The decline of political leader popularity: Partisan dealignment and leader integrity in Australia

IF 2.9 2区社会学 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Electoral Studies Pub Date : 2024-01-19 DOI:10.1016/j.electstud.2023.102739

Sarah Cameron , Ian McAllister

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Are political leaders less popular among voters than they used to be? If so, why? Many studies have mapped a decline in citizens' political trust and satisfaction with democracy, but we know less about whether leader popularity is in decline, and if so, what drives this trend. This paper examines these questions using unique data on major party leader popularity and leadership traits from the Australian Election Study collected over four decades. The results show that Australia's major party leaders have become less popular over time. We test a theoretical model which explains declining leader popularity by partisan dealignment and the role of leader integrity. The analyses show that the effect of partisanship on leader popularity has weakened over time, while leader integrity traits have become more important. These findings apply to both major party leaders that have won elections as well as those leaders that have lost elections.

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政治领袖声望的下降：澳大利亚的党派结盟与领导人诚信

政治领导人在选民中的受欢迎程度是否不如从前？如果是，原因何在？许多研究都表明，公民的政治信任度和对民主的满意度在下降，但我们对领导人的受欢迎程度是否在下降，以及如果是的话，是什么原因导致了这一趋势的下降却知之甚少。本文利用澳大利亚选举研究（Australian Election Study）四十年来收集的有关主要政党领导人受欢迎程度和领导特质的独特数据，对这些问题进行了研究。结果表明，随着时间的推移，澳大利亚主要政党领导人的受欢迎程度越来越低。我们检验了一个理论模型，该模型通过党派结盟和领导人诚信的作用来解释领导人受欢迎程度下降的原因。分析表明，随着时间的推移，党派关系对领导人受欢迎程度的影响有所减弱，而领导人的正直特质则变得更加重要。这些发现既适用于在选举中获胜的主要政党领导人，也适用于在选举中失利的领导人。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Electoral Studies POLITICAL SCIENCE-

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

13.00%

发文量

审稿时长

67 days

期刊介绍： Electoral Studies is an international journal covering all aspects of voting, the central act in the democratic process. Political scientists, economists, sociologists, game theorists, geographers, contemporary historians and lawyers have common, and overlapping, interests in what causes voters to act as they do, and the consequences. Electoral Studies provides a forum for these diverse approaches. It publishes fully refereed papers, both theoretical and empirical, on such topics as relationships between votes and seats, and between election outcomes and politicians reactions; historical, sociological, or geographical correlates of voting behaviour; rational choice analysis of political acts, and critiques of such analyses.