The Enemy Within: Campaign Attention and Motivated Reasoning in Voter Perceptions of Intra-Party Conflict.

Autor(en)

Carolina Plescia, Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Sylvia Kritzinger

Abstrakt

In spite of broad interest in internal party dynamics, with previous literature relatedly demonstrating that voters are not oblivious to party infighting, very little attention has been paid to the antecedents of voter perceptions of intra-party conflict. This article addresses this research deficit with the support of empirical evidence gathered over the course of the 2017 Austrian national election campaign. The study examines variations in perceived intra-party conflict over time, both across parties and within the same party. We find that although voter perceptions largely mirror actual distinctions in intra-party fighting, conspicuous individual-level variations can also be identified owing to attention to the election campaign and motivated reasoning in information processing. These results have important consequences for our understanding of voter perceptions of intra-party conflict and the role of election campaigns, with potential implications for party strategies during election campaigns.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Staatswissenschaft, Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

Journal

Party Politics

Band

27

Seiten

917-927

Anzahl der Seiten

11

ISSN

1354-0688

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068820906407

Publikationsdatum

09-2021

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

506012 Politische Systeme

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Sociology and Political Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/4411b5b4-b4b1-465d-949c-ca8d733a792e