UL AHSS Postgraduate conference - June 2022

Abstract

Prior work established that by clarifying what parties stand for, elite polarisation on the Left-Right dimension promotes a more (positive) partisan electorate. While partisanship research has a long tradition, only recently have scholars turned their attention to the concept of negative partisanship, defined as an aversion towards a party that the voter would “never vote for”. But is negative partisanship equally sensitive to the degree of polarisation of the party system? This paper brings this line of inquiry into a broader research agenda on the consequences of the 2007-2016 Great Recession and so-called migration crises on the mass-elite linkage. Against the background of an increasingly dealigned electorate, this tumultuous decade saw increased polarisation on the cultural (GALTAN) dimension as well as the economic (LR) dimension. This paper hypothesises that elite polarisation on both the LR and GALTAN dimensions will lead to an increase in positive and negative partisanship, and that the effect is mediated by voters’ issue salience. Based on EES data between 1999-2019 covering 13 European countries, the results substantiate these expectations. Voters are more likely to state their positive partisanship when parties polarise on the LR, while negative partisanship is more sensitive to GALTAN polarisation. Overall, these results contribute to emerging insights into the drivers of Negative Partisanship, and to our understanding of the consequences of party system polarisation. Moreover, this paper develops and tests new ways of measuring Negative Partisanship by taking advantage of voters’ Propensity to Vote responses.