Is Social Left/Right Cross-Nationally Comparable in European

Is Social Left/Right Cross-Nationally Comparable inEuropean Parties?

Ryan Bakker, University of GeorgiaSeth Jolly, Syracuse University

Jonathan Polk, University of Gothenburg

April 4, 2016

Abstract

Using survey vignettes and scaling techniques, we estimate a common social left/rightdimension for political parties across the member states of the European Union. Pre-vious research shows that economic left/right travels well across the EU, meaning thatthe placements of parties on that dimension are cross-nationally comparable; how-ever, the social dimension is more complex, with different issues forming the core ofthe social dimension in different countries. The 2014 wave of the Chapel Hill ExpertSurvey includes anchoring vignettes which we use as “bridge votes” to place partiesfrom different countries on a common social left/right dimension. We estimate thedimension using the “blackbox” technique. The resulting scale offers a cross-nationallycomparable interval-level measure of a party’s social left/right ideological position.

Expert surveys are widely used to obtain information on the policy positions of political

parties in contemporary democracies (Ray 1999; Benoit and Laver 2006; Hooghe et al. 2010;

Rohrschneider and Whitefield 2012; Bakker et al. 2015). One concern about the expert

survey approach to measuring party positions pertains to the cross-national comparability of

respondent placements (Budge 2000; McDonald, Mendes, and Kim 2007). If experts for each

country place only the parties within a single party system, can we be sure that respondents

for France conceive of and use a particular scale in the same way as their colleagues that

complete a survey for the parties of Lithuania?

In previous work, we combined ‘blackbox’ scaling techniques (Poole 1998) with a series of an-

choring vignettes (King et al. 2004; King and Wand 2007) embedded within the 2010 Chapel

Hill Expert Survey to show that expert placements of political parties on the economic left-

right dimension are cross-nationally comparable across Europe (Bakker et al. 2014). Yet, we

also know that politics in many contemporary European democracies is multidimensional,

and that a “second” dimension is an important determinant of public opinion and party com-

petition on issues such as immigration and European integration (Hooghe and Marks 2009;

De Vries and Hobolt 2012; Rovny 2014; Hausermann and Kriesi 2015; Hobolt and de Vries

2015). As challenger parties that emphasize this cultural dimension become more prominent

across Europe, we require a deeper understanding of the cross-national comparability of this

more complex dimension in today’s politics.

In addition to the social dimension, European integration has taken on increasing political

importance, as the bailouts brought on by the financial crisis and contemporary migration

challenges make clear. And although prominent theorists of representation have argued that

the quality of representation at the European level is actually rather high, ‘the empirical

evidence...in support of this claim refers only to the left-right dimension which, while dom-

inant, does not constrain all of the policy preferences of voters and political parties” (Mair

and Thomassen 2010, 30). In short, while there is growing evidence for the cross-national

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comparability of the left-right dimension for both expert survey respondents and European

politics more broadly, it remains unclear if this is the case for other prominent dimensions

of political competition in contemporary European societies.

This paper addresses questions of cross-national comparability for social left-right and Eu-

ropean integration by extending on the combination of anchoring vignettes embedded in the

2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) on party positions in Europe and Bayesian scaling

techniques with foundations in the work of Aldrich and McKelvey (Hare et al. 2015). We

begin by briefly describing the 2014 wave of the CHES data, with a focus on the anchoring

vignettes pertaining to economic left-right, social left-right, and European integration posi-

tions. We then provide an overview of the Bayesian Aldrich-McKelvey scaling procedures

that are used to recover cross-nationally comparable scaled positions on these three dimen-

sions for political parties in Europe. These scaled dimensions are then used to replicate a

prominent study on the relationship between economic and social left-right positions, and

party positions on European integration (Marks et al. 2006). We report that the central

findings of that article hold when using the scaled data from 12 years later.

1 CHES

The 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey on party positions in Europe is the most recent wave in

an ongoing research project designed to measure the positions of political party leadership

on dimensions and policies related to the economy, socio-cultural matters, and European

integration (Hooghe et al. 2010; Bakker et al. 2015). 337 political scientists that study

political parties and/or European integration completed the survey, and all 28 EU members,

plus Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey, were included in the 2014 round. This produced

information for a total of 268 political parties in Europe.

Each expert respondent placed the parties of only one party system, which creates some

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uncertainty as to whether or not the expert respondents for one country differ systematically

in their use of the various policy scales from experts that completed the survey for a different

country. In order to address this concern, a series of anchoring vignettes were presented to

every respondent at the end of the survey (King et al. 2004; King and Wand 2007; Bakker

et al. 2014). This vignette section described the positions of three hypothetical parties for

three dimensions: economic left-right, social left-right, and European integration.1 Unlike

the majority of the survey, every CHES respondent had the opportunity to place these

hypothetical vignette parties on the same three scales, and these placements can then be

used as bridging information to facilitate comparison of the respondents’ other placements.

The next section describes this process in more detail and presents the scaled positions for

the parties included in the 2014 CHES data.

2 CHES meets BAM!

When survey respondents in different contexts answer the same survey questions, there is

the potential that these respondents have different interpretations of the response categories.

This is especially true when the response categories represent relative positions on a latent

scale, such as left-right ideology. Differential-item functioning (DIF) occurs when such an

underlying scale is interpreted differently across a range of respondents. DIF can lead to a

distortion of the placements of stimuli (i.e. political parties) on a given scale. For example,

a British party expert and a Greek party expert may view the end points of a pro/anti

EU integration scale in slightly different ways, confounding the ability to compare parties’

positions across these two countries. Although this is not an important distinction within a

given country, these potential disortations could be problematic when comparing positions

of parties across countries. In the late 1970s, Aldrich and McKelvey (1977) developed an

estimation technique aimed at correcting DIF in perception/placement scales. Their solution,

1The wording of the vignettes can be found below in Appendix A.

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Aldrich-McKelvey scaling (henceforth A-M), assumes that there exists a true placement for

a given stimuli (i.e. candidate or party) and that any individual placement of a stimuli

is actually a linear distortion of this true placement. The A-M solution, then, allows each

survey respondent to have her own ‘distortion’ parameters, while treating the true placement

of a stimuli as fixed across all respondents. The distortion parameters act in such a way

as to allow different respondents to shift the true placement to the left or right and/or to

expand or contract distances between placements on the underlying scale.

A-M takes advantage of the fact that survey respondents in their data all place the same set

of stimuli as well as placing themselves on an ideological left-right scale. This combination

of information allows for estimation of the individual distortion parameters and results in a

scale in which the placements of the repsondents and stimuli are meaningfully comparable.

While Aldrich and McKelvey were interested in comparing ideological self-placements of

survey respondents and a set of political stimuli, the technique they developed also allows for

comparison of political stimuli across different contexts. We take advantage of their insight

and employ a Bayesian version of this estimator to compare placements of political parties

in different countries, where the placements are derived from country-specific respondents.

That is, rather than comparing the ideological self-placement of voters to their perceptions

of the location of candidates on the same scale, we are interested in the relative placement

of political parties that were placed by different experts on the same scale. As long as all of

the respondents place at least one common stimuli, the solution to this problem is relatively

straightforward.

As much of an innovation as A-M scaling represents in terms of overcoming problems with

DIF, there are some serious limitations. Most notably for our purposes, A-M scaling does

not allow for missing data when deriving a cross-contextually comparable scale. Given the

nature of the CHES data, this is seriously problematic. The CHES asks country-specific

experts to place parties on a variety of dimensions, but only in the country in which that

4

respondent is an expert. That is, British experts place only British parties and Greek experts

place only Greek parties. When all of these country-specific data are combined, the resulting

data matrix contains huge amounts of missing data, as British experts do not place Greek

parties, etc. With this structure to our data, classic A-M scaling is not an option. A second,

less problematic limitation is that classic A-M scaling does not yield estimates of uncertainty

for the estimated stimuli positions. This limitation makes it impossible to discern whether

or not two different candidates/parties are statistically distinguishable from one another on

some dimension. For example, we would not be able to statistically determine whether or

not one party was more pro-EU than another party. While there are options to approximate

uncertainty estimates (i.e., bootstrapping) the scaling procedure itself does not yield such

information.

In order to overcome these limitations, we use the Bayesian Aldrich-McKelvey (BAM) scaling

procedure developed in Hare et al. (2015). In that paper, the authors place senators, candi-

dates for the Senate, and survey respondents on a common ideological scale. Their data are

strikingly similar to ours in that only respondents from a senator’s/candidate’s home state

place that senator/candidate, which leads to an abundance of missingness in the final data

set (compiling data from all 50 states). The survey used by Hare et al. (2015) also asked

respondents to place President Obama, the Democratic and Republican parties, and the Tea

Party on the same ideological scale that they were placing their state-specific Senate candi-

dates. So, while respondents in two different states placed different senators/candidates from

one another, all respondents placed the president and the parties. These common stimuli

act as ‘bridging’ votes and are the key to developing a cross-contextually comparable scale.

As described above, the 2014 wave of the CHES includes anchoring vignettes that we use as

bridge votes to construct a cross-nationally comparable scale. The Bayesian implementation

of A-M scaling easily handles the missing data in our model as missing values are auto-

matically imputed via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). MCMC also directly produces

5

measures of uncertainty that reflect both variance in the observed placements of parties as

well as the degree of missingness for a given party. This yields larger standard errors for

parties with fewer observed placements.

The BAM model closely resembles a Bayesian factor model, with the primary distinction

being how the parameters and the latent variable are indexed. That is, the factor model

assumes that there is some latent variable, X, that is specific to a given respondent and that

this latent variable is related to observable indicators. The latent variable is related to these

observable indicators through parameters (often called factor loadings) that are indexed by

the observed indicators. In the BAM model, the indexing is reversed relative to the factor

model. This means that the the latent variable X is now indexed by observable indicator and

the parameters in the model are now indexed by respondent. For our data, this translates to

the position of a party on a specific dimension Xj, where j indexes party, being related to an

expert’s placement of that party yij, where i indexes expert, through paramters αi and βi.

Following the above discussion α and β are the distortion parameters that map the expert’s

perception of a party’s placement onto the ‘true’ position of that party.

To be Bayesian, we must specify distributional assumptions for the unknown quantities in

the model. We must also specify the distrubtion of the dependent variables, in this case the

expert placements of the parties, yij. As these placements are 11 point scales, we assume

them to be normally distributed with an estimated mean and variance. We then set the

mean position of expert i’s placement of party j to be equal to the the true position of party

j, Xj, as well as the parameters αi and βi. Formally, the model is:

yij ∼ N(µij, τij)

µij = αi + βiXj

The unknown quantities, α, β, and X require prior distributions in the Bayesian setup. For

this model, we specify uniform priors for α and β and a standard Normal prior for X. Finally,

6

we specify an uniformed conjugate Gamma prior for the variance of expert placements, τij.

Formally:

αi ∼ Uniform(−100, 100)

βi ∼ Uniform(0, 100)

Xj ∼ N(0, 1)

τij ∼ Gamma(1, .1)

In order to identify the model and to set the scale of the latent variable, we constrain the βs

to be positive. This assures that higher values of the latent variable, X, are associated with

higher values of the expert placements. Substantively, this means for the economic and social

left-right dimensions, higher values of the latent variable indicate more right-wing positions

whereas for the EU dimension, higher values of the latent variable represent a more pro-

EU position. As an additional identification constraint, we specified prior positions for the

vignette party placements that respects the intended ordering of the vignette placements.

This is what King et al. (2004) refer to as vignette equivalence and is a requirement of

anchoring vignette-based scaling. That is, in order to be included in the model, experts

must correctly perceive the ordering of the vignette parties. We require that each party be

placed by at least 3 experts in order to be included in the estimation. With these restrictions,

we are able to produce a cross-nationally comparable scale for the economic left-right, social

left-right, and pro/anti-EU integraton dimension for 259 parties based on the input of 333

experts. We estimated the model using JAGS (Just Another Gibbs Sampler) via the R

package rjags. For each dimension, we ran two chains for 20, 000 iterations, discarding the

first 5, 000 as a burn-in. The chains show strong evidence of convergence across a variety of

diagnostics.

After running the BAM procedure for each of the three dimensions for which we have vignette

placements, we then sample 1, 000 draws from the posterior distribution of each party’s

7

placement on each dimension. We then summarize these distributions grapically by plotting

the mean and 95% interval of each party’s distribution for each dimension. We present these

distributions in the following graphs, but separate each dimension into two graphs in order to

make reading the y-axis labels easier. Figures 1 and 2 plot the left-leaning and right-leaning

parties in terms of economic positions while Figures 3 and 4 present the same on the social

dimension. Finally, Figures 5 and 6 display the distributions of parties on the European

dimension.

As Figures 1–6 illustrate, there is a great deal of variation across these parties in terms of

their positions on these three dimenssions. These plots help us to identify the most extreme

parties on these various dimensions across the members of the EU. For example, the Greek

KKE party is the most left-wing in terms of economic left-right position whereas the the

Slovenian SDS party is the most economically right-wing party. Similarly, the most left-wing

parties in terms of social policy are the green parties of Belgium and the UK while the most

right-wing in terms of the social dimension are the German NPD party and Britain’s UKIP.

Finally, in terms of the EU dimension, the liberal parties of Italy and Finland are at the

extreme pro-EU end of the scale whereas the Greek KKE and the UK’s UKIP have the most

anti-EU integration positions. These results pass the face validity test, as the parties line up

where we would expect them to. It is also worth noting that the vignette parties, labeled

as A,B, and C are not the most extreme parties on any dimension but, rather, the other

parties are placed relative to the experts’ perception of where the vignette parties fall.

8

Party Placements with 95% Credible Intervals

Economic Left−Right: left parties

gre_KKEbel_PVDA

sle_ZLpor_CDU

den_ELpor_BE

it_RCgre_SYRIZA

ire_SPire_PBPA

it_SELden_FolkBcze_KSCM

ger_Linkelux_DL

spa_Amaiurspa_Podemos

fra_PGnet_SP

tur_HDPbel_Groen

den_SFswe_V

uk_GREENbel_ECOLO

_Bspa_IUswe_FI

rom_PP−DDbel_PS

bul_ATAKAlat_LKS

spa_ICVire_SF

fin_VASspa_BNG

swi_GPS/PESger_DieTier

aus_GRUNEaus_SPO

cro_HL−SRbel_SPA

swi_SP/PSslo_Smer−SD

sle_SDcze_CSSDnet_PvdDuk_PLAID

fra_Enscyp_AKELlat_SDPS

gre_XAuk_SNP

gre_DIMARsle_PSnet_GLpol_PiS

lith_LSDPger_Piratenger_Grunen

fra_EELVrom_UNPR

den_SDsle_DeSUS

hun_LMPger_SPD

lith_DKpol_SLDtur_CHP

lith_LVZShun_JOBBIK

swe_SAPlith_LLRA

fin_SDPpol_SP

hun_Fideszswe_MPpol_PSLcze_SZ

net_PvdAcro_ORaHspa_ERCrom_PSD

lat_NSLit_M5S

bul_ABVire_GP

uk_LABbul_VMRO−BND

net_50PLUSest_EK

hun_MSZPfin_PS

bul_BSPbel_cdHfra_PRGire_Lab

sle_ZaABfra_PS

swi_CSP/PCSden_DF

fin_VIHRpol_RP

spa_PSOEslo_SNS

por_PSnet_CU

bul_NFSBger_NPD

lith_TTspa_EA

bul_BBTlat_LRA

cro_HSScyp_EDEK

lith_DPit_PD

_Aest_SDE

lux_GRENGcze_USVIT

rom_PCbul_DPScyp_KOP

lat_ZZSnet_PVV

it_VdAswe_PIRAT

fra_MODEMswi_EVP/PEV

fin_KESK

−1.5 −1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

●●

●●

●●

●●

●●●●●●●

●●

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

Figure 1: Economic left-right

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Economic Left−Right: right parties

fin_KDhun_DK

uk_LIBDEMcro_HSP−AS

bel_VBcro_SDPswe_SD

cro_HSPlux_LSAPlux_CSVlat_N_A

hun_E14sle_SMCswi_LdT

it_CDgre_ANEL

cze_KDU−CSLgre_Potamigre_PASOK

aus_FPObel_FDF

ire_FFcro_HDSSB

fra_FNcro_IDSit_UDC

slo_SMK−MKPgre_LAOS

lat_Vger_CDUcro_HDZger_CSU

it_SVPslo_KDH

bel_CD&Vit_Fdl

est_EERswi_CVP/PVC

tur_MHPcyp_DIKO

cze_ANO2011por_MPT

rom_UDMRslo_MH

aus_OVPswi_EDU/UDF

mal_PLslo_OLaNO

den_RVcro_HNSrom_PLR

it_NCDnet_CDA

spa_UpyDpol_PO

sle_SLSnet_D66

lith_TS−LKDfra_PRV

spa_EAJ/PNVspa_CC

swi_BDPpor_PP

fin_RKP/SFPpol_PR

bul_DBGslo_Siet

slo_NOVAire_FG

spa_C'srom_PNL

mal_PNnet_SGP

swi_GLP/PVLfra_AC

swe_KDest_EVE

bul_GERBaus_BZO

den_Vswe_FPfra_NC

spa_CiUrom_PDL

slo_SDKU−DSswe_M

cro_HSLSswe_C

rom_PMPgre_ND

it_FIaus_NEOS

fin_KOKcze_TOP09

fra_UMPpor_PSD

aus_TeamStronachlux_ADRbul_SDS

it_LNden_KF

swi_SVP/UDCger_FDP

cyp_DISYcyp_EVROKOswi_FDP/PLR

cze_ODSit_SC

tur_AKPspa_PPest_ER

uk_CONSbul_DSBger_AfD

net_VVDbel_MRest_IRL

fra_MPFbel_VLDslo_SaSlux_DP

_Cuk_UKIP

bel_N−VAlith_LRLS

bel_PPcze_SVOBODNI

den_LApol_KNPsle_NSI

sle_SDS

−1.5 −1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

●●

●●●●

●●

●●

●

Figure 2: Economic left-right

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Social Left−Right: left parties

bel_ECOLObel_Groen

it_SELuk_GREEN

fin_VIHR_A

swe_FIger_Piraten

fra_EELVsle_ZLlux_DL

lux_GRENGlux_DP

spa_ICVnet_GLpol_RP

ire_PBPAnet_D66

swe_PIRATswi_GPS/PES

den_RVcro_ORaH

swe_MPit_RC

ire_SPspa_IUpor_BE

ger_Grunenden_ELcze_SZswe_V

aus_GRUNElux_LSAP

fin_VASbel_VLD

spa_Podemosspa_BNG

fin_RKP/SFPden_LA

bel_PVDAswi_SP/PS

cro_IDScro_HNS

ire_GPbel_SPA

gre_Potamiest_SDE

mal_PLgre_SYRIZAspa_Amaiuruk_LIBDEM

tur_HDPcro_HL−SRspa_PSOE

spa_ERClith_LRLSnet_PvdD

gre_DIMARit_M5S

den_SFbel_MR

cro_SDPhun_E14ger_FDP

fra_PGhun_DKslo_SaS

it_PDaus_NEOS

fin_SDPest_ERire_Labswe_C

sle_ZaABswi_GLP/PVL

sle_PSpol_SLD

bel_PSswe_FP

hun_LMPfra_PS

fra_Ensnet_PvdA

spa_UpyDsle_SD

spa_C'sden_FolkB

bul_SDSbul_DBG

swe_SAPcro_HSLS

est_EVEuk_LAB

est_EERfra_PRG

aus_SPObul_DSB

lat_Vbel_FDFpor_PS

gre_PASOKcyp_AKEL

tur_CHPger_SPD

net_SPuk_PLAIDlith_LSDP

hun_MSZP_B

fin_KOKcze_CSSD

sle_SMCcze_ANO2011

swe_Mcyp_KOPpor_CDUger_Linke

ger_DieTiercze_SVOBODNI

net_50PLUSspa_EA

ire_SFcyp_EDEK

rom_PLRmal_PNuk_SNP

rom_PMPbel_cdH

bul_GERBpol_PO

swi_FDP/PLR

−1.5 −1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

●●●

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

Figure 3: Social left-right

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Social Left−Right: right parties

rom_PNLnet_VVD

sle_DeSUSden_SDbul_ABV

swi_CSP/PCSfra_MODEM

rom_PDLspa_CC

slo_SDKU−DSrom_UDMR

gre_KKEden_V

bel_CD&Vcze_TOP09

fra_PRVit_SC

ire_FGcyp_DISY

bul_BSPslo_MHlith_DP

cze_KSCMbel_N−VAcyp_DIKO

it_VdAbul_DPS

cze_ODSspa_CiU

est_EKlith_LVZSger_CDU

fra_NCfra_AC

spa_EAJ/PNVpor_PSD

uk_CONSfin_KESKnet_CDA

swi_CVP/PVCire_FF

cyp_EVROKOpor_MPT

est_IRLswe_KD

it_CDaus_TeamStronach

lat_SDPSswi_BDP

gre_NDpol_PSLslo_Siet

slo_Smer−SDlat_ZZS

slo_NOVAcze_USVIT

bul_BBTsle_SLS

rom_PSDaus_OVP

den_KFlux_CSVlat_LRA

cze_KDU−CSLaus_BZOfra_UMP

swi_EVP/PEVnet_PVV

slo_SMK−MKPpor_PP

it_FIlith_TS−LKD

bel_PPit_SVP

net_CUspa_PPpol_PR

bul_NFSBrom_PC

rom_UNPRslo_OLaNO

lat_NSLfin_KD

gre_LAOSlat_N_A

cro_HDZfin_PS

hun_Fideszit_UDC

ger_CSUit_NCD

gre_ANELsle_NSI

bul_VMRO−BNDlat_LKS

aus_FPOlith_TT

pol_PiSsle_SDS

cro_HDSSBpol_SP

den_DFrom_PP−DD

swe_SDcro_HSS

_Cslo_KDH

lith_LLRAswi_LdTlith_DK

ger_AfDpol_KNPtur_MHP

hun_JOBBIKfra_FN

cro_HSP−ASfra_MPFcro_HSPnet_SGP

swi_EDU/UDFswi_SVP/UDC

it_LNslo_SNS

bel_VBbul_ATAKA

tur_AKPgre_XA

it_Fdluk_UKIPlux_ADRger_NPD

−1.5 −1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

●●●●●

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

●●

Figure 4: Social left-right

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EU Position: Pro−EU parties

spa_ERClat_ZZSpol_PSLrom_PC

net_PvdAnet_CDA

lux_GRENGlux_DPire_Lablat_LRA

lux_LSAPsle_DeSUS

fra_PSrom_UNPR

bul_ABVden_V

mal_PLswi_GPS/PES

uk_PLAIDgre_DIMAR

fra_PRGfra_PRVswe_KDpor_PPsle_SD

cro_ORaHden_SDlat_N_A

rom_PSDit_VdA

por_PSit_NCD

est_EVEfin_SDPest_EERger_FDP

cze_CSSDbul_DPScro_HDZtur_HDP

aus_SPOslo_SMK−MKP

slo_Smer−SDuk_SNPlux_CSV

hun_MSZProm_PLR

cro_HSLSit_SVP

gre_Potamiire_FGfra_NC

it_CDfra_EELV

swe_Msle_PS

slo_SDKU−DSbel_SPAest_IRL

cro_SDPsle_SLSbel_PS

bel_ECOLOfra_AC

slo_MHfin_VIHRrom_PNL

aus_NEOSswi_SP/PSbel_Groen

spa_EApol_PO

spa_EAJ/PNVrom_UDMR

spa_CiUspa_CCit_UDC

sle_SMCaus_GRUNE

cze_KDU−CSLpor_PSD

net_GLcro_IDSbel_MRcze_SZ

uk_LIBDEMcze_TOP09

rom_PMPit_PD

ger_Grunenrom_PDLbul_DSBhun_E14

gre_PASOKsle_ZaABbul_SDSpol_SLDbel_VLDhun_DK

cro_HNSbel_FDF

aus_OVPswe_FP

_Bbel_cdH

bul_GERBest_SDEbul_DBG

gre_NDlith_TS−LKD

ger_SPDger_CDU

fin_RKP/SFPest_ERpol_RP

den_RVnet_D66

spa_UpyDspa_C's

lat_Vspa_PSOE

sle_SDSlith_LRLS

bel_CD&Vmal_PN

lith_LSDPspa_PPsle_NSIfin_KOK

it_SCcyp_DISY

−1.5 −1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

●

Figure 5: European Integration

13


EU Position: Anti−EU parties

uk_UKIPgre_KKE

gre_XAden_FolkB

net_PVVswe_SDpol_KNPire_PBPA

it_LNfra_FNire_SP

fra_MPFbul_ATAKA

por_CDUhun_JOBBIK

swi_SVP/UDCit_M5S

ger_AfDcze_SVOBODNI

ger_NPDswi_LdT

fin_PSden_EL

cyp_AKELaus_FPO

swi_EDU/UDFden_DF

it_RCswe_V

uk_CONSfra_PG

lux_ADRtur_MHP

net_SPgre_ANEL

ire_SFslo_SNS

_Alux_DL

cze_USVITit_Fdl

net_SGPaus_BZO

sle_ZLbel_VB

aus_TeamStronachpor_BElat_LKSpol_SP

cze_KSCMbul_NFSB

hun_Fideszlith_TT

slo_SaScze_ODS

lith_DKbul_VMRO−BND

fra_Enscro_HSP

slo_OLaNObel_PP

ger_Linkeit_SEL

gre_SYRIZAswe_FI

tur_AKPpor_MPT

net_CUgre_LAOSbel_PVDA

den_LAit_FI

fra_MODEMpol_PiS

net_PvdDire_GPpol_PR

cyp_KOPswi_CVP/PVCcro_HSP−AS

swi_FDP/PLRfin_KD

spa_Amaiurswe_PIRAT

slo_NOVAswi_BDP

swi_EVP/PEVlith_LLRA

ger_DieTierspa_Podemos

cyp_DIKOspa_IU

spa_ICVswe_MPfin_VAS

uk_GREENlat_SDPS

lat_NSLcyp_EDEK

lith_LVZSbul_BBTden_SF

swi_CSP/PCScro_HDSSB

tur_CHPspa_BNG

ger_Piraten_C

est_EKfin_KESK

slo_Sietrom_PP−DDnet_50PLUS

cro_HSSslo_KDH

cze_ANO2011swi_GLP/PVL

ger_CSUlith_DP

uk_LABire_FF

net_VVDswe_SAPbul_BSP

cyp_EVROKOfra_UMP

hun_LMPbel_N−VA

swe_Cden_KF

cro_HL−SR

−1.5 −1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

●●●●●●●●●●●●●

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

●●●●●●●●●

●●●●●●

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

●●●

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

Figure 6: European Integration

14

An obvious question is whether or not the scale produced by the BAM procedure is in-

terestingly different from the unscaled placements in the CHES data. To answer this, we

sorted the data based on their rank orders on the two dimensions and plotted these against

each other. Thus, we created 2 new variables for each dimension that range from 1 to 262,

representing the lowest to highest values on each dimension. Next, we plot these two sets

of rank orders against each other. If there were no differences in the rank orders between

the BAM solution and the unscaled expert placements, the points would fall in a straight 45

degree line. To the extent that the rank orders differ, the points diverge from the ‘perfect’

fit. Figures 7, 8, and 9 display these comparisons.

UKIP

PBPAKKE

MPF

FN

XA

FolkB

KNP

SP

SD

PVV

LN

CDU

ATAKA

AfD

SVP/UDC

SVOBODNI

AKEL

EL PG

FPO

PS

DF

SFV

CONS

ANEL

RC

MHP

SP

Fdl

SGP

BZO

LKS

SP

TeamStronach

VB

BE

Fidesz

KSCM

NFSB

ZL DL

Ens

TT

HSP

SaSODS

DK

VMRO-BND

PP

Linke

OLaNO

SELSYRIZAFI

AKP

CU

LAOS

PVDA

LA

PiS

GP

PvdD

PR

HSP-ASKOP

CVP/PVC

Amaiur

FDP/PLR

PIRATEVP/PEV

NOVA

LLRA

KD

PodemosIU

DieTier

DIKO

ICV

MP

EDEK

VAS

LVZS

GREEN

HDSSB

BNGSF

EK

CHPPiraten

PP-DD

Siet

KESK

50PLUS

KDH

GLP/PVL

FF

ANO2011

DP

CSU

VVD

SAP

EVROKO

UMP

LMP

HL-SR

LABERC

N-VA

C

PSL

KF

PC

Lab

CDA

PS

UNPRDIMAR

PRG

GPS/PES

NA

PRV

KD V

PLAID

EER

PSD

EVE

DPS

FDP

HDP

PP

CSSD

SDP

SPO

MSZP

HDZ

SMK-MKP

Smer-SD

NCD

FG

PS

Potami

HSLS

PLRNC

SDKU-DS

EELV

M

SNP

SLS

SDP

MH

IRL

PSSPA

NEOS

AC

ECOLO

VIHR

PNL

SP/PSGroen

EAJ/PNV

GL

CiU

SMC

EA

POCC

UDMR

GRUNE

KDU-CSL

DSB

SZ

MR

IDS

SDSTOP09

GERB

Grunen

PASOK

DBG

PMP

DK

PDL

OVP

VLD

D66

PSD

HNS

ND

LIBDEM

SLD

FP

PD

SPD

cdH

FDF

CDU

TS-LKD

ERSDS

SDE

UpyD

RP

C's

LRLS

PSOE

CD&V

RV

LSDP

NSI

PP

JOBBIK

M5S

LdT

NPD

EDU/UDF

SNS

USVIT

ADR

MODEM

MPT FI

BDP

NSL

SDPS

BBT

CSP/PCSHSS

BSP

ZZS

PvdA

LRA

DeSUS

ABV

PL

GRENG

LSAP

DP

SD

ORaH

VdA

SD

NCD

PSCSV

SVP

CDE14UDC

ZaAB

V

RKP/SFP

PN

KOK

SC

DISY

0

50

100

150

200

250

Ran

k or

der

of E

con

Left-

Rig

ht: C

HE

S

0 50 100 150 200 250Rank of Econ Left-Right: BAM

Difference in rank < 20 Difference in rank > 20

Figure 7: Comparison of Economic left-right rank orders

15

UKIP

PBPA

KKE

MPFFN

XA

FolkB

KNP

SP

SD

PVV

LN

CDU

JOBBIKATAKA

AfD

SVP/UDC

M5S

SVOBODNI

NPD

EL

PG

EDU/UDFFPO

DF

SF

V

CONS

ANEL

RC

MHP

SP

SNS

USVIT

FdlSGP

BZO

LKS

SP

TeamStronach

VBFidesz

KSCM

NFSB

ZL

DL

Ens

TT

HSP

SaS

ODS

DK

VMRO-BND

PP

Linke

OLaNO

SEL

SYRIZA

FI

AKP

MODEM

CU

LAOS

MPT

PVDALA

PiS

GP

PvdD

PRFI

HSP-AS

CVP/PVC

Amaiur

FDP/PLR

PIRAT

EVP/PEV

BDPNOVA

LLRAKD

PodemosIU

DIKO

ICV

MP

EDEK

NSL

SDPS

VAS

LVZS

BBT

GREEN

CSP/PCS

HDSSB

BNG

SF

EK

CHP

PP-DD

SietKESK

HSS

50PLUS

KDH

GLP/PVL

ANO2011

DP

CSU

VVD

BSP

SAP

EVROKOUMP

LMP

HL-SR

LAB

ZZS

ERC

N-VA

C

PSL

PvdA

KF

PC

CDA

LRA

DeSUS

PS

ABV

UNPR

PLDIMAR

PRG

GPS/PES

GRENG

NA

PRV

DP

SD

KD

ORaH

V

PLAIDEER

PSD

EVE

VdA

DPS

HDP

SD

PP

CSSD

SDP

SPO MSZP

HDZ

SMK-MKP

Smer-SD

NCD

FG

Potami

HSLS

PLR

PS

NC

SDKU-DS

EELV

M SNP

SVPSLS

SDP

MH

IRL

PS

SPA

CD

NEOS

AC

ECOLO

VIHR

PNL

SP/PSGroen

EAJ/PNV

GL

CiU

SMCEA PO

CCUDMR

GRUNE

KDU-CSL

DSB

SZ

MR

IDS

SDS

TOP09

E14

GERB

Grunen

UDC

ZaAB

PASOKDBG

PMP

DK

PDL

OVP

VLD

D66

V

HNS

ND

LIBDEMSLD

FP

PD

SPD

cdH

RKP/SFP

FDF

CDU

TS-LKD

ER

SDS

SDE

UpyD

RP

C's

LRLS

PN

PSOE

CD&V

RV

LSDP

NSIPP

KOK

SC

DISY

LdT

AKEL

PS

ADR

BE

KOPDieTier

Piraten

FF

Lab

LSAP

FDPPS

CSVPSD

0

50

100

150

200

250R

ank

orde

r of

Soc

ial L

eft-

Rig

ht: C

HE

S

0 50 100 150 200 250Rank of Social Left-Right: BAM


Figure 8: Comparison of Social left-right rank orders

In these plots, we highlight (with red diamonds) parties that differ in rank ordering between

the two scales by at least 20 positions. These plots show that while there are some differences

in the rank ordering of the parties across the two scales, for a majority of the parties in the

data, these differences are not very large. Figure 9 shows that the EU dimension reflects

the most change in the rank ordering of the parties. We interpret this as meaning that

placements of parties on the pro/anti EU integration scale are the most vulnerable to DIF

and, as such, the vignettes have the biggest effect when estimating this scale, whereas the

social left-right dimension appears to be the least vulnerable to DIF.2

2The French party MODEM stands out as an extreme outlier on the EU dimension. This outlier is largelya function of several French experts placing two of the three EU vignette parties at the same position, thusmildly violating the vignette equivalance assumption. This also reflects that fact that several French expertsplaced MODEM, a pro-EU party, as being opposed to further integration

16

UKIPKKEMPFFNXAFolkBKNP

SDPVVLN

CDU

JOBBIKATAKAAfD

SVP/UDC

M5SSVOBODNILdTNPDEL

PGEDU/UDFFPOPSDF

SF

VANELRCMHPSPSNSUSVIT

ADR

FdlSGPBZOLKSSPTeamStronach

VB

BE

FideszKSCMNFSB

DL

EnsTT

HSPSaSODSDKVMRO-BNDLinkeOLaNOSELSYRIZAFIAKPCU

LAOSMPTPVDA

LAPiSGP

PvdDPR

FIHSP-ASCVP/PVC

Amaiur

FDP/PLRPIRATEVP/PEVBDP

NOVALLRAKDPodemosIU

DieTier

ICV

MPNSLSDPSVASLVZSBBT

GREEN

CSP/PCSHDSSBBNGSFEKCHP

PiratenPP-DD

SietHSS50PLUSKDHGLP/PVL

FF

ANO2011DPCSU

VVDBSPSAP

UMPLMP

HL-SRLABERCCPSLPvdAKF

PC

Lab

CDA

DeSUSPSABVUNPRPL

DIMARPRG

GPS/PESNA

PRVSDKD

ORaH

V

PLAIDEERPSD

EVE

DPS

HDP

SD

PPCSSDSPOMSZP

HDZSMK-MKPSmer-SD

Potami

HSLSPLR

PSNC

SDKU-DS

EELV

MSNP

SLS

MH

NEOSECOLO

PNLEAJ/PNVGL

CiU

SMCEA

PO

CC

GRUNEKDU-CSL

DSBSZ

MR

SDSE14ZaABPASOK

PMP

DKPDLOVPVLD

V

ND

LIBDEM

SLD

FP

PD

ERSDE

UpyDRPC's

PN

PSOE

RVPPSC

DISY

PBPASP

AKEL

CONS

ZL

PP

MODEM

KOP DIKO

EDEK

KESK

EVROKO

ZZSN-VALRA

GRENGLSAPDP

VdA

FDPSDPNCD

FG

PS

CSV

SVP

SLS

SDPIRL

PSSPA

CD

AC

VIHR

SP/PSGroen

UDMR

IDSTOP09GERB

GrunenUDC

DBGD66PSD

HNS

SPDcdHRKP/SFPFDFCDU

TS-LKD

SDS

LRLS

CD&VLSDP

NSI

KOK

0

50

100

150

200

250R

ank

orde

r of

EU

Pos

ition

: CH

ES

0 50 100 150 200 250Rank of EU Position: BAM


Figure 9: Comparison of EU positions

As mentioned above, the Bayesian framework produces measures of uncertainty around the

placements of the parties on the three dimensions. These are useful for determining whether

or not one party’s placement is meaningfully different from another. While most of the parties

that are placed in the middle ranges of these dimensions do not appear to be significantly

different from one another in terms of their positions, the parties near the endpoints of

the scales do seem to have meaningfully different placements. While we can informally

determine how different one party is from another by comparing the ranges of the 95%

intervals presented in Figures 1–6, the fact that we have posterior distributions for these

placements allow a more formal test of such potential differences. For example, the two

most extreme anti-EU parties according to the BAM solution are UKIP and KKE. According

17

to the unscaled CHES positions, these two parties are the seventh and fifth most anti-EU

parties in the data. This demonstrates that the British and Greek experts view the vignette

parties differently from one another, in that the rank ordering of these two parties actually

flips when the vignettes are considered. The question remains, however, as to whether or

not UKIP is meaningfully more anti-EU than is KKE. In order to answer this question,

we sampled 10, 000 draws from each parties’ posterior distribution and graphically present

these distributions in Figure 10. We then compare these two sets of draws and compute

the number of times that a draw from UKIP’s posterior distribution is more anti-EU than

the corresponding draw from KKE’s posterior. We find that 93% of the time (9, 300 out of

10, 000 draws), UKIP has a more extreme anti-EU position than does KKE. This is strong

evidence in support of the statement that UKIP is the most anti-EU party in our data, once

their placements are rescaled relative to the vignette parties and uncertainty is taken into

account.

−3.0 −2.5 −2.0 −1.5 −1.0 −0.5 0.0

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

Comparing EU Position Posteriors

Den

sity

UKIP

KKE

Figure 10: Comparison of EU positions

As an additional check on the validity of the BAM solutions, we examine the relationship

between the rescaled economic, social, and EU dimensions. We find that that dimensions are

related to one another in modest, yet expected, ways. The correlation between placements

18

on the economic and social left-right scales is 0.37, between the economic and EU dimensions

is 0.23 and between the social and EU dimensions is −0.33. Figures 11, 12, and 13 display

these relationships. The parties from Central and Eastern Europe are plotted in red to

highlight any differences in these relationships across East and West Europe. We also add

horizontal and vertical lines to separate the plots into four quandrants representing left and

right positions and pro and anti-EU positions. In Figure 11 we see that most parties fall

in either the economic and social left or the economic and social right quadrants, with no

obviously discernable differences between East and West Europe. As for the relationship

between economic and EU positions, we see the familiar inverted-U shape, discussed more

below. In Figure 13 we again see the inverted-U, with extreme parties on the left-right

dimension tending to be more anti-EU and those with moderate left-right positions tending

to be more pro-EU. Here, however, we see that there are very few parties in Central or

Eastern Europe that fall in the social left/anti-EU quadrant. In the CEES systems, anti-EU

parties tend to be more right-wing in terms of social policy. In the next section, we explore

these relationships in more depth.

19

SDS

BSP DPS

VMRO-BND

ATAKA

DSB

GERB

DBG

NFSB

BBT

ABV

CSSD

ODSKSCM

KDU-CSL

SZ

TOP09

ANO2011

USVIT

SVOBODNI

IRLEK

ER

SDE

EEREVE

MSZP

Fidesz

JOBBIK

LMPE14DK

LKS

ZZS

NA

SDPS

V

NSL

LRA

LSDP

TS-LKD

LVZS

LLRATT

DP

LRLS

DK

SLD

PO

PiS

PSL

RP

KNP

PR

SP

PSD

PC

PDLPNL

UDMR

UNPR

PP-DD

PMPPLRSDKU-DS

Smer-SDSMK-MKP

KDHSNS

SaS

MH

OLaNO

NOVASiet

SDS

SD

SLS

NSI

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SMC

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ZaABPS

HDZ

SDP

HSS

HSLS

HNSIDS

HDSSB

HSP

HL-SR

HSP-AS

ORaHPL

PN

DISY

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AKEL

DIKO

EDEKKOP

PS

SPA

ECOLOGroen

MR

VLD

cdHCD&V

N-VA

FDF

VB

PVDA

PP

SD

RV

KF

SF

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EL

DF

FolkB

LA

CDU

SPD

FDP

Grunen

Linke

CSU

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AfD

Piraten

DieTier

PASOK

ND

SYRIZA

KKE

LAOSANEL

PotamiDIMAR

XA

PSOE

PP

IU

CiUEAJ/PNV

EA

ERCBNG

CC

ICV

UpyD

AmaiurPodemos

C'sPSPRG

EELV

UMP

FN MPF

MODEM

NCPRV

AC

PG

Ens

FF

FG

Lab

GP

SF

SPPBPA

RC

LN

UDC

FISVP

PD

SEL

CD

Fdl

M5S

SCVdA

NCD

CDA

PvdA

VVD

D66GL

SGP

SP

CU PVV

PvdD

50PLUS

CONS

LAB

LIBDEM

SNP

PLAID

GREEN

UKIP

CDU

PP

PS

PSD

BE

MPT

SPO

OVP

FPO

GRUNE

BZOTeamStronach

SDP

KOK

KESK

VAS

PS

RKP/SFP

VIHR

KD

V

SAPCFP

M

KD

MP

SD

PIRATFI

CSV

GRENG DPLSAP

ADR

DL

-1

-.5

0

.5

1

1.5

Soc

ial L

eft-

Rig

ht

-2 -1 0 1 2Economic Left-Right

East West

Figure 11: Social and Economic left-right BAM scales

SDS

BSP

DPS

VMRO-BND

ATAKA

DSBGERBDBG

NFSB

BBT

ABVCSSD

ODSKSCM

KDU-CSLSZ TOP09

ANO2011

USVIT

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ERSDE

EER EVEMSZP

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RV

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SF

V

EL DF

FolkB

LA

CDUSPD

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Grunen

Linke

CSU

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PASOK ND

SYRIZA

KKE

LAOS

ANEL

PotamiDIMAR

XA

PSOE PP

IU

CiUEAJ/PNVEA

ERC

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CC

ICV

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C's

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EELV

UMP

FN MPF

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NCPRV

AC

PG

Ens

FF

FG

Lab

GP

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RC

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FI

SVP

PD

SEL

CD

Fdl

M5S

SC

VdA NCD

CDAPvdAVVD

D66GL

SGPSP

CU

PVV

PvdD

50PLUS

CONS

LAB

LIBDEM

SNPPLAID

GREEN

UKIP

CDU

PPPS

PSD

BE

MPT

SPO

OVP

FPO

GRUNE

BZOTeamStronach

SDP

KOK

KESKVAS

PS

RKP/SFPVIHR

KD

V

SAP C

FP

MKD

MP

SD

PIRAT

FI

CSVGRENG DPLSAP

ADRDL

-2

-1

0

1

Ant

i/Pro

EU

Inte

grat

ion

-2 -1 0 1 2Economic Left-Right

East West

Figure 12: EU and Economic left-right BAM scales

20

SDS

BSP

DPS

VMRO-BND

ATAKA

DSB GERBDBG

NFSB

BBT

ABVCSSD

ODSKSCM

KDU-CSLSZ TOP09

ANO2011

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EK

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EEREVE MSZP

Fidesz

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V

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LVZS

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TT

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SLDPO

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UKIP

CDU

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BZOTeamStronach

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V

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ADRDL

-2

-1

0

1

Ant

i/Pro

EU

Inte

grat

ion

-1 -.5 0 .5 1 1.5Social Left-Right

East West

Figure 13: EU and Social left-right BAM scales

21

3 Replication

A prominent paper using all three dimensions—economic left-right, social left-right (aka

GAL/TAN), and EU support—Marks et al. (2006) model support for European integration

in 2002 using the economic and social dimensions. In this section, we replicate the Marks

et al. (2006) analysis and extend it in two ways. First, we directly replicate the analysis for

2014. Second, we conduct the analysis with the rescaled versions of all three dimensions.

We find that the model holds up for 2014. In addition, the rescaled and cross-nationally

comparable measures provide more support for the reliability of these findings. For economic

left-right, the classic U-curve of support, where extreme parties on the economic left and

right are more likely to oppose the EU, still largely explains Euroskepticism in the most

recent expert survey. In contrast, for social left-right, the story is simpler, with socially

right-wing parties opposed while socially left-wing parties tend to favor the EU.

In this section, we use the rescaled dimensionality measures to evaluate the relationship

between economic left-right, social left-right, and support for European integration. We

start with the Marks et al. (2006) analysis, which emphasized the differences and similarities

between east and west on Euroskepticism. In both regions in 2002, extremism mattered,

such that parties in the middle on economic left-right supported the EU while the extremes

opposed; however, the major difference between the two regions is that in the west, right-wing

economic parties were also right-wing on the social dimension (correlation: 0.57) whereas

in the east, left-wing parties were more often on the social right-wing (correlation: −0.49).

While the correlations and associated patterns have weakened in the ensuing years, the

pattern still largely holds in 2014 with the rescaled measures, with a positive correlation

(0.40) between economic and social left-right in the west and a negative correlation (−0.20)

in the east.

22

In Figures 14a and 14b, we present the three dimensional space, with economic and social

left-right on the x and y-axes, while EU support is crudely measured as a trichotomous

variable.

-1-.

50

.51

1.5

Soc

ial L

eft-

Rig

ht (

BA

M)

-1.5 -1 -.5 0 .5 1Economic Left-Right (BAM)

Anti Neutral Pro

Note: n=141 parties. On the rescaled EU position measure ranging from -1.5 to 1.6, pro- parties havea score between 0.5 and 1.6, neutral parties have a score from -0.5 to 0.5, and anti- parties scorebetween -1.5 and -0.5.

(a) Western Europe

-1-.

50

.51

Soc

ial L

eft-

Rig

ht (

BA

M)

-2 -1 0 1 2Economic Left-Right (BAM)

Anti Neutral Pro

Note: n=102 parties. On the rescaled EU position measure ranging from -1.5 to 1.6, pro- parties havea score between 0.5 and 1.6, neutral parties have a score from -0.5 to 0.5, and anti- parties scorebetween -1.5 and -0.5.

(b) Central and Eastern Europe

Figure 14: Left-Right Dimensionality andPositions on European Integration

23

In the first two columns of Table 1, we first replicate the Marks et al. (2006) model for

the Western EU members. For 2002, Column 1 shows that economic right-wing parties

are more supportive of the EU than left-wing parties while social right-wing parties are

more Euroskeptical. Column 2 shows the effect of extremism. While the social right-wing

extremism variable just shows that the Euroskeptic trend is exaggerated on the social right-

wing extreme, the economic left-right extremism variable highlights the curvilinear nature,

the famous upside down U-curve. In short, the extremes on the economic left and right both

oppose the EU.

Columns 3 and 4 extend the 2002 model to the most recent CHES year. The same pattern

largely holds for 2014. Extremism matters for both economic and social left-right. As Marks

et al. (2006, 163) explain, “The reason for this is that the European Union is a centrist

project.” For our purposes, beyond the interesting consistency of the 2002 finding in 2014,

even after the many years of Euro crisis, the final two columns are the most significant.

Even with our cross-nationally comparable measures of these three dimensions, the same

substantive patterns and correlations are demonstrated in these data. This consistency

between the raw, unscaled, measures of dimensionality and our rescaled measures offers

more support for the extremism finding in the original paper.

Table 2 presents the same analysis conducted in the Central and Eastern European states.

Despite some differences among coefficients between east and west, the broad patterns (signs,

significance, etc.) are surprisingly consistent, suggesting that the geographic distinction

between the two regions is not as useful for this analysis as it once was.

Using the cross-nationally comparable dimensionality measures created in this paper, we

replicated and extended an earlier study of party-based Euroskepticism, illustrating that

ideological extremism is still a crucial factor to consider.

24

Tab

le1:

Anal

yzi

ng

Par

tyP

osit

ion

onE

U,

Wes

tern

Euro

pe

Rep

lica

tion

and

Exte

nsi

onof

Mar

ks

etal

.20

02

2002

Lin

ear

2002

Non

linea

r20

14L

inea

r20

14N

onlinea

rB

AM

Lin

ear

BA

MN

onlinea

rb

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)

Eco

nom

icL

eft-

Rig

ht

0.29

***

0.34

***

0.44

***

0.38

***

(0.0

2)(0.0

2)(0.0

2)(0.0

2)Soci

alL

eft-

Rig

ht

−0.

38**

*−

0.44

***

−0.

41**

*−

0.45

***

(0.0

2)(0.0

2)(0.0

2)(0.0

2)E

conom

icL

-RE

xtr

emis

m−

0.16

***

−0.

12**

*

(0.0

1)(0.0

1)Soci

alL

-RE

xtr

emis

m−

0.08

***

−0.

11**

*

(0.0

1)(0.0

1)E

conom

icL

-RB

AM

0.61

***

0.50

***

(0.0

3)(0.0

3)Soci

alL

-RB

AM

−0.

70**

*−

0.72

***

(0.0

4)(0.0

3)E

conom

icL

-RE

xtr

emis

mB

AM

−0.

53**

*

(0.0

4)Soci

alL

-RE

xtr

emis

mB

AM

−0.

85**

*

(0.0

5)C

onst

ant

6.06

***

7.00

***

4.86

***

6.53

***

0.23

***

0.68

***

(0.1

1)(0.1

0)(0.1

1)(0.1

1)(0.0

2)(0.0

3)R

20.

180.

450.

320.

530.

260.

44N

1310

1310

1428

1428

1418

1418

Note:

*p<

0.05

,**

p<

0.01

,**

*p<

0.00

1.O

rdin

ary

Lea

stsq

uare

sre

gre

ssio

ns.

Wei

ghte

dby

vote

.

25

Tab

le2:

Anal

yzi

ng

Par

tyP

osit

ion

onE

U,

Cen

tral

and

Eas

tern

Euro

pe

Rep

lica

tion

and

Exte

nsi

onof

Mar

ks

etal

.20

02

2002

Lin

ear

2002

Non

linea

r20

14L

inea

r20

14N

onlinea

rB

AM

Lin

ear

BA

MN

onlinea

rb

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)b

(S.E

.)

Eco

nom

icL

eft-

Rig

ht

0.19

***

0.16

***

0.28

***

0.25

***

(0.0

2)(0.0

2)(0.0

2)(0.0

2)Soci

alL

eft-

Rig

ht

−0.

34**

*−

0.34

***

−0.

31**

*−

0.22

***

(0.0

2)(0.0

2)(0.0

1)(0.0

1)E

conom

icL

-RE

xtr

emis

m−

0.07

***

−0.

04**

*

(0.0

1)(0.0

1)Soci

alL

-RE

xtr

emis

m−

0.06

***

−0.

10**

*

(0.0

1)(0.0

1)E

conom

icL

-RB

AM

0.55

***

0.53

***

(0.0

3)(0.0

3)Soci

alL

-RB

AM

−0.

42**

*−

0.30

***

(0.0

3)(0.0

3)E

conom

icL

-RE

xtr

emis

mB

AM

−0.

11**

(0.0

4)Soci

alL

-RE

xtr

emis

mB

AM

−0.

54**

*

(0.0

6)C

onst

ant

6.65

***

7.33

***

5.81

***

6.16

***

0.45

***

0.60

***

(0.1

7)(0.1

5)(0.1

3)(0.1

1)(0.0

2)(0.0

2)R

20.

490.

600.

420.

540.

370.

42N

833

833

1197

1197

1197

1197

Note:

*p<

0.05

,**

p<

0.01

,**

*p<

0.00

1.O

rdin

ary

Lea

stsq

uare

sre

gre

ssio

ns.

Wei

ghte

dby

vote

.

26

4 Discussion

In this paper, we combined a series of anchoring vignettes that depicted hypothetical political

parties with Bayesian scaling techniques to produce cross-nationally comparable positions on

economic left-right, social left-right, and European integration for a wide range of political

parties in Europe. There was already growing theoretical and empirical evidence that the

economic left-right dimension travelled well across Europe (Bakker et al. 2014). The findings

we report in this paper indicate that social left-right and European integration also have a

high degree of pan-European comparability. This is important information, both because

these dimensions make up an increasingly important part of party competition in Europe,

and because it suggests that the items included in the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys measure

these dimensions quite effectively.

Our replication of a prominent study on the relationship between economic and social ide-

ology and European integration further illustrates this point. Although the research we

replicated used unscaled party positions from 2002, we find a similar structure to party

positions on European integration in the 2014 scaled data. Party positions on European

integration are structured and are systematically related to ideology on the economic and

social left-right dimensions.

Our findings also generate intriguing questions for future research. In particular, the fact that

meaningful differences between the scaled and unscaled positions on European integration,

although limited in number, tend to be concentrated at the extremes requires additional

examination. But in sum, the preliminary work that we present here supports the cross-

national comparability of key concepts for party competition in contemporary European

societies, and further bolsters the Chapel Hill Expert Survey as a valuable data source for

political parties in 21st century Europe.

27

References

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Bakker, Ryan, Catherine De Vries, Erica Edwards, Liesbet Hooghe, Seth Jolly, Gary Marks,Jonathan Polk, Jan Rovny, Marco Steenbergen, and Milada Anna Vachudova. 2015. “Mea-suring party positions in Europe The Chapel Hill expert survey trend file, 1999–2010.”Party Politics 21 (1): 143–152.

Bakker, Ryan, Seth Jolly, Jonathan Polk, and Keith Poole. 2014. “The European CommonSpace: Extending the Use of Anchoring Vignettes.” The Journal of Politics 76 (04): 1089–1101.

Benoit, Kenneth and Michael Laver. 2006. Party Policy in Modern Democracies. London:Routledge.

Budge, Ian. 2000. “Expert Judgements of Party Policy Positions: Uses and Limitations inPolitical Research.” European Journal of Political Research 37.1: 103–113.

De Vries, Catherine E. and Sara B Hobolt. 2012. “When Dimensions Collide: The ElectoralSuccess of Issue Entrepreneurs.” European Union Politics 13.2: 246–268.

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Hausermann, Silja and Hanspeter Kriesi. 2015. “What Do Voters Want? Dimensionsand Configurations in Individual-Level Preferences and Party Choice.” In The Politicsof Advanced Capitalism, ed. Pablo Beramendi, Silja Hausermann, Herbert Kitschelt, andHanspeter Kriesi. Cambridge Polity Press.

Hobolt, Sara and Catherine de Vries. 2015. “Issue Entrepreneurship and Multiparty Com-petition.” Comparative Political Studies 48.9: 1159–1185.

Hooghe, Liesbet and Gary Marks. 2009. “A Postfunctionalist Theory of European Integra-tion: From Permissive Consensus to Constraining Dissensus.” British Journal of PoliticalScience 39.1 (January): 1–23.

Hooghe, Liesbet, Ryan Bakker, Anna Brigevich, Catherine de Vries, Erica Edwards, GaryMarks, Jan Rovny, Marco Steenbergen, and Milada Vachudova. 2010. “Reliability andValidity of Measuring Party Positions: The Chapel Hill Expert Surveys of 2002 and 2006.”European Journal of Political Research 49.5: 687–703.

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King, Gary and Jonathan Wand. 2007. “Comparing Incomparable Survey Responses: Eval-uating and Selecting Anchoring Vignettes.” Political Analysis 15.1: 46–66.

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29

Appendix. Vignette Text

Finally, we are going to present you with descriptions of 3 hypothetical parties and theirviews towards economic, libertarian/traditional, and EU issues. We would likeyou to placethese hypothetical parties on the following dimensions.

First, we would like you to place hypothetical Parties A, B, and C on the EU dimension.

Party A conceives the European Union as an intergovernmental organization inwhich member states, not the European Commission or the European Parliament,should be the dominant players. It rejects exiting the EU, but it wishes to reclaimstate sovereignty from the EU. On a 1-7 point scale with 1 being extreme anti-EUand 7 being extreme pro-EU where would you place this party?

Party B conceives the European Union as a supranational organization thatprovides Europeans with citizenship and a range of public goods. This party be-lieves the European Commission should become the government of the EuropeanUnion. On a 1-7 point scale with 1 being extreme anti-EU and 7 being extremepro-EU where would you place this party?

Party C believes that both member states and European institutions should playa vital role in EU policy making.The party is willing to pool national sovereigntyin the EU if this is efficient and feasible.European policy should be guided by sub-sidiarity, the principle that what can be better done at the national/subnationallevel should not be centralized. On a 1-7 point scale with 1 being extreme anti-EUand 7 being extreme pro-EU where would you place this party?

Next, we would like you to place the hypothetical parties on the economic dimension.

Party A advocates a social market economy with an emphasis on social justice,solidarity, and support for a welfare state. However, this party opposes stateownership, defends private property, and resists excessive intervention of the statein the economy. It believes there is a sharp trade-off between welfare spendingand economic competitiveness. On a 0-10 point scale with 0 being extreme leftand 10 being extreme right where would you place this party?

Party B views the equalization of life chances for all citizens as an importantgoal of government. It favors active government in regulating domestic and inter-national markets, and supports steeply progressive taxes to fund redistributivesocial programs. On a 0-10 point scale with 0 being extreme left and 10 beingextreme right where would you place this party?

Party C believes in small government. It favors minimal regulation of domesticand international markets, supports the privatization of many government oper-

30

ations, and opposes high taxes to fund redistributive social programs. On a 0-10point scale with 0 being extreme left and 10 being extreme right where would youplace this party?

Finally, we’d like you to place these 3 hypothetical parties on the libertarian/traditional

dimension.

Party A frames its policies around principles of social justice, grassroots democ-racy, and multiculturalism. The party favors same-sex marriage, active euthana-sia, and access to safe abortion. On a 0-10 point scale with 0 being extreme“Libertarian/postmaterialist” and 10 being extreme “Traditional/authoritarian”where would you place this party?

Party B favors non-discrimination legislation covering gender, race and sexualorientation, but opposes minority quotas. The party sees itself as a pragmaticparty that is willing to compromise if this is necessary to achieve its broad goals.On a 0-10 point scale with 0 being extreme “Libertarian/postmaterialist” and 10being extreme “Traditional/authoritarian” where would you place this party?

Party C emphasizes traditional family values, law and order, and the nation. Itopposes the legalization of same-sex marriage and the right to die. It believes thatthe government should be a firm moral authority on social and cultural issues.On a 0-10 point scale with 0 being extreme “Libertarian/postmaterialist” and 10being extreme “Traditional/authoritarian” where would you place this party?

31

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