 Richard Gunther, Parties and Electoral Behavior in Southern Europe While the anchoring or encapsulation of the vote in social cleavages can serve as an important source of electoral stability in party systems, a simple determinist socioeconomic model is inadequate in explaining varying levels of interbloc volatility. An explanation of electoral volatility must also take into consideration the role played by political elites in crafting key political institutions that channel parties¡¯ programmatic offerings and mobilize voters. Initial decisions by elites to establish mass-based cleavage parties, as compared with organizationally thin electoralist parties, help account for the extent to which parties impose significant institutional constraints on subsequent patterns of electoral behavior. |