Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T10:30:17.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Mavericks versus Party Insiders: A Survey Experiment on Candidate- and Partycentric Attitudes of Voters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2019

Isabella Alcañiz*
Affiliation:
Isabella Alcañiz is an associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.
Ernesto Calvo*
Affiliation:
Ernesto Calvo is a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.
Marcelo Escolar*
Affiliation:
Marcelo Escolar is a professor of politics and government at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín.

Abstract

This study examines the extent to which priming voters on the trustworthiness of candidates or that of their parties elicits candidatecentric or partycentric attitudes. The analysis provides evidence of the trade-off for voters between mavericks and party insiders in presidential elections. It shows that voters are sensitized to the risks of electing a candidate with no party support, but in the particular case of Argentina, they still consider the candidates’ qualities to be more important than those of their parties. The results show that priming on the trustworthiness of candidates elicits stronger responses from low-income voters, who already have prior candidatecentric inclinations. The findings also reveal statistical differences in vote choice when respondents are primed with party- or candidatecentric frames.

Type
Research Notes
Copyright
© University of Miami 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aldrich, John. H. 1995. Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aldrich, John H., and Rohde, David W.. 2000. The Consequences of Party Organization in the House: The Role of the Majority and Minority Parties in Conditional Party Government. In Polarized Politics: Congress and the President in a Partisan Era, ed. Bond, Jon R. and Fleisher, Richard. Washington, DC: CQ Press. 3172.Google Scholar
Aragones, Enriqueta, and Palfrey, Thomas. 2005. Electoral Competition Between Two Candidates of Different Quality: The Effects of Candidate Ideology and Private Information. In Social Choice and Strategic Decisions: Essays in Honour of Jeffrey S. Banks, ed. Austen-Smith, D. and Duggan, J.. Berlin: Springer. 93112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 1986. Issue Voting Under Uncertainty: An Empirical Test. American Journal of Political Science 30, 4 (November): 709–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calvo, Ernesto 2013. El peronismo y la sucesión permanente: mismos votos, distintas élites. Revista SAAP 7, 2: 433–40.Google Scholar
Calvo, Ernesto, and Murillo, María Victoria. 2012. Argentina: The Persistence of Peronism. Journal of Democracy 23, 2: 148–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carson, Jamie L., Engstrom, Erik J., and Roberts, Jason M.. 2007. Candidate Quality, the Personal Vote, and the Incumbency Advantage in Congress. American Political Science Review 101, 2: 289301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conniff, Michael L., ed. 2012. Populism in Latin America. 2nd ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W. 1997. Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ditto, Peter H., and Mastronarde, Andrew J.. 2009. The Paradox of the Political Maverick. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45, 1: 295–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Freytes, Carlos, and Niedzwiecki, Sara. 2016. A Turning Point in Argentine Politics: Demands for Change and Territorial Cleavages in the 2015 Presidential Election. Regional and Federal Studies 26, 3: 114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frohlich, Norman, and Oppenheimer, Joe A.. 2015. Political Leadership and Collective Goods. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, Peter D., and Hunt, Corrie. 2015. The Limits of Donald Trump’s “Outsider” Appeal. Wall Street Journal, November 25. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/25/the-limits-of-donald-trumps-outsider-appeal. Accessed September 3, 2018.Google Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald, and Norris, Pippa. 2016. Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash. HKS Working Paper No. RWP16-026, SSRC.Google Scholar
Katz, Robert S. 2001. The Problem of Candidate Selection and Models of Party Democracy. Party Politics 7, 3: 277–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitsky, Steven 2003. Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitsky, Steven, and Murillo, María Victoria. 2005. Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Lupu, Noam. 2016. Party Brands in Crisis: Partisanship, Brand Dilution, and the Breakdown of Political Parties in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mudde, Cas, and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira. 2012. Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nokken, Timothy 2000. Dynamics of Congressional Loyalty: Party Defection and Roll Call Behavior, 1947–1997. Legislative Studies Quarterly 25: 417–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogowski, Jon C., and Tucker, Patrick D.. 2014. Do Voters Prefer Mavericks or Purists? Candidate Platforms and the Electoral Consequences of Ideological Consistency. Working paper. Washington University, St. Louis.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M. 2011. The Logic and Design of the Survey Experiment: An Autobiography of a Methodological Innovation. In The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science, ed. Druckman, Jamie N., Green, Donald P., Kuklinski, James H., and Lupia, Arthur. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chap. 8, 102–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Somer-Topcu, Zommer. 2015. Everything to Everyone: The Electoral Consequences of the Broad-Appeal Strategy in Europe. American Journal of Political Science 59: 841–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, Susan. 1999. What Do Policy Switches Tell Us About Democracy? In Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, ed. Przeworski, Adam and Stokes, . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 98130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, Susan. 2001. Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tavits, Margit 2009. The Making of Mavericks: Local Loyalties and Party Defection. Comparative Political Studies 42, 6: 793815.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomz, Michael, and Van Houweling, R.. 2009. The Electoral Implications of Candidate Ambiguity. American Political Science Review 103, 1: 8398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wattenberg, Martin P. 1991. The Rise of Candidate-Centered Politics: Presidential Elections of the 1980s. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max 1994. The Profession and Vocation of Politics. In Weber: Political Writings, ed. and trans. Lassman, Peter and Speirs, Ronald. New York: Cambridge University Press. 309–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Alcañiz et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Alcañiz et al. supplementary material(File)
File 23.4 KB