Coalition heuristics in multi-level systems

Recent studies have found that voters use coalition heuristics to make inferences about party positions. When parties cooperate, they are perceived as closer together in an ideological space than when they compete. So far, this mechanism has only been tested at the national level and researchers have largely disregarded the complex interaction between parties competing and cooperating at various levels of a federal state. A German citizen is continuously exposed to different coalitions in her own state, in neighbouring states, and at the federal level. In this paper we argue that this complex multi-level system should have an influence on the perception of voters, especially for coalition parties. More specifically, we hypothesize that voters will perceive those national parties as closer to each other on a left-right scale that are in government in their state even though they are not members of the same coalition at the national level. We test our hypothesis by relying on the GLES 2016-2020 panel study. By doing so, we will not only analyse how regional government participation influences the perception of parties at the national level but also test what kind of consequences change in government participation at the regional level has for this perception. Our results will have important implications for the consequences of government participation in complex multi-level systems.