The Power of the Dark Side: Negative Partisanship and Political Behaviour in Canada

Abstract

The origins and implications of partisan identification are well-studied, but negative partisan attitudes—dislike for a particular party—have escaped such scrutiny, even as the politics of negativity enjoys sustained popularity, especially come election time. In this paper we build upon the comparatively modest negative partisanship literature to consider the effects of negative partisan attitudes on a range of political behaviours. There are reasons to suspect that negative and positive partisanship may have different effects; thus, accounting for the unique influence of negative attitudes is important for understanding the full effect of partisanship on political behaviour. Our results, based upon Canadian Election Study data from 2008 and 2011, reveal that, in addition to vote choice, negative partisanship influences voter turnout and a range of political activities, both related and unrelated to parties. These findings provide evidence of the power of the “dark side” of partisanship.

How negative partisanship affects voting behavior in Europe: Evidence from an analysis of 17 European multi-party systems with proportional voting

“…While the average marginal effect of NPID on turnout was about 9 percentage points, the marginal effect of PPID was more than twice as high (21 percentage points). By contrast, Caruna et al (2015) found that, in Canada, NPID had a marginal effect on turnout of 3 percentage points. This was probably due to the fact that they were able to control for civic orientations, which were not available in the CSES.…”

“…In the first analysis of negative partisanship, Maggiotto and Piereson (1977) showed that negative partisan affect has its own effect on vote choice in the United States: the more hostile partisans feel towards the opposing party, the more likely they will vote according to their own partisan identification. The strongest effect was found for weak identifiers (Maggiotto and Piereson, 1977: 747) 1 and other authors were able to successfully replicate these findings (Caruana et al, 2015;McGregor et al, 2015;Medeiros and Noël, 2014;Richardson, 1991;Vlachová, 2001). As part of that research, NPID was found to increase the probability of voting for the other party by 10 percentage points on average, but had a lower effect size than PPIDs (Medeiros and Noël, 2014: 14, 18).…”

“…Looking only at the multi-party systems in the Netherlands and Germany, Richardson (1991: 760) found that inter-party hostility was usually highest between opposing parties of the same cleavage such as labor–capital. Examining a different case of a multi-party system, Canada, Caruana et al (2015) and McGregor et al (2015) demonstrated that NPID significantly affects voting behavior in that setting. However, Canada has an unusual multi-party system.…”

“…The few existing studies indicate that NPID has its own unique effect on vote choice (e.g. Abramowitz and Webster, 2016; Caruana et al, 2015; Maggiotto and Piereson, 1977; Medeiros and Noël, 2014; Richardson, 1991; Vlachová, 2001). However, this so-called “hostility hypothesis” coined first by Maggiotto and Piereson (1977), has been analyzed almost exclusively in countries with majority vote systems, where voters mainly vote for (district) candidates, but not for party lists.…”

Why Voting Does Not Imply Consenting

“…At times, the chosen option remains one they adhere to, as in certain cases of "strategic voting": A voter does not vote for their favorite party (or candidate) because it is unlikely to win seats, but the voter opts instead for a larger party (or a more popular candidate) that they prefer among the perceived relevant options (Blais and Degan, 2019). Yet a more problematic case is that of the citizen who votes not so much for a candidate or party as against another candidate or party (Medeiros and Noël, 2014;Caruana et al, 2015). Thus, according to Caruana et al (2015, p. 775), negative partisanship "may motivate individuals to engage in behaviors that disadvantage their disliked party, regardless of the benefits expected for a preferred party (if they have one)."…”