Costly signals: Voter responses to parliamentary dissent in Austria, Britain and Germany

Autor(en)

Markus Wagner, Nick Vivyan, Konstantin Glinitzer

Abstrakt

When Members of Parliament (MPs) disagree publicly with their party, this provides a signal to voters regarding both their political views and their character valence. We argue that the strength of this signal to voters depends on the personal career costs an MP incurs by dissenting. The greater the perceived costs of dissent to the MP, the more positively voters should react to dissent. In line with this theory, we use a series of conjoint analysis experiments in Britain, Germany, and Austria to show that: (1) dissent has a more positive effect on voter evaluations in systems where the costs of dissent are higher, and (2) more costly types of dissent have a greater impact on voter evaluations. These findings have important implications for understanding how voter evaluations of MPs depend on beliefs about parliamentary systems and how parliamentary institutions condition the link between voters and MPs.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Staatswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

Durham University

Journal

Legislative Studies Quarterly

Band

45

Seiten

645-678

Anzahl der Seiten

34

ISSN

0362-9805

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12274

Publikationsdatum

11-2020

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

506014 Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Sociology and Political Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/15fb2790-245c-4906-91e4-1fc2f5dfe7c1