Who Likes Rebels? The Electoral Success of Parliamentary Mavericks

• In Event: Expressive Partisanship in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Why do voters express support for rebellious politicians? Dissent could impede parties from attaining their goals and perhaps even undermine a system that these same voters otherwise support? We implement a conjoint survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of the U.K. and U.S. voting population to uncover the logic behind voter support for rebellious politicians. The survey elicits voters' perceptions of politicians who take on a series of attributes, one of which is acting as rebel with respect to their party on votes in parliament. The study reveals the value of rebellion to sitting legislators, and helps to shed light on the conditions under which being a rebel is electorally advantageous. The abundance of rebellious rhetoric during electoral campaigns, as well as on the parliamentary floor, makes these questions of empirical and normative importance. We find support for the notion that voters express a preference for rebellious MPs and show that voting for a rebel is an expressive act not driven by considerations of norms to vote with the party or whether the rebel activity runs counter to the preferences of the broader public or the MP's constituency. We separate voters' expressive motivation to support a rebel from other expressions of identity such as those related to partisanship.

Authors

• Jonathan B. Slapin, University of Zurich

• Dominik Duell, University of Essex