Are the Supporters of Populist Parties Loyal Voters?

Voogd, R. & Dassonneville, R. (forthcoming). Are the Supporters of Populist Parties Loyal Voters? Dissatisfaction and Stable Voting for Populist Parties. Government & Opposition, in press.

Abstract

Scholars of electoral behavior regularly link political dissatisfaction to two types of behavior: voting for populist parties and unstable voting behavior. It is therefore not surprising that the electorates of populist parties are generally assumed to be rather volatile. In this paper, we argue that this is not necessarily the case – in particular in a context of increasingly strong and viable populist parties. We make use of data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems-project to show that voters for populist parties are not more nor less volatile than voters for mainstream parties. Political dissatisfaction among voters for populist parties even increases the likelihood of stable voting for populist parties. The supply of populist parties further conditions the stability of the populist vote, as voters in systems with established populist parties are more likely to stably vote for populist parties. Finally, we find that in a context of strong and stable populist parties, the effect of political satisfaction on vote switching is somewhat reduced.

This content has been updated on 3 October 2018 at 11 h 19 min.