ELECTORAL WAVES: AN ANALYSIS OF TRENDS, SPREAD, AND SWINGS OF VOTES ACROSS 20 WEST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, 1970-2008

摘要

The article analyses flux of votes towards and away from party families in Europe. This classical indicator of vote shifts is used to assess the degree to which there exist similar ‘waves’ of electoral change across Europe which take place simultaneously. Theoretically, the article distinguishes trends, spreads and swings. Based on electoral data for 20 West European countries since 1970, the analysis focuses on uniform swings for families of left and right, as well as for greens, regionalists and populists. The detection of waves is interpreted as an indicator of a ‘Europeanised’ electorate that refers to common supra-national issues. Results attest for swings as far as the green and populist families are concerned, but less so for left-right parties and regionalists.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2011.581062