Short- and Long-Term Partisanship: Campaign Effects and the Stability of Party Identification in Latin America

Abstract

This study focuses on a dimension of partisanship overlooked by most comparative studies on campaign effects: individual-level stability, a measure of short-term partisanship. Some voters in young democracies are able to develop partisanship as a screen through which they observe the political world, leading them to interpret new information in a manner that reinforces their political predispositions. However, some voters lack long-term partisan attachments, enabling them to update their party identification as the campaign unfolds. These voters have a harder time reinforcing their precampaign dispositions and are more likely to change their vote intention. The findings suggest that for some voters, partisanship and vote choice are empirically intertwined.

Persuasión versus Intención de voto en la elección extraordinaria para gobernador de Puebla, México en junio del 2019

“…Si consideramos que el conocimiento político de la ciudadanía es un reflejo del estado de salud de la democracia en una sociedad determinada (De Vreese y Boomgaarden, 2006), fenómenos como la falta de acumulación de información y de experiencia política (Cornejo, 2021) se traduce como una situación crítica. Es vital para el sistema democrático, sobre todo durante las campañas electorales, que los electores conozcan la realidad política de su entorno y que conozcan las propuestas de los candidatos a gobernarlos (Weisberg y Nawara, 2010).…”

The AMLO Voter: Affective Polarization and the Rise of the Left in Mexico

“…Affective polarization is fear and loathing between parties (Iyengar and Westwood, 2015), a tendency to view copartisans positively and opposing partisans negatively (Druckman and Levendusky, 2019). The affective responses toward opposing parties result from the increasing importance of partisan identities in Mexico (Castro Cornejo, 2021b) and across the world (Iyengar and Westwood, 2015). This trend has exacerbated both in-party favoritism and out-party animus.…”