Party over Pocketbook? How Party Cues Influence Opinion When Citizens Have a Stake in Policy

Rune Slothuus; Martin Bisgaard

doi:10.1017/S0003055421000332

Party over Pocketbook? How Party Cues Influence Opinion When Citizens Have a Stake in Policy

Department of Political Science

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Do political parties influence opinion when citizens have a personal stake in policy? With an experimental design that exploits a naturally occurring, sharp variation in party cues, we study the effects of party cues during a collective bargaining conflict over the salary and work rights for public employees in Denmark. Even in this context--where the self-interest of public employees was strongly mobilized and where their party went against it--we find that party cues move opinion among partisans at least as much as in previous studies. But party cues do not lead citizens to go against their self-interest. Rather, we show that party cues temper the pursuit of self-interest among public employees by moderating the most extreme policy demands. These findings highlight an unappreciated potential of political parties to moderate--not fuel--extreme opinion.

Original language	English
Journal	American Political Science Review
Volume	115
Issue	3
Pages (from-to)	1090 - 1096
Number of pages	7
ISSN	0003-0554
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055421000332
Publication status	Published - Aug 2021

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10.1017/S0003055421000332Licence: CC BY

Party over Pocketbook_Final version_2021Final published version, 313 KBLicence: CC BY

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Party over Pocketbook? How Party Cues Influence Opinion When Citizens Have a Stake in Policy

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