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 politi...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Principais autores: Engler, S, Gessler, T, Abou-Chadi, T, Leemann, L
Formato: Journal article
Idioma:English
Publicado em: Routledge 2022
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author Engler, S
Gessler, T
Abou-Chadi, T
Leemann, L
author_facet Engler, S
Gessler, T
Abou-Chadi, T
Leemann, L
author_sort Engler, S
collection OXFORD
description 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.
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spelling oxford-uuid:c54b2d03-8f99-4ca2-92c6-6eddbf3b6b5a2024-02-27T10:07:12ZDemocracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principlesJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:c54b2d03-8f99-4ca2-92c6-6eddbf3b6b5aEnglishSymplectic ElementsRoutledge2022Engler, SGessler, TAbou-Chadi, TLeemann, LScholars 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.
spellingShingle Engler, S
Gessler, T
Abou-Chadi, T
Leemann, L
Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles
title Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles
title_full Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles
title_fullStr Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles
title_full_unstemmed Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles
title_short Democracy challenged: how parties politicize different democratic principles
title_sort democracy challenged how parties politicize different democratic principles
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