Accepting a party’s decision (not) to participate in a coalition government. Do the kind of decision-makers make a difference?

The decision whether or not to participate in a coalition government is crucial for parties operating in parliamentary democracies using a list-PR system. Agreeing (winning) or disagreeing (losing) with this decision can potentially have a considerable impact on party members’ attitudes and behavior. Yet, it remains unclear how members react to such a decision when their opinion is not followed, and whether the kind of decision-makers moderates this effect. It has extensively been documented that losers of elections or referendums are less supportive for the political system than winners (Anderson, Blais, Bowler, Donovan, & Listhaug, 2005; Blais & Gélineau, 2016), but the question is whether such a gap in attitudes and behavior after winning or losing also occurs when party members win or lose on a difficult party decision such as government participation. The reaction of party members is highly relevant both for parties and for the political system as members fulfill many crucial functions, including being vote-multipliers, transmitters of societal concerns, and legitimizers of parties’ roots in society. Although many Western parties have opened up the process of internal decision-making under the noble premises to democratize the party, the exact impact of the kind of decision-makers of internal decisions, and more specifically government participation, on members’ attitudes and behavior remains unclear. According to procedural fairness theorists, including party members might ease the pain of losing as party members feel respected and can present their opinions and ideas without a systematic bias by decision-making authorities (Esaiasson, Persson, Gilljam, & Lindholm, 2016). By setting up a survey experiment among party members of four Belgian parties, this paper investigates the impact of winning or losing the decision of government participation and examines whether the kind of decision-makers (either inclusive or exclusive) moderates the attitudes and behavior of winning or losing party members. Inspired by the literature of the winner-loser gap, attitudes comprise decision acceptance, support for the decision-making process as well as party membership satisfaction and satisfaction with the political party. Behavior refers to different shades of ‘exit’ and ‘loyalty’ including leaving the party, lowering activity rate, and casting a deviant vote.