Party Attachments Research Articles

Affective Polarization Among Radical‐Right Supporters: Dislike Differentiation and Democratic Support

Partisan affective polarization describes the extent to which different partisans like or dislike each other. In Europe, affective dislike is strongest towards the radical-right, as mainstream voters tend to hold particularly negative affect towards radical-right supporters. This is an important pattern given the recent high levels of support for radical-right parties, for example in the Netherlands, France, and Italy. However, the perspective of radical-right supporters themselves has been largely neglected in existing work. To remedy this, we examine how radical-right supporters feel towards supporters of mainstream parties. We develop a new concept, dislike differentiation, which refers to the extent to which radical-right supporters differentiate in the dislike they harbor towards mainstream parties. We use two new studies that sampled 2,628 radical-right supporters in nine European polities. We find that some supporters reject all mainstream parties, whereas others follow more typical patterns of political competition along ideological lines. Dislike differentiation among radical-right supporters is linked to key socio-political phenomena, including party attachment, ideological extremism, satisfaction with democracy, and political tolerance. By creating a novel typology combining out-party dislike and dislike differentiation, we show that anti-system radical-right supporters, characterized by high out-party dislike and low dislike differentiation, are the least supportive of democracy. By centering our analysis on those voters that receive and radiate the highest levels of negative affect, we advance knowledge on what fosters polarized attitudes and intolerance in Europe’s multiparty systems in times when the electoral popularity of the radical-right is surging.

Teaching U.S. Constitutional Design: The Case of the “Genovian Revolution”

In the modern American politics classroom, ideological and partisan conflict have the capacity to interfere with a healthy classroom environment. This problem is increasingly apparent when students engage questions at the heart of U.S. Constitutional design. By asking students to inhabit fictional roles with preferences and attitudes that may differ from their own, classroom simulation activities present a potential solution to this issue. In the present study I introduce a two-week constitutional convention simulation that centers on the fictional Principality of Genovia. Working in groups, students assume roles within various segments of Genovian society who seek democratic representation following the sudden abdication of their autocratic prince. The simulation is designed to foreshadow key concepts in American government and politics. It does so in a way that allows for vociferous debate and conflict while sidestepping students’ preexisting ideologies and party attachments. It also provides a collaborative, active learning environment that fosters healthy classroom dynamics and encourages later collaboration. In a pre-post survey instrument, I test the effectiveness of the Genovian simulation in fostering key learning outcomes and enhancing the student experience vis-a-vis several other classroom modules, finding that the Genovian exercise is beneficial to students on several dimensions.

Putting partisan influence into political context: How initial policy popularity and party attachment shape the effect of party cues

Parties and their actions almost always shape the preferences, attitudes, and behaviour of their voters. However, does partisan influence over public opinion apply to all policy proposals regardless of their initial popularity and to all voters regardless of their degree of partisan attachment? This question is addressed in the real-world context of Finland, where the government enacted two reforms at the same time: an initially popular reform extending the age of compulsory education, and an initially unpopular removal of the ‘retirement tube’ for older laid-off workers. An original panel survey asked respondents about their attitudes before and after the government actions, finding that while voters of government parties increasingly tended to support the enacted policies, the magnitude of opinion change depended on voters’ initial policy preferences and party attachment. Strong party attachment led to government voters increasing their support for a reform that they initially opposed. In contrast, those with weaker partisan attachments tended to alter their preferences for an initially popular reform. These findings are relevant for understanding partisan influence over public opinion in a broader political context.

The antecedents of voter loyalty and the mediation role of party attachment: A case study from Turkey

The primary objective of the present study is to identify the antecedents of voter loyalty, with a particular focus on the mediating role of party attachment in the relationship between inner‐self, social‐self, trust, and loyalty. Using a convenience sampling method, the data for this study were gathered from a sample of 750 voters residing in a developing European country, Turkey. The collected data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling. The results of the study demonstrate that significant and positive relationships exist between the aforementioned antecedents (i.e., inner‐self, social‐self, trust, and party attachment) and voter loyalty. Additionally, the findings suggest that party attachment acts as a mediator between the antecedents and loyalty. Drawing on these results and the existing literature on voter behavior and practice, the authors discuss methodological, theoretical, and practical implications for inner‐self, social‐self, trust, and party attachment.

Eppur si Muove! Young People, Issue Salience and Volatility in Nine European Countries

AbstractPolitical participation and party attachment in Western democracies have become more and more volatile. In turn, political campaigns seem increasingly dependent on short-term discursive windows of opportunity opened by dynamic debates on issues such as migration, climate, employment and economic policies. Based on panel data from nine European countries, we investigate how patterns and changes in the materialist and postmaterialist concerns of respondents affect electoral turnout and party switching. By relating these variables, we aim to uncover whether and to what extent underlying concerns – and thus short-term politicization – account for short-term patterns of electoral volatility. We pay special attention to young respondents, who are often framed as being particularly dynamic and less bound to traditional political loyalties. Our findings offer insights into short-term change in discursive opportunities for political mobilization and broader democratic engagement.

Uncovering the flash potential of immigration: attitudes, salience, and far-right support in Europe

Abstract Attitudes toward immigrants and immigration are a central explanation for the electoral support of far-right parties. However, while these parties gained strength over the last two decades, European citizens’ views about immigration have not changed much. In this study, we contribute to solving this puzzle by uncovering the flash potential of immigration. With its salience as a politically contested issue increasing, negative yet previously less relevant immigration preferences and evaluations transform more often into politically tangible attitudes and behaviors, such as support for far-right parties. We uncover this flash potential with individual-level ESS data and aggregated measures of issue salience among the public, allowing us to model the conditioning effects of contextual-level immigration salience on the individual-level relationship between immigration attitudes and far-right support. The results from random-effects within-between models analyzing 208,794 individual respondents from 141 country-rounds and 24 countries over the period of 2002–2018 show that the effects of citizens’ attitudes on support for far-right parties are stronger in contexts and periods in which the salience of immigration is higher. Accordingly, while immigration attitudes among European public have not turned more negative over time, they have become more influential for citizens’ party attachments and vote choices.

Skjönsberg, Max. The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Skjönsberg, Max. <i>The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain</i>

Voting Behaviour and Health Among the Oldest-old in Germany: Results from a Population-Based Cross-Sectional Study

Background If voter turnout reflects social or health inequalities, then these inequalities can reduce equal political representation. Research suggests that poor health impedes voting and contributes to low turnout, especially among the oldest-old (80 years and older). Therefore, we examine the determinants of voting behaviour in more detail, with a special focus on the role of health status among the oldest-old. Methods The analysis was based on a population-based sample of older adults living in Germany’s largest federal state, North Rhine-Westphalia (n = 1826). The outcome was participation in the last federal election. As determinants, we included subjective, functional, mental, and cognitive health; mobility; institutional living; education; social embeddedness; party attachment; habituation; and conformist attitudes. We used logistic regression models to calculate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Results The overall turnout rate was 84.6% (95%-CI:82.9–86.3), which shows that most of the oldest-old participate in elections. Results from logistic regressions revealed that lower formal education and limitations in functional, cognitive, and mental health were associated with lower odds of voting; while habituation, party attachment, and partnership were associated with higher odds of voting. Conclusion Most of the oldest-old in Germany participate in elections. Still, our results hint at the existence of important inequalities in turnout rates. Given that older adults constitute an increasing share of the electorate, and that those who are less likely to vote are often among those most directly affected by political decisions, all individuals who are willing and able to participate in elections should be given the necessary support to actually do so.

Partisan attachments in a multidimensional space

How do party positions in a multidimensional space affect party identification? This article argues that when parties take consistent ideological positions across dimensions, they clarify their brand, fostering party identifications. An analysis that uses data from the European Social Survey and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey provides evidence for this argument. The results also indicate that the effect particularly holds for the less educated and politically less interested. In addition, ideological inconsistency affects individual parties’ electoral appeal, as parties that take different positions on two dimensions tend to have a smaller partisan base. The results provide important insights into how multidimensional party competition shapes the development of party attachments.

Macroeconomy and macropartisanship: Economic conditions and party identification

Abstract“It's the economy stupid”—is the phrase that captures the ubiquity of economics in determining election outcomes. Nevertheless, while several studies support the premise of economic voting, a constant critique of valence economic models is that partisan bias contaminates voters' economic perceptions, thus invaliding any independent effect of economic opinions on the vote. Here, we test whether partisanship may itself be endogenous to the macroeconomy. Aggregating data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), supplemented with European Social Survey (ESS) data to bolster the time analysis, we focus on macropartisanship and find a drop‐off of party identifiers for governing parties in tandem with the economic downturn, specifically from rising unemployment. More generally, macropartisanship responds to economic conditions, suggesting that the endogeneity concern between party attachment and valence economic conditions is not unidirectional. That is, while economic perceptions may be influenced by party identification, party identification can be influenced by economic conditions.Related ArticlesDettrey, Bryan J. 2013. “Relative Losses and Economic Voting: Sociotropic Considerations or ‘Keeping up with the Joneses?’” Politics &amp; Policy 41(5): 788–806. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12038.Fernandes, Ivan Filipe, Gustavo Andrey De Almeida Lopes Fernandes, and Artur Zimerman. 2022. “For Whom the Bell Tolls: Party Mediation Effects on Economic Voting in a Large Democratic Federation.” Politics &amp; Policy 50(2): 324–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12453.Stegmaier, Mary, and Michael S. Lewis‐Beck. 2009. “Learning the Economic Vote: Hungarian Forecasts, 1998–2010.” Politics &amp; Policy 37(4): 769–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2009.00197.x.

Partisanship in a Young Democracy: Evidence from Ghana

Abstract While past studies have put forward many reasons why partisanship in young African democracies should be considered weak, I show evidence that suggests the presence of strong and stable patterns of partisanship among ordinary citizens. Based on survey data from Ghana, I exploit the variation introduced by the close general elections of 2008 to compare perceptions and attitudes of party supporters when their preferred party is in power and when it is not in a Difference-in-differences setting. The results suggest that partisanship is both meaningful and prompts motivated reasoning among citizens. On the one hand, this can be seen as evidence for a stable party landscape and thus a more mature democracy, but on the other hand, partisan polarization may also obstruct effective governance. Furthermore, the analysis of attitudes towards democratic principles uncovers a double standard that carries the potential to negatively affect efforts towards the consolidation of democracy. A simple heterogeneity analysis indicates that improving education might reduce partisan polarization but will likely not erase it. The analysis further suggests that ethnic identities seem to exist alongside partisan identities, but still, strongly determine the strength of party attachment in Ghana. Future research on political behavior needs to acknowledge the presence of these partisan motives and continue to investigate the impact of partisanship on the further development of democratic institutions in African democracies.

Determinants of political participation in Thailand: An analysis of survey data (2002–2014)

AbstractThis article aims to explain changes in the patterns of political participation in Thailand between 2002 and 2014. Relying on four waves of survey data taken from the Asian Barometer (2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014), it proposes an analytical framework composed of several factors that include not only socioeconomic status (SES) but also various psychological, attitudinal, and mobilization factors to test and seek for factors that affect a likelihood of being a passive or active political participant. This article shows that apart from some SES, there are various factors, such as political interest and self‐efficacy, party attachment, and group membership that affected the participatory actions of Thai citizens during this period. Moreover, because group membership is only one factor having a significant impact on political participation for all the four waves of survey data, this article found that political participation of Thai citizens is largely a result of their learning and experiences obtained from the interaction within their respective groups.

Do party supporters accept policy compromises in coalition governments?

AbstractGovernment formation in multi‐party systems often requires coalition negotiations and finding common ground among coalition partners. Supporters of parties involved in the government formation process face a trade‐off when evaluating such bargaining processes: on the one hand, voters usually prefer seeing their party being in government rather than in opposition; on the other hand, negotiations require coalition compromises that they might dislike. In this paper, we study voters’ willingness to accept policy compromises during government formation processes. We argue that voters’ acceptance of policy compromises depends on both the strength of their party attachment and the importance they assign to the issue at stake during the coalition negotiations. Not giving in on important issues is key, especially for supporters of challenger parties, who hold strong policy preferences on a selected number of issues. To test these expectations, we collected original survey data immediately after the Spanish general election in November 2019. The results show support for the hypothesized effects, shed light on the pressure potential coalition partners face during government formation and help explain the failures of government formation attempts in increasingly polarized societies.

The Impact of Regional and National Leaders in Subnational Elections in Spain: Evidence from Andalusian Regional Elections

Abstract Democracies have experienced two trends in the last decades: the growing personalization of politics and the increasing relevance of regions in the political process. This article addresses these trends by posing two questions: Do political leaders influence the vote in regional elections? Do regional party leaders have a larger impact on voter preferences than their national counterparts in regional elections? To answer these questions, we analyzed five regional elections held in Andalusia between 2004 and 2018. The results show that both national and regional leaders matter in regional elections. However, the effect of national and regional leaders is “conditioned” by the characteristics of the leaders themselves, their respective parties, and citizens’ party attachments. Additionally, there is no clear evidence that the type of relationship between national and regional leaders of the same party—cohesion-like or confrontation-like—and the electoral context variables may affect the voting decision in multi-level government systems.

Wearing rose-coloured glasses. The happiness effect of party attachments in Europe

ABSTRACT As related research in political psychology shows, election results affect the emotions of individuals, although most studies report about a short-term effect that disappears in one or two weeks. This paper investigates whether election results influence the general mood, the happiness of individuals in the long run. The analysis uses the European Social Survey data from 30 European countries between 2002 and 2015. Regression models suggest that voting for and being attached to an incumbent party increases happiness, while ideological closeness to the government does not. Moreover, the interaction effects show that the closer people feel to their preferred party, the larger the happiness gap becomes between government and opposition supporters. This trend, however, does not hold in case of opposition supporters, whose happiness level is not alternated by the closeness of the attachment. These results prove that partisan motivations are in action in the non-political sphere of life too, and they complement former evidence about an intense short-term effect of winning the elections on voters’ happiness. By testing and confirming the effects of the most widely used explanatory variables of happiness on a large cross-national sample, the paper contributes to general happiness research as well.

Partidos políticos e participação da agricultura familiar na alimentação escolar: análise nos municípios do Rio Grande do Sul e de Santa Catarina

Resumo O artigo busca analisar se o posicionamento político e ideológico e o alinhamento partidário entre prefeito ou vice-prefeito e a Presidência da República têm algum efeito sobre o cumprimento da Lei n.o 11.947/2009, notadamente no que concerne às aquisições da agricultura familiar pela alimentação escolar. Partiu-se da hipótese de que, nas prefeituras que foram governadas por prefeitos ou vice-prefeitos do Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), a participação da agricultura familiar na alimentação escolar diferenciar-se-ia positivamente (percentual mais elevado) em relação às demais municipalidades. Para tanto, foram analisados os municípios do Rio Grande do Sul e Santa Catarina e as gestões do período 2009-2016. Os resultados indicaram diferenças entre as duas gestões (2009/2012 e 2013/2016) e comportamentos diferenciados nos dois estados no tocante à vinculação partidária e à participação da agricultura familiar na alimentação escolar. Assim, os dados não nos permitem confirmar a hipótese que orientou o trabalho.

Go the distance: left-right orientations, partisanship and the vote

ABSTRACT Do ideological orientations have different effects on citizens without party ties, citizens who identify with a particular party and citizens who identify with other parties? What conditional effects do partisan and ideological orientations have on the vote? Difficulties and controversies over definitions of partisanship and left-right ideology, their reciprocal effects and how these are overshadowed in analyses including both heuristics have discouraged scholars from conducting extensive comparative research on this topic. I test to what extent the effects of left-right orientations on voting differ depending on party attachments and how this relationship is influenced by party polarization. Results using data from 77 harmonized national studies in 17 European countries suggest that the effects of partisanship on vote choice are not additive to those of left-right orientations, while the latter are conditional on party identification. Thus, partisans, non-partisans and partisans of other parties respond differently to left-right distances. These differences are more pronounced when the degree of polarization is considered.

The Politics of Disabled Supreme Court Justices

The Politics of Disabled Supreme Court Justices JUDGE GLOCK Supreme Court history is littered with stories of incapacitated or disabled Justices lingering long past their prime. Sometimes, disabled Justices have merely delayed the work of the Court. At other times, they have brought the work ofthe Court into disrepute.1 Yet in more than 200 years of political and constitutional debate, the U.S. political system has never found a satisfactory answer to the problem of disabled Justices. At certain periods in U.S. history, how­ ever, Congress and the President have inter­ vened to entice or push disabled Justices from the bench. Although researchers have noted how Congress passed pension acts for federal judges in general, and even pension acts for individual disabled Justices, they have neglected to note how politics and personal finances played an essential part in when and how Congress decided to pension individual Justices, and how, as many of the pension acts were time-limited, Congress essentially pushed some Justices from the bench.2 The pension bills for disabled Justices have thus created a type ofjudicial dependence on the elected branches of government that other constitutional provisions tried to avoid. This article will look at how Congress and the President have struggled to entice or remove disabled Justices from the bench. It will focus on how they used time-limited pensions to convince two Justices, Ward Hunt and William Moody, to leave.3 It will also examine how these acts influenced President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Court-Packing Plan, or “Un-Packing” Plan as some saw it at the time, since the plan tried to induce older and disabled Justices to leave the bench.4 One final, though forgotten, effect of the failure of Roosevelt’s plan was the passage of a con­ gressional act to allow voluntary retirement for disabled Supreme Court Justices, which is still in effect today. The Early Debate on Judicial Disability Judicial Disability and the Constitution The American Constitutional Conven­ tion in 1787 had to ponder the important 152 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY question of how to ensure both judicial independence and accountability. From early in the Convention, the attendees agreed on the English standard ofjudicial independence on the bench during the “good behavior” of the judges, subject only to the impeaching power of Congress.5 Some who supported this standard, however, still thought there should be an alternative way to remove judges. On August 27h, the scholarly John Dickinson of Delaware submitted a motion to the Convention that would have allowed Congress to vote, by mere majority, on an “address” to the President against a particular judge, after which the President could remove thatjudge, without impeachment and without showing of bad behavior.6 The main impetus behind Dickinson’s amendment appears to have been a desire to remove disabled judges. It was a modified version of the British Parliament’s “address to the king,” under which the British Par­ liament, since 1700, could remove judges without impeachment. It was also a version of Massachusetts’s 1780 constitutional pro­ vision allowing for legislative “removal by address,” a variant of which was included in the constitutions of at least four other states. The general assumption was that such an address would be used as a type of “removal for incapacity.”7 Yet, despite the support of Elbridge Gerry and John Sherman, the Constitutional Convention voted against Dickinson’s proposal.8 Some at the time still worried about the absence of such a clause for incapacitated judges. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 79, noted “The want of a provision for re­ moving the judges on account of inability has been a subject of complaint.” But Hamilton worried that “An attempt to fix the boundary between the regions of ability and inability, would much oftener give scope to personal and party attachments and enmities than advance the interests ofjustice or the public good.” Although Hamilton noted that New York had taken “a particular age as the cri­ terion of inability,” in that case age sixty, he thought such a strict line was both arbitrary and unfair. In effect, Hamilton thought there could and should be no special provision for disabled judges.9 Still...

A Cultural Theory of Partisanship and Policy Attitudes

ObjectivePolitical parties provide an important function for a public that is generally seen as not consistently ideological by guiding its thinking about policy issues. In this article, we examine whether the four cultural worldviews derived from grid‐group cultural theory—hierarch, egalitarian, individualist, and fatalist—are predictive of partisan attachments and perceptions of climate change risk among the public.MethodsData come from an original survey of the U.S. public conducted in 2011 and 2012. We use regression analysis to examine partisanship and perceived climate change risk; ordered logit to examine party attachment; and mediation analysis to examine the mediating effect of partisanship on cultural worldviews and climate change risk.ResultsWe find that the group‐oriented cultural types (egalitarians and hierarchs) are more likely to have stronger party attachments than the nongroup‐oriented cultural types (individualists and fatalists). In addition, we find that the mediation effect of party is more pronounced among the group‐oriented types than the nongroup oriented.ConclusionGrid‐group cultural theory is predictive of both partisanship and policy attitudes and partisanship mediates the influence of cultural worldviews on climate change risk, particularly for those types with group orientations.

Parties are always right: the effects of party cues and policy information on attitudes towards EU issues

This article analyses the influence that political parties exert upon citizens’ opinions about European Union issues. By measuring at the same time the content and source effects on political attitudes, the article considers the possibility that voters pay less attention to the arguments used in a political message than to its source. Results from an online survey experiment in Spain show that partisan voters use a heuristic model of processing when taking positions on an unfamiliar EU issue, even though the prevalence of the source effect is moderated by the respondent’s political sophistication and party attachment. The results also indicate that some respondents tend to pay less attention to a message’s content when the message comes from their preferred party. Such findings raise concerns about the possibility for EU issue voting to guarantee the accountability of political elites and party–voter linkages.