The Ambivalent Voter: Investigating the Development of Ambivalent Attitudes

• In Event: Voting Behavior for and in Parliament

Abstract

In the last two decades, the number of vote switchers has increased. This trend is particularly observable in multi-party systems (MPS). One under-researched dimension is the impact of ambivalent political attitudes. Ambivalent voters who simultaneously hold positive attitudes toward more than one political party or leader may be particularly inclined to switch parties between elections. However, before examining the effect of ambivalence on switching, we need to look at how voters become politically ambivalent and whether voters in MPS are more likely to have ambivalent attitudes. To understand the causes of ambivalence, this paper examines two paths that show how the number of parties increases voters' considerations sets and thus increases the likelihood of developing ambivalent attitudes. Whilst the first path deals with decreasing ideological distances between parties, the second one deals with tradeoffs between (1) a favorite party and a favorite coalition and (2) a party and its leader. For the empirical analysis, data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) are used. The CSES IMD, Module 5 and Module 3 cover elections in 51 MPS between 1996 and 2021. From the GLES, the Short-term campaign panels 2013 and 2017 are used. The results provide empirical evidence for the hypotheses and demonstrate how the number of parties leads to larger consideration sets, increasing the likelihood of developing ambivalent attitudes. Thus, this work once again underscores the importance of studying ambivalence in MPS.

Author

• Klara Dentler, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences