From booths to beliefs

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

This session of the Political Behaviour Colloquium features a presentation by Elena Pro, PhD researcher at European Institute of the London School of Economics.

What is the connection between the act of voting and attitudes towards political groups? Elections are known to galvanise the political discourse and polarise citizens across party lines. This paper aims to explain this phenomenon, exploring the uniqueness of this mechanism in European multi-party systems. Traditional approaches grounded in positive political theory explain actions as outcomes of preferences and attitudes. Conversely, cognitive dissonance theory suggests that actions may shape preferences themselves. To test this theory in the context of elections, this paper measures the effect of the act of voting on attitudes towards fellow partisans and political opponents. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, the research design leverages voting age eligibility as an instrument to estimate the unbiased effect of the act of voting on respondents' attitudes. The results indicate that elections enhance animus towards political opponents, but do not necessarily fortify partisan attachment. These preliminary findings provide unique insights into the relationship between voting and polarisation within a multi-party system and prompt a re-evaluation of the influence of democratic processes on attitudes.

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