Attitudinal Ambivalence on Redistribution: Causes and Electoral Implications Across Europe

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00104140231152759
• Author: Alon Yakter
• Date: 01 September 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Comparative Political Studies

2023, Vol. 56(11) 1631–1662

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00104140231152759

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Attitudinal Ambivalence

on Redistribution: Causes

and Electoral

Implications Across

Europe

Alon Yakter

1



Abstract

While support for redistribution remains high across Europe, voting for left-

wing parties, traditionally identif‌ied with this agenda, has been under par. Past

research explains this puzzle by class-based disagreements about redistrib-

utive priorities and by second-dimension attitudes. These explanations,

however, assume coherent voter preferences reacting to structural changes.

By contrast, I argue that part of the puzzle also lies in attitudinal ambivalence—

simultaneous negative and positive evaluations—regarding redistributive

policy. Using cross-sectional public opinion and party position data, I f‌ind that

such ambivalence increases with lower political sophistication, greater value

conf‌lict, and weaker economic need. Electorally, it deepens detachment

between support for redistribution and left-wing self-identif‌ication and in-

creases voting for more economically and culturally right-wing parties. These

patterns hold independently of class differences and second-dimension atti-

tudes and replicate stably in earlier data. The f‌indings contribute to ongoing

debates about attitude structures and voting patterns and illuminate an ad-

ditional challenge for economically progressive parties.

1

School of Political Science, Government and International Relations, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Alon Yakter, School of Political Science, Government and International Relations, Tel Aviv

University, Naftali Building of Social Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel.

Email: ayakter@tauex.tau.ac.il

Keywords

public opinion, attitudes, ambivalence, voting behavior, european politics,

redistribution, political economy, political psychology

The electoral decline of the once-dominant economic left, especially social

democratic parties, constitutes one of the notable changes in contemporary

Western politics (Benedetto et al., 2020). The partisan left in Europe has long

been identif‌ied with the expansion of income redistribution and social policy

(Huber & Stephens, 2001;Korpi, 1983). Greater support for redistribution,

moreover, remains a key explanation for left-wing voting (Abou-Chadi & Hix,

2021;Lewis-Beck & Nadeau, 2011;Quinlan & Okolikj, 2020). Yet, curiously,

despite the left’s underperformance in recent years, public support for gov-

ernment redistribution has remained stable and high. This pattern is illustrated

in Figure 1, which compares the average seat share of economically left-wing

parties and the level of general support for redistribution (GSR) across Eu-

rope.

1

What explains the gap between attitudes about redistribution and

support for economically left-wing parties that promote it?

The literature proposes two dominant answers to thispuzzle. First, although

GSR remains high, class-based disagreements about redistributive priorities

hurt the economic leftelectorally (e.g., Gingrich & H¨

ausermann, 2015;Karreth

et al., 2013;Lindvall & Rueda, 2014). Second, the increased salience of so-

called second-dimension issues—namely, cultural and social concerns—

weakens the traditional link between redistributive preferences and voting

(e.g., Bornschier, 2010;Hooghe & Marks, 2018;Kriesi et al., 2008). These

Figure 1. Average Seat Share for Economically Left Parties (Panel A) and General

Support for Redistribution (Panel B) Across Europe, 1999–2020. The black line plots

the sample mean and gray lines mark country-specif‌ic trends.

1632 Comparative Political Studies 56(11)

explanations, however, assume coherent voter preferences that shift following

large-scale sociostructural processes. As such, little attention is given to ad-

ditional micro-level explanations rooted in incohesive attitudes. Yet, as other

works show, many voters display inconsistent and conf‌licting positions on

divisive issues,impacting their policy preferencesand voting behavior (Alvarez

&Brehm,2002;Converse, 1964;Feldman & Zaller, 1992;Lavine, 2001).

Redistributiveattitudes, in particular, comprise multiple dimensions that do not

always covary (Attewell, 2021;Cavaill´

e & Trump, 2015;Roosmaet al., 2013).

Nevertheless,the nature and electoral consequencesof internal attitude conf‌licts

regarding redistribution have not been thoroughly explored.

In this paper, I argue that ambivalent attitudes on redistribution—def‌ined as

the conf‌licted endorsement of both positive and negative evaluations of such

policies—play an important part in the disconnect between general redis-

tributive preferences and support for the parties that promote them. Specif-

ically, I examine both the causes and the electoral implications of such

ambivalence. Using cross-sectional European Social Survey (ESS) data from

2016, I f‌ind that ambivalence regarding redistribution increases among in-

dividuals with lower political sophistication, greater internal conf‌lict in core

values, and weaker economic need. Contrary to some expectations, ambiv-

alence levels are not inf‌luenced by occupational class or by party polarization

on these issues.

Then, matching the surveys with Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) data

on party positions, I show that greater ambivalence correlates with a deeper

incongruence between GSR and left-wing self-identif‌ication and predicts

voting for more economically and culturally right-wing parties. Importantly,

these relationships hold independently of class and second-dimension in-

f‌luences, the key macro-level explanations proposed in the literature. These

patterns, moreover, are replicated in data from 2008, before the Eurozone and

refugee crises, implying a sustained structural challenge for the partisan left.

The paper makes several contributions to the current debates about re-

distributive preferences, attitude structures, and electoral politics. First, my

f‌indings outline an underdiscussed factor that inf‌luences traditional voting

patterns across Europe. Whereas the literature emphasizes structural pro-

cesses, my analysis shows that micro-level attitudinal inconsistencies, rooted

in cognitive characteristics, play a meaningful complementary role. Fur-

thermore, it implies different electoral lessons than commonly discussed (e.g.,

Abou-Chadi & Wagner, 2019): in addition to adjusting their mix of issue

positions and social coalitions, left-wing parties may also benef‌it from better

messages, frames, and information that could help less sophisticated and

conf‌licted voters reconcile their redistributive attitudes. Similarly, right-wing

parties can attempt to deepen this ambivalence and the value conf‌lict at its

basis.

Yakter 1633