Do voters want their party to be office- or policy-seekers in coalition negotiations? This question has been left unstudied in political science research so far. While existing research shows that ...policies matter for voters when forming their preferences for coalitions, in this study it is argued that voters find it at the same time important that their preferred party gains offices. Specifically, voters' office-seeking considerations are expected to increase the more indifferent they are to the policy content of a coalition agreement. To test this assumption, an original conjoint experiment among Green Party voters in the context of the German federal election in 2021 has been conducted. The findings demonstrate that voters' office-seeking considerations become more important the more similar coalition agreements are with regard to their policy content. These findings have important implications for the understanding of voters' preferences regarding coalitions.
Independent local lists (ILL) have become an important non-partisan actor in many local elections. However, little is known about which factors explain their electoral success. Drawing on recent ...contributions regarding the anti-establishment attitudes of many ILL, we argue that the rise of anti-establishment parties, especially the rise of populist radical-right parties, potentially harms the electoral success of ILL. Our main argument is that both actors attract voters that are dissatisfied with established parties. To test this hypothesis, we draw on the case of municipal elections in the German federal state of Lower Saxony. In the election of 2016, the populist radical-right party AfD competed in only a subset of all municipalities, meaning that some voters could cast their vote for the AfD in only some of the municipalities. We use a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the effect of the AfD on independent local list’s vote share and demonstrate that ILL suffered strongly from the entrance of the AfD to the electoral arena. More specifically, our findings demonstrate that the increase in the success of ILL was halted in municipalities in which the AfD competed, while it continued to increase in regions where the AfD was absent. These findings suggest that the increasing success of ILL is due to voters’ dissatisfaction with the established parties and not necessarily due to an increasing interest in local issues.
Populist parties and the two‐dimensional policy space HUBER, ROBERT A.; JANKOWSKI, MICHAEL; JUEN, CHRISTINA‐MARIE
European journal of political research,
August 2023, 2023-08-00, 20230801, Volume:
62, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
How are parties' ideological positions and levels of populism connected? Existing research either advocates for a U‐shaped relationship between parties' left‐right position and their degree of ...populism or uses specific dimensions of a two‐dimensional policy space to describe right‐wing populist parties. We provide an integrated perspective to describe parties' degree of populism by arguing that populism is higher when parties put strong emphasis on a collectivist host ideology. This has implications on how these ideologies relate to the two‐dimensional policy space. Combined with salience of policy dimensions, such a perspective allows for a better understanding of the occurrence of populism among right‐ and left‐wing populist parties. Using expert survey data on parties in Europe, we find strong and robust empirical support for the expected patterns.
When do voters turn a blind eye on corrupt politicians? Recent research suggests that voters might be willing to support corrupt politicians due to a lack of a ‘viable and clean alternative,’ i.e., ...voters prefer supporting a corrupt politician when the alternative is to support a politician who takes a fundamentally different policy stance. Following this argument, it has also been argued that especially corrupt politicians from radical parties are less likely to be punished by their voters as these voters are more hostile toward other parties. In other words, voters of radical parties are more likely to lack viable alternatives. Based on a survey experiment conducted in Germany, we put these hypotheses to an empirical test. We find evidence for the expected patterns. Supporters of radical parties are indeed less likely to switch their vote to a different party. However, our experiment also shows that this is because voters of radical parties are more likely to lack a viable alternative. When supporters of radical parties evaluate a clean alternative favorable, they are just as likely as voters of mainstream parties to switch away from the corrupt candidate. Finally, we show how strengths of partisan attachment affect voting for corrupt candidates.
Vaccine hesitancy is one of the major obstacles for successfully combating the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve a sufficiently high vaccination rate, calls for compulsory vaccinations have been ...discussed controversially. This study analyses what drives citizens’ attitudes towards compulsory vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we are interested in the impact of party- and expert cues on public attitudes. We further expect populist attitudes to be an important indicator of the rejection of compulsory vaccination due to their scepticism towards science. To test these expectations, we rely on a cueing experiment conducted on a sample of 2265 German citizens. We test for the effects of in-party and out-party cues as well as public health expert cues. We find evidence for in-party cues, meaning that respondents adjust their position on this issue in the direction of their most preferred party. Similar results can be found for public health expert cues. However, there is no evidence for out-party cues. Further analyses reveal that support for compulsory vaccinations is not affected by left-right placement directly. Instead, only the combination of right-wing attitudes and populism negatively affects support for compulsory vaccination.
In Germany, Independent Local Lists (UWG) have become an integral part of local politics in recent decades. Despite their growing political importance, the reasons for their electoral rise have ...hardly been researched. Recent studies argue that Independent Local Lists pursue anti-party positions, which makes them attractive to voters who are dissatisfied with the party system. Assuming that a decline of confidence in established parties corresponds with the experience of local deprivation, this contribution uses a multi-level panel data set to investigate how socio-economic (emigration, aging, declining tax revenue) and politicalcultural (turnout, fragmentation) deprivation processes affect the electoral success of Independent Local Lists. The empirical findings suggest that Independent Local Lists are more successful in municipalities where voter turnout has fallen and political fragmentation has increased.
In Germany, Independent Local Lists (UWG) have become an integral part of local politics in recent decades. Despite their growing political importance, the reasons for their electoral rise have ...hardly been researched. Recent studies argue that Independent Local Lists pursue anti-party positions, which makes them attractive to voters who are dissatisfied with the party system. Assuming that a decline of confidence in established parties corresponds with the experience of local deprivation, this contribution uses a multi-level panel data set to investigate how socio-economic (emigration, aging, declining tax revenue) and political-cultural (turnout, fragmentation) deprivation processes affect the electoral success of Independent Local Lists. The empirical findings suggest that Independent Local Lists are more successful in municipalities where voter turnout has fallen and political fragmentation has increased.
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