Electoral Chair’s Seminar – September 27th

Political Party or Policy Position? The Role of Policy Partisanship and Party Cues in Voter Decision-Making

Thomas Galipeau – University of Toronto, Sarah Lachance, Thomas Bergeron, Natasha Goel, Mujahedul Islam, Blake Lee-Whiting, Beatrice Magistro, Semra Sevi, and Peter J. Loewen

Whether political party or policy position matters more to vote choice is a long-standing debate in political science. We argue that the effect of a policy position on vote choice depends on the degree to which party cues are embedded in the policy, which we refer to as policy partisanship. We test the effect of policy partisanship and the moderating effect of party cues on vote choice using a conjoint survey experiment administered among a representative sample of 1199 Canadians, who chose between pairs of electoral candidates. Our study sheds new light on the ongoing debate re-garding the relative importance of partisan and non-partisan issues on vote choice. Examining this question in the Canadian context — a less polarized multi-party system — our results allow us to assess the conditions under which policy positions impact voter preferences.

This content has been updated on 21 September 2023 at 10 h 57 min.