Costly signals: Voter responses to parliamentary dissent in Austria, Britain and Germany

Glinitzer, Konstantin; Vivyan, Nick; Wagner, Markus

doi:10.1111/lsq.12274

Costly signals: Voter responses to parliamentary dissent in Austria, Britain and Germany

Glinitzer, Konstantin; Vivyan, Nick; Wagner, Markus

Authors

Konstantin Glinitzer

Professor Nick Vivyan nick.vivyan@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Markus Wagner

Abstract

When Members of Parliament (MPs) disagree publicly with their party, this provides a signal to voters regarding both their political views and their character valence. We argue that the strength of this signal to voters depends on the personal career costs an MP incurs by dissenting. The greater the perceived costs of dissent to the MP, the more positively voters should react to dissent. In line with this theory, we use a series of conjoint analysis experiments in Britain, Germany, and Austria to show that: (1) dissent has a more positive effect on voter evaluations in systems where the costs of dissent are higher, and (2) more costly types of dissent have a greater impact on voter evaluations. These findings have important implications for understanding how voter evaluations of MPs depend on beliefs about parliamentary systems and how parliamentary institutions condition the link between voters and MPs.

Citation

Glinitzer, K., Vivyan, N., & Wagner, M. (2020). Costly signals: Voter responses to parliamentary dissent in Austria, Britain and Germany. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 45(4), 645-678. https://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12274

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Dec 12, 2019
Online Publication Date	Jan 22, 2020
Publication Date	2020-11
Deposit Date	Dec 12, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Jan 28, 2020
Journal	Legislative Studies Quarterly
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	45
Issue	4
Pages	645-678
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12274

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Advance online version © 2019 The Authors. Legislative Studies Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Washington University in St. Louis.

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