| OCR Text |
Show 154 proportional representation (PR) electoral systems, there are at least a few examples across all electoral system types, so this cannot simply be a matter of institutions. This finding seems to indicate that voters penalize niche parties who have served in governing coalitions. It could be that voters perceive the niche party as becoming too mainstream during its time in government, that the niche party had to make too many concessions or compromises, or that the niche party was unable to implement campaign promises. It seems that if participation in a governing coalition is a test, most niche parties fail, or at least come up short, in the eyes of voters. While running as part of an electoral alliance and participating in a governing coalition are not options available to all niche parties in all countries, the note of caution is still applicable. Niche parties should think carefully before entering either of these arrangements, as they are likely to have negative consequences on their electoral success. While niche parties may not all equally face choices of joining electoral alliances or governing coalitions, they do each have control over their party's platform and the decisions on whether to increase, decrease, or maintain their dedication to their "big" niche issue (Adams et al. 2006; Meyer and Wagner 2013). Here, the type of niche matters, as there seems to be an upper bound or ceiling on how "green" a niche platform can be before they start losing voters. This is not the case for MCCP issues where increasing the "nicheness" of the party's platform is expected to increase electoral success. The gains and losses are relatively small - a one percent increase in environmental nicheness is expected to lose the niche party .06 percent of the vote and a one percent increase in MCCP nicheness is expected to gain the niche party .10 percent of the vote. Again, while small changes, these can be significant for niche parties who |
