How (not) to operationalise subnational political opportunity structures: A critique of Kestilä and Söderlund's study of regional elections

ARZHEIMER, KAI; CARTER, ELISABETH

Abstract

Based on an aggregate analysis of the French regional elections of 2004, Kestilä and Söderlund, in their 2007 article, ‘Subnational Political Opportunity Structures and the Success of the Radical Right: Evidence from the March 2004 Regional Elections in France’, examine the impact of subnational political opportunity structures on the success of the radical right and argue that such an approach can control for a wider range of factors and provide more reliable results than cross-national analyses. The present article disputes this claim on theoretical, conceptual and methodological grounds and demonstrates that their empirical findings are spurious.

Citation

ARZHEIMER, K., & CARTER, E. (2009). How (not) to operationalise subnational political opportunity structures: A critique of Kestilä and Söderlund's study of regional elections. European Journal of Political Research, 48(3), 335-358. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2009.00842.x

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2009-05
• Deposit Date: May 17, 2024
• Journal: European Journal of Political Research
• Print ISSN: 0304-4130
• Electronic ISSN: 1475-6765
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 335-358
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2009.00842.x
• Public URL: https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/829208
• Publisher URL: https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2009.00842.x