Long Gone Swing Voters: Party and Citizen Polarization Effects' on Volatility

• In Event: The Causes of Vote Switching

Abstract

Although previous research provides us with important insights about the attitudinal consequences of political polarization, our understanding of its effects on electoral behavior and party competition, especially from a comparative perspective, is quite limited. This study seeks to answer a question largely overlooked in literature: Do high and increasing party and electoral polarization decrease electoral volatility?

Employing a novel and comprehensive dataset aggregating survey data on respondents' self ideological stands and parties' perceived stands in 162 elections from 19 established democracies between 1971 and 2020, the empirical analyses seek to assess both the short- and long-term interactive effects of party and citizen polarization on electoral volatility. The findings suggest that high and increasing party polarization decreases electoral volatility, and this negative effect is more pronounced when ideological preferences of electorates are highly polarized.

By distinguishing between the short- and long-term effects of political polarization on electoral behavior, this study concludes that polarized ideological attitudes of voters in established democracies counterbalance the long-suggested decrease in their partisan loyalties toward mainstream parties. Political polarization has thus more important consequences for democratic theory and representation than we often think of.

Author

• Mert Moral, Sabancı University