Electoral Accountability Within Limits; Retrospective Voting and the Polarisation of Available Alternatives

Retrospective voting theory has been widely investigated, and previous studies have indicated how the clarity of a country's political context and of the cohesiveness of the government in power in particular moderate the reward-punishment mechanism. We add to this literature by investigating an element that has been largely overlooked by previous studies: the ideological polarisation of the government and the opposition. Building on the literature on clarity of responsibility and the literature on the effect of valence issues on the vote, we argue that the extent to which government and opposition are ideologically distinct moderates retrospective voting: if the voter's options are clear - i.e., ideologically distinct - it will be easier to reward and punish the incumbent party for its performance. Furthermore, a vote for an ideologically distinct opposition party ensures a change in policies compared to the previous government's term. Using the data of the second and third module of the CSES, we introduce and test two new measures of the polarisation of available alternatives, and find strong positive moderation effects. These results provide further insight in the role of party systems in retrospective voting.status: publishe