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AbstractPublic opinion polls have become vital and increasingly visible parts of election campaigns. Previous research has frequently demonstrated that polls can influence both citizens' voting intentions and political parties' campaign strategies. However, they are also fraught with uncertainty. Margins of error can reflect (parts of) this uncertainty. This paper investigates how citizens' voting intentions change due to whether polling estimates are presented with or without margins of error.Using a vignette experiment (N=3224), we examine this question based on a real‐world example in which different election polls were shown to nationally representative respondents ahead of the 2021 federal election in Germany. We manipulated the display of the margins of error, the interpretation of polls and the closeness of the electoral race.The results indicate that margins of error can influence citizens' voting intentions. This effect is dependent on the actual closeness of the race and additional interpretative guidance provided to voters. More concretely, the results consistently show that margins of error increase citizens' inclination to vote for one of the two largest contesting parties if the polling gap between these parties is small, and an interpretation underlines this closeness.The findings of this study are important for three reasons. First, they help to determine whether margins of error can assist citizens in making more informed (strategic) vote decisions. They shed light on whether depicting opinion‐poll uncertainty affects the key features of representative democracy, such as democratic accountability. Second, the results stress the responsibility of the media. The way polls are interpreted and contextualized influences the effect of margins of error on voting behaviour. Third, the findings of this paper underscore the significance of including methodological details when communicating scientific research findings to the broader public.

This article examines whether citizens' political preferences toward radical right parties (RRPs) change after right-wing extremist violent attacks. It investigates this question in two ways. First, it presents a time-series study on public support for the RRP Alternative for Germany (AfD) between 2013 and 2019. Second, the article employs a quasi-experimental research design to examine the effect of a right-wing terrorist attack on citizens' attitudes toward immigrants. Both studies indicate that public support for the AfD and its programmatic core positions increased after right-wing extremist attacks. Subsequent analyses suggest that former voters of the mainstream right, in particular, drive this effect. These findings shed light on the determinants of radical right party support, contributing to the long-standing debate on the consequences of political violence.

Electoral competition is a cornerstone of representative democracies. However, measuring its extent and intensity constitutes a challenging task for the discipline. Based on multilevel conceptualizations, we discuss three different measures of political competition (electoral volatility, vote switching, and voters' availability) and their relation to each other. We argue that electoral volatility and vote switching as indicators of electoral competitiveness tend to misestimate the degree of competition in multiparty systems. As an alternative, we propose focusing on the individual's propensity to vote for different parties, i.e. electoral availability. Using data provided by the European Election Studies, we compare availability to electoral volatility and vote switching in the framework of necessary and sufficient conditions. Our regression results show that operationalizing electoral competitiveness based on voter availability - which is increasingly retrievable from cross-national voter surveys - helps to avoid type-II errors, i.e. identifying competitive elections as less or non-competitive.

Numerous studies conclude that declining turnout is harmful for democracy. However, we uncover the arguably positive effect that political parties become more responsive to the median voter in the election after turnout has decreased. We assume that parties are vote seeking and show that moderate voters are responsible for changes in turnout, and we argue that declining turnout in an election sends a clear signal to political parties that there is an opportunity to mobilize disaffected voters in the following election by responding to changes in public opinion. We report the results of statistical analyses on data from thirteen democracies from 1977 to 2018 that provide evidence that declining voter turnout in one inter-election period is associated with increasing party responsiveness to public opinion in the following period. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of voter turnout, political representation, and parties' election strategies.

AbstractNumerous studies conclude that declining turnout is harmful for democracy. However, we uncover the arguably positive effect that political parties become more responsive to the median voter in the election after turnout has decreased. We assume that parties are vote seeking and show that moderate voters are responsible for changes in turnout, and we argue that declining turnout in an election sends a clear signal to political parties that there is an opportunity to mobilize disaffected voters in the following election by responding to changes in public opinion. We report the results of statistical analyses on data from thirteen democracies from 1977 to 2018 that provide evidence that declining voter turnout in one inter-election period is associated with increasing party responsiveness to public opinion in the following period. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of voter turnout, political representation, and parties' election strategies.

In this article, we examine the extent to which the influence of external efficacy on support for populist parties is conditional on the degree to which a populist party is an established player in a given party system. We do so using a two-step regression approach that allows us to investigate the varying effect of external efficacy in a multilevel setting. Making use of data on 23 European Union member states, we empirically demonstrate that the nature of support for populists varies depending on the extent to which these parties are established actors in their national party systems. This is true for Western and Eastern European populist parties. These findings make an important contribution to the broader literature on the success and survival of populist parties. They indicate that these parties do not keep up their image as radical opponents of the national political establishment the more they become electorally successful and join government coalitions.

Electoral competition is a cornerstone of representative democracies. However, measuring its extent and intensity constitutes a challenging task for the discipline. Based on multilevel conceptualizations, we discuss three different measures of political competition (electoral volatility, vote switching, and voters' availability) and their relation to each other. We argue that electoral volatility and vote switching as indicators of electoral competitiveness tend to misestimate the degree of competition in multiparty systems. As an alternative, we propose focusing on the individual's propensity to vote for different parties, i.e. electoral availability. Using data provided by the European Election Studies, we compare availability to electoral volatility and vote switching in the framework of necessary and sufficient conditions. Our regression results show that operationalizing electoral competitiveness based on voter availability – which is increasingly retrievable from cross-national voter surveys – helps to avoid type-II errors, i.e. identifying competitive elections as less or non-competitive.

Political parties respond strategically to the electoral success of radical right populist parties (RRPPs). While previous research has focused on programmatic responses on cultural conflict issues, we are expanding the research on policy position adaption to the economic left-right issue of welfare-state politics. Actual and potential supporters of RRPPs do not only feel threatened by migration or liberal conceptions of society but are also often confronted with real or perceived socio-economic decline. Therefore, we argue that established parties do not only react by changing their socio-cultural policy offers but also by adjusting their welfare state policy positions. Based on parties' voter potentials and issue ownership theory, we investigate whether such changes are especially pronounced for left-of-center parties. Analysing data from 18 West European countries since 1985, we find that non-RRPPs indeed advocate more leftist positions on welfare state policies in response to increasing electoral support for RRPPs. This effect is especially pronounced for economically left-of-centre parties as these parties might consider this to be a promising strategy to win back voters from the populist radical right.

In this article, we examine the extent to which the influence of external efficacy on support for populist parties is conditional on the degree to which a populist party is an established player in a given party system. We do so using a two-step regression approach that allows us to investigate the varying effect of external efficacy in a multilevel setting. Making use of data on 23 European Union member states, we empirically demonstrate that the nature of support for populists varies depending on the extent to which these parties are established actors in their national party systems. This is true for Western and Eastern European populist parties. These findings make an important contribution to the broader literature on the success and survival of populist parties. They indicate that these parties do not keep up their image as radical opponents of the national political establishment the more they become electorally successful and join government coalitions.