Electing in the dark? Voting behavior in light of polarization

Abstract This paper develops a behavioral public choice model. It provides testable hypothesis to explain voter shifts in European national elections in the last decade. The model comprises three blocs of parties, the government, the opposition and so-called “profiteers”. Retrospective voters evaluate the performance of each bloc. Furthermore, it introduces an exogenous polarizing event that can affect the government’s and the profiteers’ chance to satisfy voters. Moreover, voters are subject to the negativity bias, which means that negative changes in probabilities to satisfy are stronger than positive changes. This framework yields various results on voting behavior under polarization. Most are robust to the introduction of non-voting. The government only profits from polarization iff sufficiently many positively voters are polarized in their favor to outweigh both the negativity bias and the increased competitiveness by profiteers due to polarization. Profiteers, strengthened by polarization, harm the opposition and increase voter turnout. Additionally, a higher negativity bias impairs the government, decreases voter turnout and benefits the opposition and profiteers.