How Do Voters Evaluate Performance in Opposition?

Abstract Recent scholarship on retrospective voting has shown that when they go to the polls, voters evaluate not only incumbent performance, but also the performance of parties in opposition. So far, however, these studies have not been able to identify how voters evaluate the performance of parties in opposition. The answers to a unique open-ended question included in a Belgian electoral survey in 2019 provide new insights into voters' minds. First, this study investigates what voters think about when they evaluate a party's performance in opposition. Second, it tests whether voters hold opposition parties responsible for the state of affairs in the country. The results show that voters are most concerned with opposition parties' competence in scrutinizing the government and providing constructive criticism, and dislike unconstructive and overly negative opposition. Furthermore, voters hold opposition parties accountable for the state of affairs in their country, albeit to a lesser extent than incumbent parties.