Original Article
How voters' perceptions of junior coalition partners depend on the prime minister's position
David Fortunato,
James Adams,
Corresponding Author
David Fortunato
University of California–Merced, USA
Address for correspondence: David Fortunato, University of California–Merced, 5200 N. Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343, USA. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorDavid Fortunato,
James Adams,
Corresponding Author
David Fortunato
University of California–Merced, USA
Address for correspondence: David Fortunato, University of California–Merced, 5200 N. Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343, USA. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Recent studies document that voters infer parties' left-right policy agreement based on governing coalition arrangements. This article extends this research to present theoretical and empirical evidence that European citizens update their perceptions of junior coalition partners' left-right policies to reflect the policies of the prime minister's party, but that citizens do not reciprocally project junior coalition partners' policies onto the prime minister's party. These findings illuminate the simple rules that citizens employ to infer parties' policy positions, broaden understanding of how citizens perceive coalition governance and imply that ‘niche’ parties, whose electoral appeal depends upon maintaining a distinctive policy profile, assume electoral risks when they enter government.
Supporting Information
| Filename | Description |
|---|---|
| ejpr12094-sup-0001-si.pdf104.2 KB |
Figure S1. Results of Error Clustering Exercise for Junior Partner Model (Test of Hypothesis 1) Percentage Change to the Standard Error for Each Parameter Figure S2. Results of Error Clustering Exercise for Prime Minister Model (Test of Hypothesis ) Percentage Change to the Standard Error for Each Parameter Figure S3. Substantive effects from PM Model presented in Table 4 of the Main Text Table S1. Analysis of Survey Respondents' Placements of Prime Ministers – Junior Partner CMP interactions removed |
Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.
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