publications | Heike Klüver

books

2023

Coalition Agreements as Control Devices: Coalition Governance in Western and Eastern Europe

Heike Klüver, Hanna Bäck, and Svenja Krauss

2023

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Many coalition cabinets negotiate lengthy coalition contracts outlining the agenda for the time in office. Not only does negotiating these agreements take up time and resources, but compromises have to be made, which may result in cabinet conflicts and electoral costs. This book explores why political parties negotiate such agreements, and argues that coalition agreements are important control devices that allow coalition parties to keep their partners in line. The authors show that their use varies with the preference configuration in cabinet and the allocation of ministerial portfolios

2017

Legislative Lobbying in Context

Jan Beyers, Caelesta Braun, and Heike Klüver

2017

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The lack of previous research into political interest groups and taking into account policy-specific and institutional context characteristics is largely due to research designs that have been primarily focused on a small number of policy debates, with the result that contextual characteristics were largely held constant. This book brings together articles from different modules that are part of a larger European Collaborative Research Project, INTEREURO, carried out by research teams in nine different countries under the auspices of the European Science Foundation. The main goal of the book is to analyse strategies, framing and influence processes for a set of 125 legislative proposals submitted by the European Commission, in an effort to better understand the involvement of interest organizations in the decision-making process of the EU. Contributors draw on sophisticated and innovative policy-driven samples of interest group mobilization, allowing them to account systematically for how policy-specific and institutional context factors shape mobilization, lobbying strategies and influence of interest groups on public policy debates in the EU. In this way, the book makes an important contribution to the study of interest groups in the EU and represents the breadth of positions taken in the current literature.

2013

Lobbying in the European Union: Interest Groups, Lobbying Coalitions, and Policy Change

Heike Klüver

2013

articles

2025

The Youth Gender Gap in Support for the Far Right

Ðorđe Milosav, Zachary Dickson, Sara B. Hobolt, Heike Klüver, Theresa Kuhn, and Toni Rodon

Journal of European Public Policy, Mar 2025

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The 2024 European Parliament election showcased a surprising new trend. While progressive parties have traditionally done well among younger voters, it was far-right parties that enjoyed unprecedented electoral support among young voters in the 2024 EP elections. Analyzing data from the European Election Studies (EES) 2024, covering 27 countries and almost 25,000 voters, this paper shows that there is a sizable gender gap in voting for the far right. The electoral success of far-right parties among young voters is primarily driven by the support of young men, peaking at over 21% of all young men in 2024 compared to only about 14% among women of the same age cohort. Descriptive analyses from the EES shows that this gap can partially be explained by attitudinal differences, with young women holding more socially progressive views than young men. Age-Period-Cohort models based on EES data covering eight elections from 1989 to 2024 further reveal that this gender gap is greatest for Millennials and Generation Z. Since political attitudes and voting behaviour during the formative years may have a long-lasting effect on voting patterns and attitudes later in life, our findings have important implications for the future of European democracies.
Benchmarking Pandemic Response: How the UK’s COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Impacted Diffuse and Specific Support for the EU

Irene Rodríguez, Toni Rodon, Asli Unan, Lisa Herbig, Heike Klüver, and Theresa Kuhn

British Journal of Political Science, Mar 2025

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Does the EU’s performance compared to neighboring countries influence public support? Using a benchmarking approach, we argue that people compare their country’s performance within the EU to that of a non-EU country, shaping their attitudes. The COVID-19 vaccine rollout in 2020 provides an ideal test case, as governments launched vaccination programs at different speeds. The UK began weeks before EU countries, allowing us to examine its impact on EU support. Using an Unexpected Event during Surveys Design (UESD) with Eurobarometer data, we find that the UK’s early rollout significantly reduced specific policy support for the EU but did not consistently affect diffuse support. Our findings offer key insights into attitudes toward European integration and performance evaluations.

2024

Adopting restriction: how coalition governments respond to radical right parties

Fabio Ellger and Heike Klüver

West European Politics, May 2024

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Radical right parties (RRPs) have gained representation in parliaments across Europe, but little is known about their impact on government policy. Even though RRPs tend to end up in opposition, they have considerable influence on policy making within coalition governments. One expectation is that coalition governments are tough on immigration to optimise voter support when being exposed to right-wing parties in parliament. Coalition negotiations temporarily reduce accountability and allow cabinets to adjust policy positions without bearing the costs associated with opportunistic behaviour. This argument is tested using novel data on pre-electoral policy positions and post-electoral immigration policies for coalition cabinets in 24 European democracies from 1980 to 2015. The findings reveal that governments shift to more restrictive immigration policies in face of RRPs. This article expands on prior research on the influence of the radical right by demonstrating its direct influence on coalition governments’ joint immigration policy plans.
Trading Liberties: Estimating COVID-19 Policy Preferences from Conjoint Data – CORRIGENDUM

Felix Hartmann, Macartan Humphreys, Ferdinand Geissler, Heike Klüver, and Johannes Giesecke

Political Analysis, Apr 2024

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Social Influencers and Election Outcomes

Heike Klüver

Comparative Political Studies, Dec 2024

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Do social influencers affect election outcomes? Social influencers can reach millions of people through social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. However, research on social influencers is scarce and it is unclear whether they can affect elections. I argue that social influencers can influence elections through their role as digital opinion leaders and their power to shape the public agenda. Empirically, this study leverages an event that occurred during the 2019 European election campaign. Eight days before the 2019 EP election, the social influencer Rezo published a video in which he severely attacks the christian democratic CDU/CSU which was watched by over 11.5 million users until the election. Based on a differences-in-differences design, it is shown that the video had a sizeable effect on the election resulting in considerable vote losses for the CDU/CSU. The results are important for the debate on electoral competition and social media.
Hitting the Sweet Spot? The Electoral Consequences of Supporting Minority Governments

Maria Thürk and Heike Klüver

Comparative Political Studies, Aug 2024

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Does supporting a minority cabinet harm a party’s electoral prospects? While minority governments have become more common in recent years, the electoral implications for parties supporting such cabinets remain unclear. Previous research suggests that support parties enjoy a favorable position, exerting policy influence while avoiding electoral losses associated with joining the government. However, we argue that this is only true for support parties without written agreements, as their support is less visible to voters. To test our argument, we compiled a novel dataset on the electoral performance of 563 parties in 304 elections across 31 countries since 1980. We estimate the effect of being a support party on subsequent electoral performance. Our findings indicate that parties which declare support perform better electorally than junior partners, while contract support parties do not. These insights shed light on the relationship between minority governments and electoral competition amidst growing party system fragmentation.
Europeans’ Attitudes Toward the EU Following Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Asli Unan and Heike Klüver

Political Science Research and Methods, Dec 2024

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has had profound effects on the stability and security of Europe. This study examines the attitudes of Europeans toward the European Union (EU) in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine. Using Special Eurobarometer data collected between February and April 2022 with a representative sample of the EU (N = 26,502), it leverages the quasi-experimental setting with the coincidence between the timing of the invasion and the fieldwork period of the Eurobarometer. Our findings indicate a general increase in support for the EU in the aftermath of the invasion by 4 percentage-points (11 percent of a SD). While the amplitude of the effect remains similar, we see larger treatment effects as more days passed after the invasion. We also observe significant variation at the individual level in treatment effects, particularly by ideology, with left-leaning individuals being more critical of the EU following the invasion. In general, our research demonstrates the significant impact of regional conflicts on public attitudes toward supranational organizations such as the EU and highlights the role of the EU as a provider of security and stability in the face of such conflicts.
Extreme Weather Events Do Not Increase Political Parties’ Environmental Attention

Tim Wappenhans, António Valentim, Heike Klüver, and Lukas F. Stoetzer

Nature Climate Change, Jul 2024

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Exposure to extreme weather events can make people more aware of environmental changes; however, it remains unclear how such events influence politicians’ behaviour. Combining supervised learning algorithms on over 260,000 press releases by European parties with a difference-in-differences design, we find that apart from Green parties, extreme weather events do not increase attention towards environmental issues. This suggests the consequences of climate change might not directly increase political attention.

2023

The Electoral Consequences of Policy-Making in Coalition Governments

Fabio Ellger, Heike Klüver, and Anthea Alberto

Research & Politics, Jul 2023

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Does policy-making in coalition governments affect cabinet parties’ electoral performance? Previous research shows that about two thirds of all propositions promised in coalition agreements are actually enacted. But does non-compliance with pledges made in the agreement affect subsequent electoral support? Drawing on the literature on performance voting, we expect that non-compliance is punished by voters, but the effect is conditioned by the importance of the issue and by a parties’ seniority status within the coalition. To test our argument, we have compiled the new comparative COALITIONPOLICY dataset on the enactment of more than 7000 policy pledges by 217 cabinet parties in 19 Western and Eastern European countries from 2000 to 2015. Across a broad range of models, we find no effect of pledge fulfillment on subsequent electoral performance. If anything, adherence to policy-promises only increases support for the prime minister party. These results have important implications for our understanding of political representation, coalition governance, and electoral competition in multiparty democracies.
The PARTYPRESS Database: A New Comparative Database of Parties’ Press Releases

Cornelius Erfort, Lukas F Stoetzer, and Heike Klüver

Research & Politics, Jul 2023

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We present the PARTYPRESS Database, which compiles more than 250,000 published press releases from 68 parties in 9 European countries. The database covers the press releases of the most relevant political parties in these countries from 2010 onward. It provides a supervised machine learning classification of press releases into 21 unique issue categories according to a general codebook. The PARTYPRESS Database can be used to study parties’ issue agendas comparatively and over time. We extend a recent analysis in Gessler and Hunger (2022) to illustrate the usefulness of the database in studying dynamic party competition, communication, and behavior.
Introducing the Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies Datasets

Elin Haugsgjerd Allern, Vibeke Wøien Hansen, Lise Rødland, Maiken Røed, Heike Klüver, Cal Le Gall, David Marshall, Simon Otjes, Thomas Poguntke, Anne Rasmussen, Sabine Saurugger, and Christopher Witko

Party Politics, Mar 2023

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Few existing datasets on parties and interest groups include data from both sides and a wide variety of interest groups and parties. We contribute to filling this gap by making several interconnected new datasets publicly available. The Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies (PAIRDEM) datasets include cross-national data from three different surveys of (1) central party organizations, (2) legislative party groups, and (3) interest groups. A fourth dataset based on coding of party statutes and party finance data was established together with the Political Party Database. The datasets contain novel indicators on party-group relationships in up to 21 mature democracies. In this research note, we first present the main content of the datasets and the research design. Second, we present descriptive statistics documenting the extent of organizational ties between parties and groups in contemporary democracies. Third, we illustrate more advanced usage through a simple application.
Cabinet Formation and Coalition Governance: The Effect of Portfolio Allocation on Coalition Agreements

Svenja Krauss and Heike Klüver

Government and Opposition, Oct 2023

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While coalition agreements are significant in structuring government behaviour, their comprehensiveness varies considerably across cabinets. We argue that the average correspondence between parties’ priorities and portfolio allocation is important in explaining the comprehensiveness of coalition agreements because coalition parties that have obtained their preferred portfolios have less incentive to negotiate a detailed coalition agreement. We test our argument by combining newly collected data on coalition agreements drafted by 218 cabinets in 24 Western and Eastern European countries from 1945 to 2014 with data on the distribution of ministerial portfolios. We find that the shorter and less comprehensive the agreements, the higher the correspondence between parties’ priorities and portfolio allocation. Our results have important implications for our understanding of coalition governments and the relationship between government formation and cabinet governance.
How Does Income Inequality Affect the Support for Populist Parties?

Lukas F. Stoetzer, Johannes Giesecke, and Heike Klüver

Journal of European Public Policy, Jan 2023

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2022

Public Support for Global Vaccine Sharing in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Germany

Ferdinand Geissler, Felix Hartmann, Macartan Humphreys, Heike Klüver, and Johannes Giesecke

PLOS ONE, Dec 2022

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By September 2021 an estimated 32% of the global population was fully vaccinated for COVID-19 but the global distribution of vaccines was extremely unequal, with 72% or more vaccinated in the ten countries with the highest vaccination rates and less than 2% in the ten countries with the lowest vaccination rates. Given that governments need to secure public support for investments in global vaccine sharing, it is important to understand the levels and drivers of public support for international vaccine solidarity. Using a factorial experiment administered to more than 10,000 online survey respondents in Germany in 2021, we demonstrate that the majority of German citizens are against global inequalities in vaccine distribution. Respondents are supportive of substantive funding amounts, on the order of the most generous contributions provided to date, though still below amounts that are likely needed for a successful global campaign. Public preferences appear largely to be driven by intrinsic concern for the welfare of global populations though are in part explained by material considerations—particularly risks of continued health threats from a failure to vaccinate globally. Strategic considerations are of more limited importance in shaping public opinion; in particular we see no evidence for free riding on contributions by other states. Finally, drawing on an additional survey experiment, we show that there is scope to use information campaigns highlighting international health externalities to augment public support for global campaigns.
Policy Positions, Power and Interest Group-Party Lobby Routines

Elin Haugsgjerd Allern, Heike Klüver, David Marshall, Simon Otjes, Anne Rasmussen, and Christopher Witko

Journal of European Public Policy, Jul 2022

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2021

Incentives Can Spur COVID-19 Vaccination Uptake

Heike Klüver, Felix Hartmann, Macartan Humphreys, Ferdinand Geissler, and Johannes Giesecke

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Aug 2021

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Recent evidence suggests that vaccination hesitancy is too high in many countries to sustainably contain COVID-19. Using a factorial survey experiment administered to 20,500 online respondents in Germany, we assess the effectiveness of three strategies to increase vaccine uptake, namely, providing freedoms, financial remuneration, and vaccination at local doctors. Our results suggest that all three strategies can increase vaccination uptake on the order of two to three percentage points (PP) overall and five PP among the undecided. The combined effects could be as high as 13 PP for this group. The returns from different strategies vary across age groups, however, with older cohorts more responsive to local access and younger cohorts most responsive to enhanced freedoms for vaccinated citizens.
Organised Interests in the Media and Policy Congruence: The Contingent Impact of the Status Quo

Anne Rasmussen, Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz, and Heike Klüver

European Journal of Political Research, Nov 2021

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While a multitude of studies have investigated the link between opinion and policy, we have little knowledge of how and when organised interests affect this linkage. We argue that the alignment of organised interests affects opinion–policy congruence by influencing the weight decision‐makers attach to citizen preferences. Moreover, we propose that alignment between majorities of groups and the public matters the most when status quo bias must be overcome for the public to obtain its preferred policy. We test our theoretical claims drawing on a comprehensive media content analysis of 160 policy issues in Germany and Denmark. Our results present a more sceptical picture of the ability of groups to suppress the opinion–policy linkage than the one frequently presented in the academic literature and public debate. We find that the capacity of groups to affect whether policy is congruent with the majority of the public is restricted to situations where the public supports a change in the status quo. In these cases, policy is less likely to end up reflecting public opinion if the majority of interest groups do not support the public position. In cases where the public is supportive of the policy status quo, the position of interest groups does not affect the likelihood that policy will eventually reflect the preferred position of the public. Our findings expand existing knowledge of organised interests in the study of policy representation and have important implications for understanding democratic governance.

2020

Electoral Vulnerability, Party Affiliation, and Dyadic Constituency Responsiveness in U.S. Legislatures

Nathalie Giger, Heike Klüver, and Christopher Witko

American Politics Research, Jul 2020

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It is often argued that electoral vulnerability is critical to constituency responsiveness. We investigate this possibility using different measures of vulnerability, but argue that in the United States the Republican Party may be less responsive than the Democratic Party due to its core constituency and view of representation. We test our hypotheses relying on an innovative research design that exploits referenda in U.S. states to compare legislator voting behavior with voter preferences on exactly the same policy proposal, allowing us to overcome the measurement problems of much previous research. Based on a newly compiled data set of more than 3,000 voting decisions for 818 legislators on 27 referenda, we find high levels of congruence, but that congruence with the median voter is higher for legislators who are running for reelection. We also find that Democrats are more responsive after a close election but that Republicans are not sensitive to electoral margins.
Helping or Hurting? How Governing as a Junior Coalition Partner Influences Electoral Outcomes

Heike Klüver and Jae-Jae Spoon

The Journal of Politics, Oct 2020

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The Survival of Interest Groups: Evidence from Germany

Heike Klüver

West European Politics, Nov 2020

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Setting the Party Agenda: Interest Groups, Voters and Issue Attention

Heike Klüver

British Journal of Political Science, Jul 2020

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Do political parties respond to interest group mobilization? While party responsiveness to voters has received widespread attention, little is known about how interest groups affect parties’ policy agendas. I argue that political parties respond to interest groups as lobbyists offer valuable information, campaign contributions, electoral support and personal rewards, but that party responsiveness is conditioned by voter preferences. Based on a novel longitudinal analysis studying the responsiveness of German parties to interest groups across eleven issue areas and seven elections from 1987 until 2009, it is shown that parties adjust their policy agendas in response to interest group mobilization and that interest groups are more successful in shaping party policy when their priorities coincide with those of the electorate.
Responding to Far Right Challengers: Does Accommodation Pay Off?

Jae-Jae Spoon and Heike Klüver

Journal of European Public Policy, Feb 2020

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2019

The Influence of Cause and Sectional Group Lobbying on Government Responsiveness

Vincent Hopkins, Heike Klüver, and Mark Pickup

Political Research Quarterly, Sep 2019

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Voters are increasingly concerned that special interests control the policy process. Yet, the literature on representation is more optimistic: elected officials face strong incentives to listen to voters—not just lobby groups—and this makes for more responsive policies. Building on recent work, we argue a more nuanced point: different types of groups have different effects on responsiveness. We show empirically that lobbying from “cause” groups—representing diffuse interests like climate change—strengthens responsiveness, while lobbying from “sectional” groups—representing industry and professional associations—has no observable effect. Our project uses a novel data set of Canadian lobbying registrations spanning fifteen policy areas from 1990 to 2009. Using a dynamic panel model, we test how interest group lobbying moderates the effect of voter issue attention on government spending. Our findings contribute to contemporary debates over the influence of organized groups, suggesting some interest groups may improve representation.
Coalition Agreements, Issue Attention, and Cabinet Governance

Heike Klüver and Hanna Bäck

Comparative Political Studies, Nov 2019

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Why do coalition parties settle some policy issues in great detail, whereas other issues are hardly mentioned in coalition agreements? Coalition agreements are important policy platforms that determine policy making during the legislative term. However, we know remarkably little about their content. We shed light on why issue attention in coalition agreements varies so extensively. We argue that intra-cabinet conflict positively affects issue attention as parties have stronger incentives to negotiate a detailed policy agenda that constrains their coalition partners. However, we expect that this effect is conditioned by preference tangentiality and the salience of an issue among coalition partners. Our theoretical expectations are tested drawing on a new data set based on a comprehensive content analysis of 224 agreements negotiated by 181 parties between 1945 and 2015 in 24 West and East European countries. We find support for our hypotheses and conclude that parties draft agreements to limit “ministerial drift.”
Are They Listening? Public Opinion, Interest Groups and Government Responsiveness

Heike Klüver and Mark Pickup

West European Politics, Jan 2019

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Explaining Interest Group Density Across Economic Sectors: Evidence from Germany

Heike Klüver and Elisabeth Zeidler

Political Studies, May 2019

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Why does the number of interest groups vary across economic sectors? Interest groups are an important channel through which companies can transmit their policy preferences to decision-makers. However, empirical research shows that the number of interest groups varies considerably across sectors. We argue that the size and the wealth of the potential constituency as well as government activity positively affect interest group density. We test our theoretical expectations based on an unprecedented longitudinal analysis of interest groups that registered at the German Bundestag from 1978 until 2013 and show that the number of firms, the wealth of an economic sector, and government activity positively influence interest group density. However, we also find that the relationship between interest groups and legislative activity is reciprocal as legislative activity positively impacts the number of interest groups in an economic sector, but at the same time interest group density also positively affects legislative activity.
Party Convergence and Vote Switching: Explaining Mainstream Party Decline Across Europe

Jae‐Jae Spoon and Heike Klüver

European Journal of Political Research, Nov 2019

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How can one explain the significant vote losses of mainstream parties across Europe in recent years? In this article, it is argued that mainstream party convergence is an important determinant of the recent political and electoral volatility in European party systems. More specifically, it is hypothesised that as mainstream parties converge on the left‐right scale, voters will switch from supporting a mainstream party to a non‐mainstream party in the next election as they look for an alternative that better represents their ideological views. To test these theoretical expectations, data is combined from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the Manifestos Project for nearly 15,000 vote choices of individual voters in 30 elections in 16 West and East European countries from 2001 until 2013. The findings have important implications for understanding the recent rise of non‐mainstream parties, the changing nature of party systems and the increasing complexity of cabinet formation across Europe.

2018

The Core or the Winset? Explaining Decision-Making Duration and Policy Change in the European Union

Dietrich Drüner, Heike Klüver, Ellen Mastenbroek, and Gerald Schneider

Comparative European Politics, Mar 2018

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Minority Governments and Legislative Reliability: Evidence from Denmark and Sweden

Heike Klüver and Radoslaw Zubek

Party Politics, Nov 2018

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When are minority cabinets effective? We study the extent to which minority cabinets demonstrate legislative reliability, that is, introduce to parliament the bills they have announced in their legislative agendas. We test hypotheses drawn from two theories of minority government effectiveness: the positional agenda power theory which emphasizes the central location of the minority cabinet in the policy space and the ideological proximity theory which stresses the importance of the ideological closeness of opposition parties to the government. In an analysis of over 1600 bills announced by Danish and Swedish minority cabinets in 19 legislative agendas published between 1998 and 2012, we find more support, overall, for the ideological proximity than for the positional agenda power model.

2017

Challenges to Multiparty Governments: How Governing in Coalitions Affects Coalition Parties’ Responsiveness to Voters

Heike Klüver and Jae-Jae Spoon

Party Politics, Nov 2017

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How does governing in coalitions affect coalition parties’ responsiveness to voters? In this article, we seek to understand the relationship between political parties’ participation in multiparty governments and their responsiveness to voters. We argue that the extent to which coalition parties respond to policy priorities of voters is influenced by the divisiveness of policy issues within the cabinet and the ministerial responsibility for policies. To test our hypotheses, we combine data on the issue attention of 55 coalition parties from the Comparative Manifestos Project with data on government composition and data on the policy priorities of voters from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and various election studies in 45 elections across 16 European countries from 1972 to 2011. While we find that intra-cabinet divisiveness decreases coalition parties’ responsiveness, we find no effect for portfolio responsibility. Our findings shed light on the relationship between party competition and coalition governments and its implications for political representation.
Coalition Governments and Party Competition: Political Communication Strategies of Coalition Parties

Iñaki Sagarzazu and Heike Klüver

Political Science Research and Methods, Apr 2017

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Coalition parties have to reconcile two competing logics: they need to demonstrate unity to govern together, but also have to emphasize their own profile to succeed in elections. We argue that the electoral cycle explains whether unity or differentiation prevails. While differentiation dominates at the beginning and the end of the legislative term in close proximity to elections, compromise dominates the middle of the term when coalition governments focus on enacting a common policy agenda. To test our theoretical claims, we draw on an innovative quantitative text analysis of more than 21,000 press releases published by coalition parties from 2000 until 2010.
Where Have All the Leaders Gone? Evaluating the Dynamics of Parties’ Issue Attention in Coalition Governments

Iñaki Sagarzazu and Heike Klüver

Social Science Quarterly, Sep 2017

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Objective While selective issue emphasis is a widely recognized strategy of party competition, we have little knowledge about how coalition parties interact with each other when deciding which policy issues to emphasize. Therefore we ask: Who leads and who follows the issue agenda in coalition governments? Methods. We create an issue attention data set using quantitative text analysis from over 40,000 press releases. We use this data set and time series cross-section regression analysis to study the dynamics of coalition parties’ issue attention. Results. We find that junior coalition parties are more responsive to their senior partners than senior partners to their junior partners. Hence, while coalition partners generally follow each other, senior partners enjoy a stronger leadership role in the cabinet. Conclusion. Coalition parties indeed coordinate their issue priorities as they respond to each other’s issue agenda. However, due the asymmetric power distribution in coalition cabinets, it is not a negotiation process on equal footing.
Does Anybody Notice? How Policy Positions of Coalition Parties Are Perceived by Voters

Jae‐Jae Spoon and Heike Klüver

European Journal of Political Research, Feb 2017

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Does governing in coalitions affect how coalition parties’ policy positions are perceived by voters? In this article, the authors seek to understand the relationship between parties’ participation in coalition governments and their perception by voters. Policy positions are an important instrument through which parties compete for the support of voters. However, it is unclear to what extent voters can correctly perceive the positions of parties when they govern together with other coalition partners. It is argued here that because of the blurred lines of responsibility in multiparty cabinets, it is difficult for voters to correctly perceive the positions of coalition parties. What is more, it is expected that the internal functioning of coalition cabinets affects the extent to which coalition parties struggle to get their message out to voters. It is hypothesized in the article that intra‐cabinet conflict is negatively related to misperception. To test their theoretical expectations, the authors combine data on the left‐right policy positions of political parties from the Comparative Manifestos Project with data on how these positions are perceived by voters gathered from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems from 1996 to 2011. The findings shed light on the relationship between party competition and coalition governments, and its implications for political representation.

2016

Voting Against Your Constituents? How Lobbying Affects Representation

Nathalie Giger and Heike Klüver

American Journal of Political Science, Jan 2016

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Citizens delegate the representation of their political preferences to members of Parliament (MPs), who are supposed to represent their interests in the legislature. However, MPs are exposed to a variety of interest groups seeking to influence their voting behavior. We argue that interest groups influence how MPs cast their vote in Parliament, but that this effect varies across groups. While lobbying by sectional groups provides incentives for MPs to defect from their constituents, we expect that cause groups in fact strengthen the link between MPs and their voters. We test our argument based on an innovative study of 118 Swiss public referenda, which allows for directly comparing voter preferences with legislative voting of 448 MPs on these issues. Drawing on a multilevel regression analysis, this study shows that interest groups considerably affect the link between MPs and their voters. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of political representation.
Who Responds? Voters, Parties and Issue Attention

Heike Klüver and Jae-Jae Spoon

British Journal of Political Science, Jul 2016

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Do parties listen to their voters? This article addresses this important question by moving beyond position congruence to explore whether parties respond to voters’ issue priorities. It argues that political parties respond to voters in their election manifestos, but that their responsiveness varies across different party types: namely, that large parties are more responsive to voters’ policy priorities, while government parties listen less to voters’ issue demands. The study also posits that niche parties are not generally more responsive to voter demands, but that they are more responsive to the concerns of their supporters in their owned issue areas. To test these theoretical expectations, the study combines data from the Comparative Manifestos Project with data on voters’ policy priorities from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and various national election studies across eighteen European democracies in sixty-three elections from 1972–2011. Our findings have important implications for understanding political representation and democratic linkage.
Setting the Agenda or Responding to Voters? Political Parties, Voters and Issue Attention

Heike Klüver and Iñaki Sagarzazu

West European Politics, Mar 2016

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2015

Measuring Interest Group Framing Strategies in Public Policy Debates

Heike Klüver and Christine Mahoney

Journal of Public Policy, Aug 2015

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Framing plays an important role in lobbying, as interest groups strategically highlight some aspects of policy proposals while ignoring others to shape policy debates in their favour. However, due to methodological difficulties, we have remarkably little systematic data about the framing strategies of interest groups. This article therefore proposes a new technique for measuring interest group framing that is based on a quantitative text analysis of interest group position papers and official policy documents. We test this novel methodological approach on the basis of two case studies in the areas of environmental and transport policy in the European Union. We are able to identify the frames employed by all interest groups mobilised in a debate and assess their effectiveness by studying to what extent decision-makers move closer to their policy positions over the course of the policy debate.
Interest Groups in the German Bundestag: Exploring the Issue Linkage Between Citizens and Interest Groups

Heike Klüver

German Politics, Apr 2015

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The Promises of Quantitative Text Analysis in Interest Group Research: A Reply to Bunea and Ibenskas

Heike Klüver

European Union Politics, Sep 2015

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Quantitative text analysis constitutes a promising new method that allows for measuring the policy positions and the lobbying success of interest groups by analyzing their submissions to legislative consultations ( Klüver, 2009 ). The use of quantitative text analysis allowed me to present a novel and unique research design which was the largest in scope at the time and resulted in important new insights regarding the determinants of lobbying success ( Klüver, 2009 , 2011 , 2013 ). In their recent article, Bunea and Ibenskas (2015) however question the usefulness of quantitative text analysis for studying interest groups and discuss several issues which in their view constitute important disadvantages of the technique. In this article I carefully discuss each of their arguments and show that none of their objections actually prevents scholars from successfully using quantitative text analysis to study interest groups in the European Union and beyond.
Legislative Lobbying in Context: Towards a Conceptual Framework of Interest Group Lobbying in the European Union

Heike Klüver, Caelesta Braun, and Jan Beyers

Journal of European Public Policy, Apr 2015

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Framing in Context: How Interest Groups Employ Framing to Lobby the European Commission

Heike Klüver, Christine Mahoney, and Marc Opper

Journal of European Public Policy, Apr 2015

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Bringing Salience Back in: Explaining Voting Defection in the European Parliament

Heike Klüver and Jae-Jae Spoon

Party Politics, Jul 2015

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What explains when Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) defect from their EP party group? While previous research has focused on the policy distance between an MEP’s national party and her party group, it has been overlooked that not all issues are equally important to national parties. As parties prioritize certain issues over others, we argue that it is both the distance and the salience of the issue for the MEP’s national party that explains defection. To test our theoretical claim, we explore more than 400,000 vote decisions across 1,948 different roll-call votes in four issue areas – agriculture, environment, social policy and external trade – from 1979 until 1999. To measure policy salience and distance, we combine roll-call analysis with data from the Euromanifestos Project. Our findings have important implications for understanding the dynamics of party competition and the role that national parties play in the European Parliament.
Images of an Unbiased Interest System

David Lowery, Frank R. Baumgartner, Joost Berkhout, Jeffrey M. Berry, Darren Halpin, Marie Hojnacki, Heike Klüver, Beate Kohler-Koch, Jeremy Richardson, and Kay Lehman Schlozman

Journal of European Public Policy, Sep 2015

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Voter Polarisation and Party Responsiveness: Why Parties Emphasise Divided Issues, but Remain Silent on Unified Issues

Jae‐Jae Spoon and Heike Klüver

European Journal of Political Research, May 2015

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How does voter polarisation affect party responsiveness? Previous research has shown that political parties emphasise political issues that are important to their voters. However, it is posited in this article that political parties are not equally responsive to citizen demands across all issue areas. The hypothesis is that party responsiveness varies considerably with the preference configuration of the electorate. More specifically, it is argued that party responsiveness increases with the polarisation of issues among voters. To test these theoretical expectations, party responsiveness is analysed across nine West European countries from 1982 until 2013. Data on voter attention and voter preferences with regard to specific policy issues from a variety of national election studies is combined with Comparative Manifestos Project data on parties’ emphasis of these issues in their election manifestos. The findings have major implications for understanding party competition and political representation in Europe.
Legislative Pledges and Coalition Government

Radoslaw Zubek and Heike Klüver

Party Politics, Jul 2015

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When do coalitions do what they promise? Previous research has focused on the extent to which parties implement electoral pledges. In this article, we examine how coalition cabinets fulfil post-electoral legislative agendas. Many coalitions announce programmes identifying bills that they plan to introduce to parliament in the months ahead. Even though coalition parties publicly signal commitment to all such proposals, there is variation in the extent to which cabinets meet their own deadlines. We argue that pledge fulfilment is driven by differences in the divisiveness and salience of legislative initiatives. We test our theoretical expectations based on an empirical analysis of over 500 legislative pledges made by the Polish cabinet between 2008 and 2011. Our results confirm that pledges dealing with less divisive and more salient issues are likely to be fulfilled with less delay than those dealing with more divisive and less important issues.

2014

Bicameralism, Intra-Party Bargaining, and the Formation of Party Policy Positions

Hanna Bäck, Marc Debus, and Heike Klüver

Party Politics, Sep 2014

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How do political parties arrive at their policy positions? We conceptualize position formation in federalist countries as an intra-party bargaining process in which subnational parties compete with each other in an attempt to get their own positions into their national party manifesto. Drawing on theories about inter-party bargaining over ministerial portfolios, we hypothesize that the bargaining success of subnational parties depends on their parliamentary strength. We evaluate our hypotheses based on a comprehensive dataset on policy positions of national and subnational parties in Germany from 1990 until 2009. Our results show that German subnational parties that are powerful in the second parliamentary chamber (Bundesrat) are particularly successful in shaping the manifesto of their national party. The findings have important implications for our understanding of intra-party politics and position formation within political parties in Germany more specifically and federalist countries more generally.
Identifying Frames: A Comparison of Research Methods

Frida Boräng, Rainer Eising, Heike Klüver, Christine Mahoney, Daniel Naurin, Daniel Rasch, and Patrycja Rozbicka

Interest Groups & Advocacy, Jun 2014

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Do Parties Respond? How Electoral Context Influences Party Responsiveness

Jae-Jae Spoon and Heike Klüver

Electoral Studies, Sep 2014

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2013

Explaining Policy Position Choice of Europarties: The Effect of Legislative Resources

Heike Klüver and Toni Rodon

British Journal of Political Science, Jul 2013

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While Europarties have received increasing attention in recent years, little is known about how they arrive at common policy positions, given their strong internal ideological heterogeneity. In order to explain position formation within Europarties, this article argues that national parties compete with each other in an attempt to upload their own policy positions to their Europarty. The article hypothesizes that their ability to succeed in these attempts depends on their legislative resources. The argument is tested by analysing position formation within the four major Europarties for all European Parliament elections between 1979 and 2004. The empirical results confirm that position choice is skewed towards parties with a large seat share, which has important implications for political representation in Europe.
Ideological Congruency and Decision-Making Speed: The Effect of Partisanship Across European Union Institutions

Heike Klüver and Iñaki Sagarzazu

European Union Politics, Sep 2013

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How does ideological congruency affect the speed of legislative decision-making in the European Union? Despite the crucial importance of actor preferences, the effect of partisan alignments and ideological composition of the European institutions has largely been neglected. However, we argue that the ideological congruence between legislative bodies has an important effect on the duration of policy-making. We test our theoretical expectations based on a large new dataset on decision-making speed in the European Union using event history analysis. The findings confirm our theoretical claim indicating that the ideological distance between the European institutions slows down policy-making which has important implications for the problem-solving capacity of political systems more generally.
Lobbying as a Collective Enterprise: Winners and Losers of Policy Formulation in the European Union

Heike Klüver

Journal of European Public Policy, Jan 2013

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Opening the Black Box: The Professionalization of Interest Groups in the European Union

Heike Klüver and Sabine Saurugger

Interest Groups & Advocacy, Jun 2013

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2012

Biasing Politics? Interest Group Participation in EU Policy-Making

Heike Klüver

West European Politics, Sep 2012

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Informational Lobbying in the European Union: The Effect of Organisational Characteristics

Heike Klüver

West European Politics, May 2012

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Die Macht der Informationen: Eine Empirische Analyse von Lobbyingerfolg in der Europäischen Union

Heike Klüver

Politische Vierteljahresschrift, May 2012

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Resolving Controversy in the European Union: Legislative Decision-Making Before and After Enlargement

Heike Klüver

West European Politics, Jul 2012

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2011

The Contextual Nature of Lobbying: Explaining Lobbying Success in the European Union

Heike Klüver

European Union Politics, Dec 2011

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Why are some interest groups able to lobby political decisions successfully whereas others are not? This article suggests that the issue context is an important source of variation because it can facilitate or hamper the ability of interest groups to lobby decision-makers successfully. In order to test the effect of issue characteristics, this article draws on a new, unprecedented data set of interest group lobbying in the European Union. Using quantitative text analysis to analyse Commission consultations, this article studies lobbying success across 2696 interest groups and 56 policy issues. The findings indicate that lobbying success indeed varies with the issue context, depending on the relative size of lobbying coalitions and the salience of policy issues, whereas individual group characteristics do not exhibit any systematic effect.

2010

Europeanization of Lobbying Activities: When National Interest Groups Spill Over to the European Level

Heike Klüver

Journal of European Integration, Mar 2010

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2009

Measuring Interest Group Influence Using Quantitative Text Analysis

Heike Klüver

European Union Politics, Dec 2009

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The analysis of interest group influence is crucial in order to explain policy outcomes and to assess the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. However, owing to methodological difficulties in operationalizing influence, only few have studied it. This article therefore proposes a new approach to the measurement of influence, drawing on quantitative text analysis. By comparing interest groups’ policy positions with the final policy output, one can draw conclusions about the winners and losers of the decision-making process. In order to examine the applicability of text analysis, a case study is presented comparing hand-coding, WORDSCORES and Wordfish. The results correlate highly and text analysis proves to be a powerful tool to measure interest groups’ policy positions, paving the way for the large-scale analysis of interest group influence.