Moderation and Competence: How a Party's Ideological Position Shapes Its Valence Reputation

Abstract

We combine several strands of research from electoral behavior and party politics to suggest that ideological moderation will boost a party's perceived competence. Less radical parties are seen as readier to compromise, more realistic about what can be achieved, and less prone to simplistic solutions. The results of conjoint experiments with party profiles show that while an ideological leaning carries no cost, any appreciably left‐ or right‐wing position eroded a party's perceived competence among a representative sample of around 2,000 British citizens. This effect holds when controlling for respondents’ ideological proximity to the party in question, and it looks to operate through all three of the proposed mechanisms suggested above—especially willingness to compromise. These findings have important implications both for party strategy and for voting research, highlighting a key channel through which ideological moderation yields electoral gains.

Negatively Affecting Voters’ Issue Considerations. An Experimental Study of Parties’ Attack Communication

“…We tested to what extent the three dimensions are correlated: the commitment dimension is correlated with both the competence (r = 0.58) and position (r = 0.50) dimension but the correlation between the competence and the position dimensions is stronger (r = 0.77), suggesting substantial overlap -in line with the findings of Johns & Kölln (2019).…”

“…This resonates with recent findings in the literature (Wagner, 2012). Yet, as Johns and Kölln (2019) demonstrate, extreme positions also cast doubts on the party's ability to get its policy adopted. Our findings similarly suggest that accusing a rival of holding extreme positions depresses competence evaluations.…”

“…However, spatial voting theories also show that voters can perceive a party as being 'best' (i.e. most close) in terms of position (Enelow & Hinich, 2008), and that positional changes may affect other reputational dimensions such as competence (Johns & Kölln, 2019).…”

“…We also expect that spillover effects may take place so that a party's attack on one dimension influences voters' evaluations of other parties on another dimension. Although the commitment and competence dimensions are relatively independent from one another (Walgrave et al, 2012), voters often conflate competence and positional evaluations (Stubager, 2017;van der Brug, 2004;Johns and Kölln, 2019). In comparison, position contaminates commitment to a lesser degree (Walgrave et al, 2016).…”

“…We study issue attacks on three dimensions, namely position, competence, and commitment. (3) There is an ongoing debate regarding the confoundedness of voters' issue perceptions regarding positional, competence, and commitment elements (Johns & Kölln, 2019). As such, we examine spillover effects: Does discrediting a party on one dimension cause shifts in voter perceptions on the other dimensions?…”