We study voter heterogeneity focusing on the influence of four decision criteria-The study uses a specially-designed survey instrument to study heterogeneity-Criterion heterogeneity translates into heterogeneous effects on the vote-Voter sophistication influences which decision criteria voters consider important

Despite coalition governments being the most widespread form of government, many aspects of coalition politics are still poorly understood. This is especially true for questions relating to the role of the prime minister party within the coalition. Being the prime minister party seems to imply considerable influence, but little evidence actually exists as to the factors shaping the influence of the prime minister. This paper offers a new approach to studying the factors conditioning the influence of the prime minister party in a coalition. The approach is focused on the extent of issue overlap between the party manifesto of the prime minister party and the first government speech after the election. This approach makes it possible to actually analyze the factors shaping the influence of the prime minister party. The results show that the PM party is constrained by the issue emphasis of its coalition partners but less so when it holds dissolution power and more when it has many coalition partners when controlling for the seat share of the PM party. The paper thus both offers a new approach to study the coalition compromise and new evidence on the factors shaping the influence coming from holding the PM position.

In this article, I argue that Westminster parliamentary systems encourage large opposition parties to replace their leaders between elections. Parliamentary system structures how parties compete over legislative outcomes. In Westminster systems, the government’s dominance in the legislative process promotes an adversarial government–opposition relationship. Subsequently, large opposition parties’ electoral prospects are tied to their ability to discredit the government’s policy agenda. Since this responsibility falls to party leaders, leaders of large opposition parties directly affect their parties’ electoral prospects, and parties are more motivated to replace those who are ineffective in damaging the government’s credibility. Therefore, leaders of large opposition parties in Westminster systems carry a higher risk of replacement than their counterparts in other parliamentary systems. I construct an original data set on party leadership turnover in 14 established parliamentary democracies. Results from Cox proportional hazard models support my claim and suggest that institution influences intraparty dynamics.

Staging an open contest is a democratic method to choose a party leader, though its electoral consequences remain unclear. I argue that leadership contests are electorally detrimental to governing parties. Competitive contests signal intraparty policy and/or personality conflict to voters, which damages governing parties’ perceived unity as well as competence in the policy‐making process. Thus, leadership contests undermine governing parties’ performances in parliamentary elections. Moreover, since voters evaluate governing parties’ record in office more than their rhetoric, unlike opposition parties, they cannot repair the image of incompetence/disunity by reshaping their rhetoric and/or policy direction. This implies that leadership contests damage governing parties’ electoral prospects more than they do to opposition parties’ electoral performances. Results from statistical testing with original data from 14 countries support my argument. In addition, these results are not endogenous to the contests’ timing; degree of competitiveness; leadership selection rules; whether or not the incumbent retains office; norms of contests; or how predecessors left office. These findings underscore the need to investigate the relationship between intraparty dynamics and election outcomes.

Why do mainstream opposition parties sometimes fail to adopt policy positions that are attractive to the wider electorate? In this paper, I construct a game-theoretic model between the party leader, the party’s MPs, and the party organization to illustrate how opposition parties’ platform adjustments depend on the party leader’s risk assessment of being deposed and MPs’ re-election incentives. The model predicts that a party leader is most likely to adhere to the activists’ position when MPs’ re-election probabilities depend greatly on activists’ campaign effort, and when MPs’ benefits of re-election are high. Platform adjustments are only possible when the reverse is true. These results have important implications on electoral competitiveness and strategies of parties in majoritarian versus proportional electoral systems. Namely, I expect that opposition parties in majoritarian systems are less able to adjust their platforms than those in proportional systems.