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Presidential and legislative elections: How the type of election impacts the degree of nationalization – The case of France (1965–2012)

  • Data, Measures and Methods
  • Published:
French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that in most countries electoral behaviour follows a pattern of nationalization, that is, national politics substitute local politics. Most research (both comparative and single case study) analyses the phenomenon of nationalization and its strength by focusing on a single type of election: the legislative/parliamentary election. When dealing with comparative research, this implies that the electoral offer and the context differ from one country area to another or within one country. The original contribution of this article is that it offers both a new methodological and substantive perspective. From a methodological point of view, we propose a quasi-experimental design. Nationalization will be measured for two types of elections (presidential and legislative), in the same country (France), at the same territorial level (departments), for a long span of time (the Fifth Republic), covering 9 presidential and 14 legislative elections. For this analysis, the nationalization of the electoral behaviours will be calculated by employing first the standard deviation, the Mean of Absolute Deviation and then the Bochsler index (2010). The Bochsler index allows us to measure nationalization at the country level, and is not sensitive to the size and the number of parties. Therefore, the Bochsler index is the best instrument when dealing with a comparative or a longitudinal design. From a substantive point of view, this article aims to demonstrate that the degree of nationalization depends on the type of election. In our case, which is a semi-presidential system, we expect to observe a higher degree of nationalization in presidential elections compared with legislative elections. In fact, with regard to legislative elections the local dimension of the vote (department level) should lead to a higher fragmentation of electoral behaviour.

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Notes

  1. The top two candidates automatically qualify, but other candidates can run if they pass the legal threshold. Over time, this threshold has changed slightly (5 per cent of the votes cast for the 1958 and 1962 elections, then 10 per cent of the registered voters for the 1967, 1968 and 1973 elections and 12.5 per cent since the 1978 elections). Theoretically, there may be up to five or six candidates contesting the second round of elections. However, most of the time only two contenders face each other in the second round even if ‘triangulars’ (or ‘quadrangulars’) are possible. For example, there were 408 duels and 11 triangulars in 1988, then, respectively, 401 and 79 in 1997, 496 and 10 in 2002, and 494 and 35 in 2012.

  2. Should the president die or resign, elections for the president and the National Assembly might once again become decoupled.

  3. This method was originally used by Martin (2000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université of Lille 2, CERAPS (UMR 8026), 1, Place Déliot, Lille Cedex, BP 629, 59024, France

    Luana Russo & Annie Laurent

  2. Université of Paris 1, UFR11/UMR 8209 – CESSP, 14 rue Cujas, Paris, 75005, France

    Bernard Dolez

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  1. Luana Russo
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  2. Bernard Dolez
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  3. Annie Laurent
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Correspondence to Luana Russo.

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Russo, L., Dolez, B. & Laurent, A. Presidential and legislative elections: How the type of election impacts the degree of nationalization – The case of France (1965–2012). Fr Polit 11, 356–372 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2013.15

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