Ambivalence across the globe: Investigating political ambivalence and its impact on vote switching in 52 multi-party systems

Abstract

In many countries across the globe, the number of vote switchers is quite high. An under-researched dimension of this phenomenon is the impact of ambivalent political attitudes. Ambivalence describes the situation in which a person simultaneously has positive attitudes toward more than one political party or more than one political leader. Whilst the effects of party and leader ambivalence on vote switching have been investigated in the American political system, their application to multi-party systems is rare. This article aims to fill this gap. Before doing so, however, the article focuses on the development of party and leader ambivalent attitudes and system features of multi-party systems influencing ambivalence. For this research purpose, the article uses data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems covering 195 elections in 52 multi-party systems between 1996 and 2020. The results, among others, demonstrate that ambivalence increases voters’ probability to switch parties between elections.