The will for reason: voter demand for experts in office

Populism and technocracy constitute the main challenges to party government. While significant research has been devoted to support for populism, less is known about voters' demand for experts. In this study, a conjoint experiment in Spain to examine whether citizens prefer experts in executive...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:West European politics 2021-07, Vol.44 (7), p.1506-1531
Main Authors: Lavezzolo, Sebastián, Ramiro, Luis, Fernández-Vázquez, Pablo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Candidates
conjoint experiments
Crises
Experts
Manipulation
Partisanship
party government
Party identification
Populism
Priming
Representative democracy
Responsiveness
Spain
Technocracy
Voters
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Summary:Populism and technocracy constitute the main challenges to party government. While significant research has been devoted to support for populism, less is known about voters' demand for experts. In this study, a conjoint experiment in Spain to examine whether citizens prefer experts in executive positions is presented. It focuses on the most common form of expert participation in office: individuals who combine technical expertise and a party affiliation, the technopols. The conjoint experiment is complemented with a priming manipulation to examine to what extent the demand for experts depends on whether the crisis of representation is presented as a crisis of responsiveness or a crisis of responsibility. The results show that voters value expertise above any other candidate trait, including partisanship. Exposure to neither framing of the crisis substantially alters the strong demand for technopols. These findings contribute to the literature on voter attitudes towards the crisis of party government.
ISSN:0140-2382
1743-9655
DOI:10.1080/01402382.2020.1778917