Title
When Marriage Gets Hard: Intra-Coalition Conflict and Electoral Accountability
Abstract
Combining individual-level with event-level data across 25 European countries and three sets of European Election Studies, this study examines the effect of conflict between parties in coalition government on electoral accountability and responsibility attribution. We find that conflict increases punishment for poor economic performance precisely because it helps clarify to voters parties’ actions and responsibilities while in office. The results indicate that under conditions of conflict, the punishment is equal for all coalition partners when they share responsibility for poor economic performance. When there is no conflict within a government, the effect of poor economic evaluations on vote choice is rather low, with slightly more punishment targeted to the prime minister’s party. These findings have important implications for our understanding of electoral accountability and political representation in coalition governments.
Keywords
retrospective votingelectoral accountabilityintra-coalition conflictcoalition governments
Object type
Language
English [eng]
Persistent identifier
https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:1536569
Appeared in
Title
Comparative Political Studies
Volume
55
Issue
1
ISSN
0010-4140
Issued
2021
From page
32
To page
59
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Date issued
2021
Access rights
Rights statement
© The Author(s) 2021

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