Opposition Coalition Signaling and Its Limits: Evidence from Survey Data in Malaysia

Abstract

Existing analyses of opposition pre-electoral coalition formation in autocracies emphasize the precariousness of bargaining between opposition elites to nominate a single challenger against the dominant incumbent. This paper argues that how opposition parties coordinate to send anti-regime signals exhibiting their unity and ideological compromise is equally if not more important. These signals aim to encourage opposition voters to engage in strategic voting - persuade opposition voters to vote for candidates from candidates from other opposition parties that they may disdain, rather than for the incumbent autocrat. I provide evidence of strategic voting through two sets of survey data from Malaysia, one of the most robust electoral authoritarian regimes in the world. First, a survey experiment finds that a coalition common policy platform increases opposition voter support for candidates from coalition partners. This effect, however, is limited to moderate and politically knowledgeable voters. Second, I present evidence from the Asian Barometer survey demonstrating that opposition voters exhibit stronger commitments to anti-regime issues as compared to incumbent voters.