2015/03/24 by Debra Leiter, Michael Clark · 21 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Accountability #Competence (human resources) #Democracy #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Ideology #Law #Opposition (politics) #Physics #Political science #Politics #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Psychology #Social Media and Politics #Social psychology #Valence (chemistry)
paper · doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12088
published in European Journal of Political Research 54(3), 543-562 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2015/03/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26
Abstract In recent studies, scholars have highlighted factors that influence citizen satisfaction with democracy, with particular emphasis on the role played by the institutional features of political systems, and ideology. This article presents the first empirical study of whether changes in important party characteristics can affect individuals' satisfaction with democracy. Using a measure of parties' character‐valence derived from content analysis of news reports, evidence is presented that when governing parties' images decline with respect to important valence‐related attributes such as competence, unity and integrity, then citizen satisfaction with democracy similarly declines. However, this relationship is conditional on the performance of opposition parties. These findings are relevant to studies of regime support, political representation, democratic accountability and voter behaviour.