Programmatic Party System Structuration: Developing and Comparing Cross-National and Cross-Party Measures with a New Global Data Set

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in theorizing and empirical research concerning democratic accountability mechanisms such as programmatic appeals and clientelism, but a relative lack of readily comparable cross-national data. This paper addresses this empirical gap by first developing party and system-level indices of programmatic structuration based on a new global expert survey encompassing 88 polities. These indices are based on the cohesion, polarization and salience of positions taken by parties on different issues in each country. Second, the programmatic measures developed are subjected to various tests of construct validity through comparing the relationship with alternative programmatic measures from the survey, as well as exploring their relationship with economic development. Finally, the paper compares politicians’ efforts to project programmatic appeals with other appeals politicians may deploy to attract voters and establish relations of accountability, and suggests future avenues for the refinement of these measures.