Partisanship, Militarized International Conflict, and Electoral Support for the Incumbent
Singh, Shane P. and Jaroslav Tir. 2017. “Partisanship, Militarized International Conflict, and Electoral Support for the Incumbent.” Political Research Quarterly.
Abstract:
Comparative politics scholarship often neglects to consider how militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) shape political behavior. In this project, we advance an argument that considers voter responses to international conflict at the individual level. In particular, we consider how the well-known conditioning effects of partisanship manifest in relation to militarized international conflict. Examining individual- and macro-level data across 97 elections in 42 countries over the 1996-2011 period, we find consistent evidence of militarized conflict impacting vote choice. This relationship is, however, moderated by partisanship, conflict side (initiator or target), and conflict hostility level. Among non-copartisan voters, the incumbent benefits the most electorally from initiating low-hostility MIDs or when the country is a target of a high-hostility MID; the opposite scenarios (target of a low-hostility MID or initiator of a high-hostility MID) lead to punishment among this voter group. Copartisans, meanwhile, tend to either maintain or intensify their support in most scenarios we examine; when a country is targeted in a low-hostility MID, copartisan support erodes mildly.