Replication Data for: Party system types and the decline of systemness in Western Europe: are party system classifications still useful? (doi:10.7910/DVN/FAKFEH)

View:

Part 1: Document Description
Part 2: Study Description
Part 3: Data Files Description
Part 4: Variable Description
Part 5: Other Study-Related Materials
Entire Codebook

Replication Data for: Party system types and the decline of systemness in Western Europe: are party system classifications still useful?

doi:10.7910/DVN/FAKFEH

Harvard Dataverse

2025-05-28

1

Emanuele, Vincenzo; Chiaramonte, Alessandro; Marco Improta, 2025, "Replication Data for: Party system types and the decline of systemness in Western Europe: are party system classifications still useful?", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/FAKFEH, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:V1ojSilz73bIv+oH1+0LgA== [fileUNF]

Replication Data for: Party system types and the decline of systemness in Western Europe: are party system classifications still useful?

doi:10.7910/DVN/FAKFEH

Emanuele, Vincenzo (Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli)

Chiaramonte, Alessandro (https://ror.org/04jr1s763)

Marco Improta (https://ror.org/01tevnk56)

Harvard Dataverse

Emanuele, Vincenzo

Emanuele, Vincenzo

2025-05-28

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/FAKFEH

Social Sciences

Party system classifications have been central in political science, especially until Sartori’s influential typology in 1976. However, recent years have seen diminished attention to such classifications. Western European party systems have significantly transformed, particularly over the last 15 years due to multiple crises, affecting their core structure, or what Sartori termed ‘patterns of interparty competition’. This raises questions about whether these changes have undermined the very concept of systemness, making classifications irrelevant. This research note redefines party systems based on the number and composition of relevant political poles (governing alternatives) and, through a long-term analysis of Western Europe (20 countries since 1945), assesses their degree of systemness. Results indicate that many systems have become ‘non-systems,’ with fluctuating and unstable party poles. Most Western European systems have exhibited this ‘non-system’ type for at least half of legislatures since 1989, thus making classifications only short-lived snapshots and inevitably useless for long-term accounts.

<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0">CC0 1.0</a>

CHIARAMONTE, A. EMANUELE, V., AND IMPROTA, M. (2025) 'Party system types and the decline of systemness in Western Europe: are party system classifications still useful?', ITALIAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW.

CHIARAMONTE, A. EMANUELE, V., AND IMPROTA, M. (2025) 'Party system types and the decline of systemness in Western Europe: are party system classifications still useful?', ITALIAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW.

• Number of cases: 404

• No. of variables per record: 14

• Type of File: text/tab-separated-values

UNF:6:V1ojSilz73bIv+oH1+0LgA==

• country - country
• year - year
• election_date - election_date
• configuration_type - n_pol_el
• configuration_poles - el_poles
• system_type - system_type
• system_poles - system_poles
• nosystem - no system
• country_short
• decade - RECODE of decade
• cntry - group(country)
• election - group(cntry election_date)
• minel
• cntryelection

f11574591 Location:

Variable Format: character

Notes: UNF:6:WaXhhswSD84/PHpTpAzBZA==

f11574591 Location:

Summary Statistics: Min. 1945.0; Max. 2022.0; StDev 22.356603549754894; Mean 1984.3391089108911; Valid 404.0;

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:I2UxfPwJ3LA9AUWvD4/xMw==

f11574591 Location:

Summary Statistics: Valid 404.0; Mean 30998.15346534653; Max. 44866.0; StDev 8163.762348548986; Min. 16513.0

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:kj6sKB04Vm56hxPYRyXU/w==

f11574591 Location:

Variable Format: character

Notes: UNF:6:kHIP/B1dYJpMAbONwhDp1g==

f11574591 Location:

Variable Format: character

Notes: UNF:6:hUpJ4w39EmacPlLM6dyf0A==

f11574591 Location:

Variable Format: character

Notes: UNF:6:Ib5oS2s0m60e6trf8qlZGA==

f11574591 Location:

Variable Format: character

Notes: UNF:6:BFTnNALqVhcD2+/arCqGEw==

f11574591 Location:

Summary Statistics: Max. 1.0; StDev 0.46960013381513055; Mean 0.3267326732673267; Min. 0.0; Valid 404.0;

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:KbICp04eDOAcTWNDyphdOQ==

f11574591 Location:

Variable Format: character

Notes: UNF:6:jI/3D26x8nZElps/UAMccA==

f11574591 Location:

Summary Statistics: Valid 377.0; Min. 0.0; StDev 2.058621521551189; Max. 7.0; Mean 3.23342175066313

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:DtUSMdwM5OxH/XgJ0KXzAA==

f11574591 Location:

Summary Statistics: Valid 404.0; Max. 20.0; StDev 5.802697809608993; Min. 1.0; Mean 10.292079207920805;

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:84A98CzUg4OWHxNPuDBZIg==

f11574591 Location:

Summary Statistics: StDev 119.93687328526909; Min. 1.0; Mean 207.9950495049512; Valid 404.0; Max. 415.0;

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:fNGyiXUJ/vXia8WS7A5Lxg==

f11574591 Location:

Summary Statistics: Mean 198.05693069306867; Min. 1.0; Valid 404.0; Max. 395.0; StDev 120.34903427573445;

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:w/IockwMDd3uXwwwpplX/g==

f11574591 Location:

Summary Statistics: StDev 6.368629102943671; Max. 29.0; Min. 1.0; Mean 10.93811881188119; Valid 404.0

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:VrAhG5Bi+y0qdjR6hIWYiQ==

Label:

Replication material Chiaramonte, Emanuele, and Improta IPSR 2025.do

application/x-stata-syntax