We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
When do voters perceive intra-party conflict? A democratic life cycle perspective.
- Authors
Klingelhöfer, Tristan; Müller, Jochen
- Abstract
Political parties commonly experience internal disagreements. Recently, evidence is accumulating that outright internal discord makes a party much less attractive to voters. However, we do not understand well when citizens perceive a party to be internally conflicted in the first place. We here explain citizens' perceptions from a democratic life cycle perspective: Factors related to the periodic conduct of elections induce higher levels of intra-party conflict and make it more visible to citizens. To test this argument, we combine survey data on citizens' perceptions of political parties in Germany spanning 16 years with indicators moderating (the visibility of) intra-party conflict. The analysis shows that citizens perceive more internal conflict when parties are heterogenous, when they are governing, when election day is distant, and when electoral losses accumulate. This demonstrates the recurring patterns in citizens' perceptions of political parties and suggests self-reinforcing dynamics between citizen assessments and election outcomes.
- Subjects
GERMANY; LIFE cycles (Biology); CITIZENS; ELECTION Day; POLITICAL parties; VOTERS; VOTER turnout
- Publication
European Political Science Review, 2024, Vol 16, Issue 2, p207
- ISSN
1755-7739
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/S1755773923000243