When does valence matter? Heightened valence effects for governing parties during election campaigns

Abney, R., Adams, J., Clark, M., Easton, M., Ezrow, L., Kosmidis, S. and Neundorf, A. (2013) When does valence matter? Heightened valence effects for governing parties during election campaigns. Party Politics, 19(1), pp. 61-82. (doi: 10.1177/1354068810395057)

Abstract

Empirical election studies conclude that party elites' images with respect to competence, integrity and party unity – attributes that we label character-based valence – affect their electoral support (Stone and Simas, 2010). We compile observations of media reports pertaining to governing party elites' character-based valence attributes, and we relate the content of these reports to mass support for the governing parties. We present pooled, time-series, analyses of party support and valence-related media reports in six European polities which suggest that these reports exert powerful electoral effects during election campaigns but little effect during off-election periods. This finding, which we label the Election Period Valence Effect, is consistent with previous work concluding that citizens are also more attentive to policy-based considerations and to national economic conditions around the time of elections. These findings have implications for political representation and for understanding election outcomes.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Neundorf, Professor Anja
• Authors: Abney, R., Adams, J., Clark, M., Easton, M., Ezrow, L., Kosmidis, S., and Neundorf, A.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Journal Name: Party Politics
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• ISSN: 1354-0688
• ISSN (Online): 1460-3683
• Published Online: 29 June 2011