Hate trumps love? The implications of negative partisanship for voters and political parties

Lawall, Katharina (2022) Hate trumps love? The implications of negative partisanship for voters and political parties. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

Strong negative feelings towards political parties are prevalent in many Western democracies. Yet, when negative partisanship is studied, it is often treated as a by-product of positive partisanship. This paper-based thesis challenges this assumption and argues that strong negative feelings towards political parties are a force of their own. What are the implications of negative partisanship for voters and political parties? Through three survey experiments and one field experiment, I show that negative political identities have distinct and powerful consequences for both voters and parties. Firstly, I make a novel theoretical contribution to the partisanship literature by arguing that negative partisanship affects how voters feel about multiple political parties, not just the one that they dislike. In line with the idea of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, I find that negative partisanship can inspire feelings of closeness to other political parties. Secondly, through a field experiment with a political party, I show that cueing negative political identities has stronger mobilising effects than cueing positive political identities. This makes an important contribution to our understanding of how political parties activate negative political identities to their advantage, and shows that invoking these has implications for real-world, costly political behaviour. Finally, I examine if and how disliked political parties can reduce negative feelings towards them and their core issue positions. I find that “normative repackaging”, a strategy which couples an unacceptable policy position with a highly acceptable one, is an effective way for radical right-wing parties to make their core policy positions feel more acceptable to voters. By demonstrating the relevance of negative feelings and identities for voters and parties, this thesis provides an important contribution to our understanding of political behaviour and party competition in Western democracies.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2022 Katharina Lawall
Library of Congress subject classification:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General)
Sets:	Departments > Government
Supervisor:	Hobolt, Sara and Foos, Florian
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4434

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