New party challenges and partisan change: The effects of party competition on party loyalty

Abstract

It has long been established that changes in the electorate can have an impact on party systems, sometimes leading to the creation of new parties and the elimination of old ones. We contend, however, that changes in the party system may cause voters to reassess their party identification absent of any long-term change in the overall makeup or attitudes of the electorate. As a case in point, we demonstrate that changes in the Canadian party system in the late 1980s (specifically the advent of the right-wing Reform Party) led to a decline in party loyalty among supporters of the right-center Progressive Conservative Party. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of party systems and partisan change.