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Charter–manifesto congruence as a signal for issue salience: democratic innovations within political parties in Hungary
Title / Series / Name
Democratization
Publication Volume
31
Publication Issue
7
Pages
Authors
Editors
Keywords
Hungary
democratic innovations
intra-party organization
party charters
saliency
JN Political institutions (Europe)
JC Political theory
Political Science and International Relations
SDG 5 - Gender Equality
democratic innovations
intra-party organization
party charters
saliency
JN Political institutions (Europe)
JC Political theory
Political Science and International Relations
SDG 5 - Gender Equality
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/27957
Abstract
This article proposes a proxy for issue salience via studying congruence between parties’ organizational structure and the policies they promote to their voters. This charter-manifesto congruence, i.e. institutionalizing the same democratic innovations at the intra-party level and advocating for their adoption at the national level, is particularly useful to demarcate party profiles in dominant party systems and electoral autocracies. To demonstrate how such congruence can be measured, we analyse the credibility of the commitments made by opposition parties in Hungary to a variety of democratic innovations. Drawing on novel survey data, we further substantiate our argument by showing high support for these innovations among party members and voters. The analysis identifies gender quotas as the most congruent innovation. Our longitudinal research design also reveals a recent breakthrough of e-democracy in party manifestos. We then discuss how preferences for various innovations are potentially shaped by membership size, party founders’ political socialization or organizational learning. At the normative level, the analysis suggests that some forms of democratic innovations are better suited for intra-party organizations than for party manifestos. These implications might be relevant for those committed to promoting deliberation, gender equality and (re-)engagement of the youth in politics.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2024-04-01
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1080/13510347.2024.2325369