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Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles

Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles 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. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of European Public Policy Taylor & Francis

Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles

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References (49)

Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
ISSN
1466-4429
eISSN
1350-1763
DOI
10.1080/13501763.2022.2099956
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

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.

Journal

Journal of European Public Policy – Taylor & Francis

Published: Oct 3, 2023

Keywords: Liberal democracy; left-libertarian parties; politicization of democracy; populist radical right parties; automated text analysis; dictionary

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