#2 - Nick Martin on how party links with organizations can increase voter loyalty by Wiardi Beckman Stichting published on 2020-02-21T14:50:55Z With each election, more and more voters change their allegiance to another party. According to University of Amsterdam researcher Nick Martin, political parties can still form loyal bonds with voters. If left-wing parties invest in their relationship with civil society organizations and movements, voter loyalty will surge. Comment by Marc The problem is of course: “does having good links with civil society make (SD) parties having good electoral fortune” or “does having good electoral fortune makes (SD) parties having good links with civil society”. The so-called endogeneity problem (EP) in (political) research. Or there is a feedback loop between both of them making it unclear what is the dependent and what is the independent variable. Or there might be a cause preceding “good links with …” and “electoral fortune”. King, Keohane & Verba (1994) point to party fragmentation in the Weimar Republic as an example of the EP. Generally Proportional Representation (PR) is brought to front as the cause of this fragmentation. However, this explanation disregards that it was German’s fragmented society that led to the installation of the PR system. Thus, it was societal cleavages that was causing party fragmentation (and not PR) given this fragmentation of society preceded the installation of PR. Marc Swyngedouw 2020-02-27T22:02:30Z