This chapter builds on our prior work to further probe whether there is a link between moderation and individual voters’ shifts from social democratic parties at a later point, by considering a larger number of cases and by differentiating between the economic and cultural dimensions. We examine individual-level data on voting behavior combined with information on mainstream left parties’ ideological shifts in up to fifty elections in sixteen countries over recent decades.
The findings show that (a) moderation can have detrimental consequences in the longer term; (b) the consequences of moderation differ across the left-right and cultural dimensions of electoral competition; and (c) the combination of individual-level analysis, with broader contextual and systemic considerations, is essential to fully engage with these questions.
- Authors: Jonathan Polk and Johannes Karreth
- Title of publication: Voter Responses to Social Democratic Ideological Moderation after the Third Way
- Link to publication: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009496810.013