The Organizational Voter: Support for New Parties in Young Democracies

Abstract

How do voters come to support new political parties? This article contends that new types of locally organized, participant-based societal organizations-such as neighborhood associations, informal sector unions, and indigenous movements-can play a crucial mediating role in securing electoral support for new parties. Drawing on social identity and self-categorization theory, I argue that endorsements of new parties by such organizations sway the vote preferences of organization members and people in their larger social networks. A discrete choice experiment, presenting voters in Bolivia with campaign posters, demonstrates that organizational endorsements are highly effective in mobilizing voters, especially when voters face a new party. Endorsements can even counteract policy and ethnic differences between candidates and voters. The findings suggest an important, understudied route to partisan support in new democracies and have important implications for research on political accountability.

On time and meaningful partisanship: Stability, strength, and sway of attachment to new parties

“…New democracies have also garnered some attention. Even though, in some cases, partisan attachments have been found to appear fairly quickly after a transition to democracy (Brader and Tucker, 2008; Carlson, 2016; Dinas, 2014; Poertner, 2020), these analyses have not really challenged the core assumption that partisanship needs time. The main take from the analysis of partisanship in new democracies is that it is weaker than in consolidated democracies (Greene, 2011), presumably because of the lack of sufficient time to develop strong attachments.…”

Does Political Representation Increase Participation? Evidence from Party Candidate Lotteries in Mexico

“…(Mansbridge 1999, 629) More specifically, local social networks, such as organized civil society, can help increase representatives' visibility and ability to connect with voters. Recent studies have demonstrated that local networks can influence turnout and electoral performance (Arias et al 2019;Cruz, Labonne, and Querubín 2017;Nickerson 2008) and that locally organized civil society organizations hold strong sway over the electoral preferences of their members and other people in their wider social networks (Poertner 2021). I build on these insights to formulate the following hypotheses:…”

Incentives for Organizational Participation: A Recruitment Experiment in Mexico

“…Second, organizations help connect citizens to political parties by signaling which candidates stand to promote the interests with which the organization is aligned. In Latin America, labor unions and other organizations affiliated with parties have been central for building partisan identities, mobilizing voters, and supplying candidates for public office (Collier & Collier, 1991; Murillo, 2001; Poertner, 2020).…”