (flexibility, wages and so on)

contra (−)/pro (+)

X9::

Deregulation/liberalization of the financial market

contra (−)/pro (+)

X10::

Deregulation of agricultural policy and market orientation

contra (−)/pro (+)

Dimension Y: Political integration

Y1::

EU as a political union

contra/confederal (−)/pro/federal (+)

Y2::

European Constitution

contra (−)/pro (+)

Y3::

Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)

contra (−)/pro (+)

Y4::

Common Justice and Police Policy

contra (−)/pro (+)

Y5::

EU as an independent (federal) tax authority

contra (−)/pro (+)

Y6::

Veto power of member states

veto decision (−)/majoritarian rule (+)

Y 7 ::

Guarantee the independent status of the European Central Bank

contra (−)/pro (+)

Y8::

Stick to the provision of the Stability (and Growth) Pact

contra (−)/pro (+)

Y9::

European Army

contra (−)/pro (+)

Y10::

One currency (Euro) for all member states

contra (−)/pro (+)

Dimension Z: Cultural identity

Z1::

Enlargement of EU with Turkey

against (−)/pro (+)

Z2::

View on nationalism as an ideology/nationalistic movements

pro (−)/warning against nationalism (+)

Z3::

Media (TV and newspapers): protection of local/regional media

pro (−)/contra (+)

Z4::

European culture: diversity vs unity of Europe

diversity (−)/unity (+)

Z5::

Right of citizens in all other EU countries (European citizenship)

contra (−)/pro (+)

Z6::

History: national history vs common European history

national history (−)/common European history (+)

Z7::

Enlargement of EU (other than Turkey)

against (−)/pro (+)

Z8::

Common values (such as democracy, equality freedom) in Europe

disagree (−)/agree (+)

Z9::

Immigration

National policy (−)/EU policy (+)

Z10::

Christian Judaic Humanist tradition

as national characteristic (−)/as European characteristic (+)

Appendix B

Assessing the Reliability of the Constructed scales with Loess Curves

See Figure A1.

Figure A1
figure 4

Loess curves fitting plots from all variables of the three scales against their respective restscores (bandwidth: 0.5; plotted points are jittered, 5 per cent).

Full size image

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gemenis, K., Dinas, E. Confrontation still? Examining parties’ policy positions in Greece. Comp Eur Polit 8, 179–201 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2008.28

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2008.28

Keywords

Search

Navigation