The niche party concept and its measurement

Journal article | Zeitschriftenartikel

The concept of the niche party has become increasingly popular in analyses of party competition. Yet, existing approaches vary in their definitions and their measurement approaches. We propose using a minimal definition that allows us to compare political parties in terms of their ‘nicheness’. We argue that the conceptual core of the niche party concept is based on issue emphasis and that a niche party emphasizes policy areas neglected by its rivals. Based on this definition, we propose a continuous measure that allows for more fine-grained measurement of a party’s ‘nicheness’ than the dominant, dichotomous approaches and thereby limits the risk of measurement error. Drawing on data collected by the Comparative Manifesto Project, we show that (1) our measure has high face validity and (2) exposes differences among parties that are not captured by alternative, static or dichotomous measures.

Object Details

• ISSN: 1460-3683
• Extent: Seite(n): 259-271
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Status: Veröffentlichungsversion; begutachtet (peer reviewed)

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Party Politics, 21(2)

Classification and Topics

• Subject: Politikwissenschaft ; politische Willensbildung, politische Soziologie, politische Kultur ; Volkspartei ; politische Ideologie ; Definition ; Parteipolitik ; Klassifikation ; politisches Programm ; Messung ; Validierung

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Meyer, Thomas M. ; Miller, Bernhard
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Vereinigtes Königreich
• (when): 2015

Further information

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068812472582
• Rights: GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften. Bibliothek Köln
• Last update: 21.06.2024, 4:26 PM CEST