What are the effects of party defections on the attitudes of politicians who remain loyal to the party? We answer by combining multiple sources of data into a comprehensive novel data set on parliamentary party switching, to estimate how this affects the perceived distance between a politician and his party. Focusing on the theory of cognitive dissonance and the black sheep effect, we hypothesize that politicians perceive themselves closer to their parties when those parties recently suffered defections. The effect should be greater among incumbent politicians as they directly experience divisions, but also among officials dissatisfied with the leadership as their dissonance should be stronger. Statistical analyses of data from two elite surveys, on a sample of 13,256 politicians belonging to 92 parties that ran in 28 elections held between 2005 and 2015 in 14 countries, provide support for our hypotheses and shed light on the consequences of intra-party defections.

Breakups hurt: Party switching and perceived proximity between politicians and their party / A. Ceron, E. Volpi. - In: PARTY POLITICS. - ISSN 1354-0688. - (2019). [Epub ahead of print] [10.1177/1354068819880138]

Breakups hurt: Party switching and perceived proximity between politicians and their party

A. Ceron
Primo
;
2019

Abstract

What are the effects of party defections on the attitudes of politicians who remain loyal to the party? We answer by combining multiple sources of data into a comprehensive novel data set on parliamentary party switching, to estimate how this affects the perceived distance between a politician and his party. Focusing on the theory of cognitive dissonance and the black sheep effect, we hypothesize that politicians perceive themselves closer to their parties when those parties recently suffered defections. The effect should be greater among incumbent politicians as they directly experience divisions, but also among officials dissatisfied with the leadership as their dissonance should be stronger. Statistical analyses of data from two elite surveys, on a sample of 13,256 politicians belonging to 92 parties that ran in 28 elections held between 2005 and 2015 in 14 countries, provide support for our hypotheses and shed light on the consequences of intra-party defections.
black sheep effect; cognitive dissonance; elite surveys; intra-party politics; party switching
Settore SPS/04 - Scienza Politica
2019
23-ott-2019
Article (author)
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/685031
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