de Vet, Benjamin

Poletti, Monica

Wauters, Bram

English

Ghent University Academic Bibliography

April 3,2019Why party members don’t always vote for their own partyblogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/defecting-vote-members/ Benjamin de Vet, Monica Poletti, and BramWauters examine the limits of party members’ electoral loyalty. They explainhow strategic considerations, ideological discontent, and negative leadershipevaluations lie at the basis of decisions to cast a defecting vote.One of the perceived advantages of having many grassroots members is that they supplypolitical parties with a steady electoral base. Not only are members seen as‘ambassadors’ on the ground that endorse the party in their everyday social contacts:they are also assumed to be loyal voters themselves, who support the party in both goodtimes and bad.The electoral loyalty of party members should, however, not be taken for granted. Basedon survey data of around 9,000 party members in the UK and Flanders (Belgium), we findthat some vote for another party than the one they are member of. In Flemish parties,the percentage of disloyal members in the federal elections of 2010 and 2014 liesbetween 4% and 8%. In the UK, there is more variation. Larger parties, like theConservatives, Labour, and the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) saw between 4% to 5% oftheir members casting a defecting vote in the General Elections of 2015. This percentageis much larger in smaller parties like the Green Party (15.8 %), the Liberal Democrats(12.1%) and to a lesser extent UKIP (6.9 %). Virtually every defecting member of theGreen party and half of the Lib Dems voted for Labour, whereas almost every defectingmember in UKIP voted for the Tories. Note that our analysis only looks at members whoactually voted for a (different) party, not at those who abstained from voting (which veryfew party members did in both countries).1/4Already from these numbers, strategic voting considerations seem to be an importantfactor at play. Party members might not sincerely vote for the party they genuinelyprefer, but choose to vote for a party with a better chance of obtaining seats or beingpivotal in coalition negotiations. Our explanatory analysis confirms the important role ofstrategic considerations, at least in terms of smaller parties being the victim of suchjudgments. This effect is, however, only found in the UK where its majoritarian electoralsystem decreases the likelihood for small parties to obtain seats, compared to Belgium’sproportional PR-system.Strategic considerations aside, members’ disloyal voting behaviour is also caused byideological concerns. First of all, members vote for other parties out of disagreementwith their own parties’ ideological positions. Party members who perceive a largedistance between their own and their party’s ideological stances (measured on a generalleft-right scale) are more likely to cast a defecting vote. Also the ideological appeal ofneighbouring parties is important. Members who perceive a small distance betweentheir own and other parties’ positions on a left-right scale are more prone to casting adefecting vote. Even though the fragmented multi-party system in Flanders decreasesthe ideological distance between parties, the effects of ideological concerns on members’voting behaviour are equally substantial in British parties.Lastly, leadership evaluations matter as well. In both countries, the more negatively aparty member evaluates his or her party leader, the more likely it is that he or she casts adefecting vote. For members who are dissatisfied with the party leader, for instancebecause of his/her policy preferences or a member’s psychological attachment to2/4another aspirant leader, voting for another party seems a tempting and less radicaloption than leaving the party. To some extent they remain loyal to the ‘party brand’,perhaps in the hope that one day the leader will resign. They might, however, once or aslong as the party leader is in function, cast a defecting vote. Here again, we find a similareffect for British and Flemish parties.Although a majority of party members do vote for their own party, our analysis showsthat the loyalty of party members is neither absolute nor unconditional. A relevant sharedoes defect at the ballot box, which poses a number of practical implications for parties.The strategic considerations of British members should be the least worrisome. Many‘defecting’ members would probably vote for their own party if they lived in aconstituency where the chances of winning a seat would be higher. As their votingdecisions seems a pragmatic choice rather than one out of disagreement, they canpossibly still act as ‘party ambassadors’, although they might find it more satisfactorily todo so online or in another electoral district.More problematic is when party members defect because they have negative attitudestowards the party leadership, are displeased with the ideological direction the party isheading, or are attracted to ideologically close competitors. When party members are, inother words, dissatisfied with the current state of affairs within parties, they might notonly deny them their own vote, but might also convince other party supporters to do thesame. This could have a direct effect in marginal constituencies in majoritarian systemslike Britain, but also in multiparty systems with small electoral margins like Flanders.More plausible, perhaps, is the long-term danger that if members remain dissatisfied foran extended period of time, they might consider leaving the party altogether.Notwithstanding some periodic ups and downs, this could further contribute to thewidespread declining membership trend in Western Europe.____________Note: the above draws on the authors’ published work in Party Politics.About the AuthorsBenjamin de Vet is a Junior Researcher in the Department of PoliticalScience at Ghent University.Monica Poletti isESRC Postdoctoral Research Assistant at Queen Mary,University of London.Bram Wauters is Professor in the Department of Political Science atGhent University.All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not theposition of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School ofEconomics and Political Science. Featured image credit: Pixabay (PublicDomain).3/44/4

Why party members don’t always vote for their own party

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Why party members don’t always vote for their own party

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Ghent University Academic Bibliography