When it's hard to change. Party system polarization and vote switching

This paper examines the effect of party system polarization on voters' volatility. In line with the image of the 'echo chamber', research on voting behavior has been showing that divergent party positions increase the amount of issue voting, for citizens care about policies only when parties offer them real alternatives. In this study I test a model where party ideological distances influence the extent to which voters are willing to switch from their previous choice. Based on spatial theory of voting behavior, I expect voters to be more likely to change their preference the more the options are ideologically similar, and to be more prone to stand pat on one single option the more the alternatives are different. Differently from previous research, where polarization is taken into account as a mediator for the effect of policy preferences on party evaluations, the focus of this paper is rather the direct effect of party distances on voting behavior over time. In order to assure enough contextual variation, the hypotheses derived from the theoretical model are tested at the individual level using several waves of the Dutch National Election Study.