Where is the Party? Explaining Party Shifts towards LGBT Rights in Europe

• In Event: Sexuality and Gender Identity: Individual Well-being and Public Opinion

Abstract

There is significant debate in the scholarly literature over whether descriptive representation matters for advancing policies that advance equal protections for different minority social groups, particularly for members of the LGBTQ community. Other research shows that structural shifts in public opinion and rise of social movements are as or more significant in causing policy shifts. This is surprising given changing the hearts and minds of a majority of representatives inside a legislative chamber is often necessary for policy change to occur. More generally, there is a clear division in the literature over whether European political parties are responsive to changes to public opinion. Some hold that parties have no incentive to change their ideologies, especially niche ones, because they could lose their electoral base, or just keep the same values they have over time. Only their replacement by new officeholders will change party positions on controversial social issues. Others see parties changing their positions on salient cultural issues after election losses, if at all.

In this paper we draw on a largely-ignored and under-studies dataset that tracks political elites over time as they run for office with regard to LGBT rights. We show that parties are indeed sensitive to change in public opinion. Irrespective of other socio-demographic factors, as public opinion became more acceptant of homosexuality, support for same-sex marriage bans declined across all European party families. These findings occur across the political spectrum, although most change is observed among culturally conservative parties. Still, national parties do not change their positions at the same rate. In some countries, significant segments of the party members changed their views earlier than the general public. In other countries, it happened much later. In addition, we find that partisans change their attitudes independently of how many “out” members hold political office.

Our findings suggest that when scholars are debating whether political parties change their position on salient issues they are discounting a key data source—the personal beliefs of the candidates themselves. Political parties do not change their positions solely because their policy proposals lose at the voting booth, but because the attitudes and beliefs of party members themselves change. Consistent with some recent findings, political parties do follow general public opinion, but not because they are reacting to change. Instead, they are agents themselves in transforming the positions their leaders have on gay rights. These findings have important implications for how we model partisan shifts in multiparty and two-party systems alike.

Author

• Scott Nicholas Siegel, Scott Siegel