“Gimme your name and I’ll tell you who you are” An exploration of the name of local lists

Reuchamps, Min;Jacquet, Vincent;Dodeigne, Jérémy;Dandoy, Régis;Matagne, Geoffroy
(2013) 2013 annual conference of the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) specialist group of the Political Studies Association — Location: Lancaster University, Lacanster (13.September.2013)

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(en) The name of a party is an important dimension of its political position. Often, the label used by a political party in its name tells much about its ideology. But, since in most cases, only a few parties compete for each election it is difficult to undertake large qualitative and quantitative analyses of party names. Local elections can provide an interesting option, however. Indeed, in several cases, we find lots of different names, and not only the usual national party labels. In the last local elections in Wallonia, one of the three Belgian Regions, 1012 lists were in competition. Such data provide a fertile ground for analysis. To study the name of the lists, we proceed in two steps. First, we build a typology of the names. We classify the lists in different categories: lists with national party name, lists with a clear reference to a national party, lists with an ideological label, lists with a clear reference to the commune’s name, lists with a reference to the communal level but also lists with a reference to democracy, to a union or alliance, to change and an alternative way of doing politics, to the future, with puns, and with a reference to a person. In the second step, using multinomial regressions, we show where the different types of lists can be found and above all we look at their electoral performances and thus test the hypothesis whether the party name matters or not.
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Reuchamps, M., Jacquet, V., Dodeigne, J., Dandoy, R., & Matagne, G. (2013). “Gimme your name and I’ll tell you who you are” An exploration of the name of local lists. 2013 annual conference of the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) specialist group of the Political Studies Association, Lancaster University, Lacanster. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/92900