Subverted expectations and social democratic austerity: How voters’ reactions to policies are conditional on the policy-implementing actor

Abstract

It is well-established that voters care about policies when they go to the voting booth. However, we argue that voters' reaction to the policies are conditional on the actor implementing them. Voters have different expectations towards political parties regarding the policies they are expected to implement, and subverted expectations can have electoral consequences. This is particularly the case when they are related to issues central to the party's ideological agenda. We supply experimental evidence of this in the case of social-democratic austerity policies: Left-wing voters punish social democrats much more for implementing such policies than they punish a mainstream right party for the same actions. Our findings have important implications for several ongoing debates in the literature such as the demise of social democratic parties in the wake of the Great Recession, the interplay between parties and citizens, as well as the general effect of austerity on electoral outcomes.