ABSTRACT

Various studies show that voters appreciate individual legislators who dissent against their party as it increases their valence appeal. Simultaneously, political psychology research shows that right voters consider loyalty substantially more important than left voters. However, whether ideology moderates voter reactions to legislator dissent is so far unexplored, similarly to the question of whether voters also appreciate factional dissent of a group of legislators. This article investigates these two questions employing a survey experiment with Spanish citizens. We find that voters indeed appreciate factional dissent and that ideology moderates how voters react to dissent. While left voters welcome all forms of factional dissent more than party loyalty, right voters value party loyalty more than some forms of factional dissent. The results suggest that legislators face different benefits of dissent depending on the ideological composition of their electorate, with important implications for legislator behaviour and party cohesion.

摘要

各种研究表明，选民欣赏反对他们政党的个别立法者，因为这增加了他们的效价吸引力。同时，政治心理学研究表明，右翼选民认为忠诚比左翼选民重要得多。然而，意识形态是否会缓和选民对立法者异议的反应至今仍未得到探索，类似于选民是否也欣赏一群立法者的派系异议的问题。本文通过对西班牙公民进行调查实验来调查这两个问题。我们发现选民确实欣赏派系异议，而意识形态调节选民对异议的反应。左翼选民比党派忠诚更欢迎各种形式的派系异议，而右翼选民比某些形式的派系异议更看重党派忠诚。