2020/03/09 by Laurenz Ennser‐Jedenastik, Gijs Schumacher · 11 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Affect (linguistics) #Business #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Fiscal Policies and Political Economy #Law #Political science #Politics #Premise #Psychology #Public administration #Public relations #Social Media and Politics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12391
published in European Journal of Political Research 60(1), 114-130 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2020/03/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract Rational choice theories of political behaviour start from the premise that parties seek policy, office, and votes. In accordance with this premise, previous research has shown that electoral performance and office achievement independently affect party leader survival. However, we know little about how goal attainment interacts across these two domains. This paper proposes a novel hypothesis stating that intrinsic goals (office) dominate over purely instrumental ones (votes). As a result, the impact of electoral performance on party leader survival should be conditional on office achievement. Using data on over 500 party leaders in 14 parliamentary democracies between 1965 and 2012, we show that electoral performance and office achievement strongly affect leadership turnover. However, we also demonstrate that the electoral performance effect disappears when parties enter or exit office at the same time. These results constitute the best direct evidence to date that parties prioritise office achievement over electoral success.