The aim of this paper is to compare the European party systems from the perspective of „partisan ambivalence“. I will rely on the conceptualization of Lavine, Johnston and Steenbergen (2012), who propose a normative ideal-type of democratic citizen: an „ambivalent partisan“, who is critical in her partisan loyalty and is, thus, less biased and more likely to engage in deliberative thinking when formulating her political stances and reaching political decisions. Ambivalent partisans are willing to acknowledge the negative sides of their own party and positive aspects of competing parties. Such critical attitudes, according to Lavine, Johnston and Steenbergen, are necessary for good citizenship and a well-functioning democracy.
This paper constitutes an attempt to bring the concept of partisan ambivalence which has been developed and so far studied in the US political system into European (multiparty) context. If Lavine, Johston and Steenbergen analyze partisan ambivalence within one political system (United States), then I will conduct a comparison of different party systems. Thus, I will treat partisan ambivalence as a continous variable and determine in which European countries we can see higher level of it and which systems, conversely, are characterized by more univalent partisan attitudes. I will introduce the Party System Ambivalence Index that is based on 1) the average like-dislike evaluations partisans give to their own and to other political parties; 2) public support of the parties indicated by the vote share in general elections. Partisan ambivalence level is expected to be higher when the differences between the evaluation scores of partisan’s own party and other parties are smaller.
Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems database (Third and Fourth Module), I apply this new measure of system-level partisan ambivalence on 35 democratic elections in 23 European countries from all the main geopolitical regions. Results indicate that the most ambivalent partisans are to be found in The Netherlands, where partisan attitudes are significantly more moderate towards the competing parties than in any other country in my sample. Finnish and Icelandic partisans also hold rather ambivalent attitudes. Lowest levels of partisan ambivalence describe the party systems of Czech Republic, Montenegro and Greece, where partisans - while being highly positive towards their own party - show very negative attitudes towards the other political forces.
I will also analyze the correlation of Party System Ambivalence Index with two other system-level variables: party polarization and perceived level of corruption in the country. Somewhat surprisingly, I find no statistical relationship between party polarization on the left-right dimension (measured by Dalton’s Party Polarization Index) and party system ambivalence level. However, the results indicate clearly that in countries that are perceived to be more corrupt, partisans are less ambivalent. Such initial results suggest that next to ideological considerations, also valence competition between the parties might play a notable role in determining partisan attitudes.
