Causes of party conflicts in local politics
| Author | David Karlsson,Louise Skoog |
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395716678878 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2017
Article
Politics
2018, Vol. 38(2) 182 –196
Causes of party conflicts
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
in local politics
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395716678878
DOI: 10.1177/0263395716678878
journals.sagepub.com/home/pol
Louise Skoog and David Karlsson
University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Abstract
This article shows how two forms of party conflict (political dissent and antagonistic behaviour)
are related but explained by different factors. It is therefore of utmost importance to distinguish
between the two forms of conflict. Political dissent is mainly explained by the size of demos while
social fragmentation, fiscal stress and party contestation increase antagonistic behaviour. The
presence of a local protest party inflates both forms of conflict. Surprisingly, party contestation
has less impact on conflict levels than earlier studies have suggested. The study builds on data from
a unique survey conducted among all councillors in the 290 municipalities in Sweden.
Keywords
causes of conflict, contestation, local politics, party conflict, size of demos
Received: 12th May 2016; Revised version received: 5th August 2016; Accepted: 25th September 2016
Introduction
Political conflict is at the heart of all political systems and can be found among citizens,
social groups, political representatives and, in particular, political parties. In a representa-
tive democracy, we expect societal conflicts to be manifested in the parliamentary arena
with the political parties as the standard bearers of the conflicting sides. Many scholars
have tried to establish what causes party conflicts in elected assemblies. Some studies
find that the political situation in the parliamentary arena is linked to diversity and social
fragmentation in a society (Aistrup, 2004; Koetzle, 1998; Sullivan, 1973), to the size of
the democratic unit (Bäck, 2000; Gerring et al., 2015; Karlsson, 2013), to fiscal stress
(Lantto, 2005), or that the presence of a protest party may be a sign of societal conflict
which the established parties have failed to channel (Erlingsson, 2005). And a raft of stud-
ies also suggests that political contestation fuels political conflicts (Adams and Merrill,
2009; Adams et al., 2004; Downs, 1957; Ezrow et al., 2011; Schumacher et al., 2013).
A definition of political conflict commonly used in earlier studies is that it occurs
when there are difficulties in reconciling different interests or when there are
Corresponding author:
Louise Skoog, School of Public Administration, University of Gothenburg, Sprängkullsgatan 19, PO Box 712,
SE 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden.
Email: louise.skoog@spa.gu.se
Skoog and Karlsson
183
disagreements over objectives (Bush and Folger, 1994: 56; Gurr, 1980; Pondy, 1967;
Schmidt and Kochan, 1972). This is a useful but overly simplified definition, as studies
using this definition have disregarded the complexity of political conflict and have either
treated it as a uniform concept (Katz and Mair, 1995: 19) or only focused on a single
aspect of conflict. But political conflict is not a uniform concept. Political dissent and
antagonistic behaviour are different forms of conflict (Skoog and Karlsson, 2015).
Political dissent refers to the different positions that parties take on political issues on a
scale between consensus and dissidence, while antagonistic behaviour refers to the way
parties act towards one another on a gradual scale between harmony and disharmony.
As earlier scholars have largely overlooked the complexity of party conflicts, there is
a need for a deeper understanding of how different causes found in earlier studies relate
to different forms of political conflicts. In this article, we will therefore be exploring the
relations between the known and proposed causes and the different forms of conflict in
the parliamentary arena. These causes may be related to structural factors, financial cir-
cumstances, societal discontent, and relations with other political parties.
A research aim like this places heavy demands on the data, as many units of analysis
(different political systems) with valid and identical indicators of the different forms of
conflict are required. A research design focusing on local governments provides such data.
A study at the local level within a single country would also have other methodological
advantages, such as allowing for identifying causes of party conflict while simultaneously
controlling for structural and cultural factors that could disrupt the analysis. Furthermore,
as earlier scholars of party conflict have mainly studied political systems and elected
assemblies at the national level, studying party conflicts at the local level would make an
important contribution to broadening our understanding of the causes of party conflicts.
This study builds on data from a survey conducted in 2012 among all the local council-
lors in the 290 municipalities of Sweden (Karlsson and Gilljam, 2014). Indicators on the
degree of political conflicts in the parliamentary arena of the municipalities, that is, in the
elected assembly and executive committees, are based on the perceptions of the council-
lors in each municipality. Indicators on the causes of political conflicts are built on data
from Statistics Sweden (SCB). The article is structured as follows: in section ‘What are
party conflicts?’, we discuss what party conflict in the parliamentary arena is and the dif-
ferent forms of such conflicts. In section ‘Causes of party conflicts’, we examine what
earlier studies have argued to be causes of party conflicts and form our hypothesis
linked to these causes. In section ‘The Swedish case’, we present our case. In section
‘Methodology’, we focus on the methodological aspects and sources of data, as well as
the various indicators for the dependent and independent variables. In section ‘Results’,
we present our findings. And in section ‘Discussion’, we discuss how the different forms
of party conflicts relate to the causes found by earlier studies and what implications this
might have for future research on political conflicts.
What are party conflicts?
We know from earlier studies that it is useful to distinguish between two different forms
of party conflicts in parliamentary arenas: political dissent and antagonistic behaviour
(Lantto, 2005; Skoog and Karlsson, 2015). These forms of political conflicts are described
in the section below.
Political dissent refers to disagreement over political principles and issues between
political parties. The parties may disagree on political objectives and on what constitutes
184
Politics 38(2)
a good society, or the parties may have similar objectives but different views on how
these should be pursued (Bakker et al., 2015; DiMaggio et al., 1996). A high degree of
political dissent between parties means that they have positions on political issues that
theoretically are far apart, whereas a low degree of political dissent means that their posi-
tions are closer or the same. The degree of dissent is not static and may vary from one
issue to another. Some issues may be peripheral to the political debate and, as such, are
often less politicised by the political parties. Other issues may be closely related to a
party’s ideology or principles and are hence more easily politicised by the parties.
Antagonistic behaviour refers to the political climate and how political actors act towards
each other. A high degree of antagonistic behaviour means that there are acts of open cri-
tique towards other political parties, an emphasis on their differences and strategic actions
to stop other actors from exerting political influence (Lantto, 2005; Skoog and Karlsson,
2015). And in contrast, cooperative behaviour means that the parties downplay existing
party differences and strive towards agreement across party lines. From studies on coalition
formation we learn that there is a greater likelihood of cooperation between parties with
similar positions on political issues. Conversely, parties that are further apart will have trou-
ble cooperating (Adams and Merrill, 2009; Axelrod, 1970; De Swaan and Rapoport, 1973).
The dimension of antagonistic behaviour is a wider phenomenon: comprising the relation-
ship between all parties, not just the partners in a coalition. But in light of these studies, we
expect political dissent among political actors to be accompanied by increased antagonistic
behaviour in the political work, but this effect is by no means automatic.
Causes of party conflicts
Studies have shown that there are various possible causes of party conflicts in parliamen-
tary arenas. Some are external to this arena and relate to the fragmentation of a society,
the size of a democratic unit, the presence of a protest party, or the level of fiscal stress.
Other causes are internal and relate to the level of contestation and the parliamentary situ-
ation within a political unit. These causes and the related hypotheses on how they affect
political conflicts are discussed below, starting with those related to societal structures
and concluding with causes related to the parliamentary arena.
One structural factor that affects several parts of political life is the size of the demo-
cratic unit. A classic assumption in democratic theory is to associate good democratic
performance with smaller units (Dahl and Tufte, 1973)....
To continue reading
Request your trial