Ida B. Hjermitslev’s research while affiliated with Aalborg University and other places

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Publications (10)


Setting realistic expectations: When do citizens appreciate willingness to compromise on specific policies?
  • Article

January 2025

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2 Reads

Party Politics

Ida B Hjermitslev

Recent research draws mixed conclusions about voters’ appreciation for compromise in politics. On one hand, compromise is touted as a democratic virtue and on the other hand, voters seem to punish politicians that are seen as too compromising. Do voters understand and appreciate that parties will have to make concessions on some issues in order to influence others? Or do voters prefer representatives who vouch to stay ideologically pure across the board? In a conjoint experiment, embedded in a survey of Austrian voters conducted in June 2022, I test various hypotheses about the interactive effects of policy positions, issue importance, and compromise behavior in a pre-electoral setting. I find that voters generally prefer willingness to compromise over steadfast principles, but this is particularly true if it moves policy outcomes closer towards themselves or if it is on issues they care less about.



A compromising mindset? How citizens evaluate the trade‐offs in coalition politics

November 2023

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9 Reads

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2 Citations

European Journal of Political Research

Coalition building depends on citizens having a ‘compromising mindset’: they must accept that parties need to compromise in order to gain influence and that this entails deviating from the original policy positions. In this study, we show that European citizens understand that compromise is essential for democratic governance and that they, holding everything else constant, prefer political parties that express a willingness to compromise. This finding appears to be independent from specific forms of coalition politics and to be widespread across different levels of political interest, formal education and even ideological extremity. Our analysis compares observational data from the Austrian National Election Survey (AUTNES) 2020 and an original survey from Denmark in 2021. We also present results from a conjoint experiment fielded in Denmark, which evaluates the effect of willingness to compromise on vote choice. Our finding is good news for European democracies where coalition politics and thus compromise is a necessity for governance. Yet, for vote‐seeking politics, the situation is complex as citizens might sometimes punish parties for compromising, but sometimes also punish them for not compromising.


20 years of niche parties being ‘fundamentally different’: Party constituency versus mean voter representation on multiple issues

October 2023

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32 Reads

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2 Citations

Party Politics

The literature on the concept of niche parties is rapidly growing. Characterized by a narrow electorate with extreme issue positions or salience and their responsiveness to this electorate, debate remains as to their operationalization and multidimensional behavior. This paper explores the variation in definitions used to identify niche parties or “nicheness” and analyzes their implications for the validity of findings about the strategic behavior of niche parties. Specifically, we replicate a much cited article, which argues that niche parties are more responsive to their supporters than mainstream parties while mainstream parties are more responsive to the general electorate. Using manifesto, expert, and survey data covering more than 81 European parties in the period 2006-2019, we show that this key finding is surprisingly robust to various niche party definitions. Beyond this, we demonstrate that niche parties are more responsive to their voters in multidimensional space, while mainstream parties are primarily responsive to the general electorate. The multidimensional responsiveness of niche parties - to their narrower electorate - ought to be taken into account by future scholars of party-voter linkages.


Punishing the pseudo‐opposition: Accountability under a minority government

August 2023

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15 Reads

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4 Citations

European Journal of Political Research

Minority governments often rely on the legislative support of parties, which play an ambiguous role in politics: while they are formally part of the opposition, they are simultaneously committed to keeping the government in office and passing its bills. Are these support parties protected from the electoral cost of governing or do voters recognize their responsibility for policy outcomes and hold them accountable? I hypothesize that voters who are dissatisfied with government performance will have less sympathy towards and will be less likely to vote for support parties. Using Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data, I find consistent support for both hypotheses. Voters seem to recognize the connection between support parties and the government and have both an affective and an electoral response to it. While voters dislike support parties more than junior members when they are dissatisfied with government performance, they punish the two types of parties similarly at elections. Support parties are thus in no way exempt from the accountability mechanisms.


Figure 1. Distribution of Dependent Variable
Figure 2. Average Marginal Effect of GAL-TAN Position (Dependent on GAL-TAN Shares)
Figure 3. Three-Way Interaction
Perceptual Consequences of Portfolios: How Allocation Affects Left–Right Placement
  • Article
  • Full-text available

June 2023

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33 Reads

Government and Opposition

Recent research suggests that party leaders can strategically impact the perceived left–right position of their parties by changing their selective emphasis on certain issues. We suggest that a party's ideological image can also be altered by the portfolio allocation of the coalition government in which the party participates. By controlling a portfolio, the party will have a more direct influence on the related issue and will frequently communicate the party's issue position publicly, thereby cultivating a perception of strong emphasis on the related issue. We run a cross-national party-level analysis showing that portfolio allocation matters with regard to the importance of the subdimensions for the general left–right dimension. In particular, the influence of sociocultural stances depends on the share of sociocultural portfolios. In addition, we show that the mechanism does not apply at the beginning of a government's tenure, but only after a year or longer in office.

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Between cabinet membership and opposition: Commitment and responsibility of support parties

June 2022

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12 Reads

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2 Citations

Party Politics

Existing research suggests that government participation is crucial for how voters evaluate party performance and how they cast their votes. However, in real life the distinction between government and opposition is not as straight-forward as one would think. Minority governments often enjoy the legislative support of external support parties, which play an ambiguous role in politics: while they are formally part of the opposition, they are simultaneously committed to keeping the government in office and passing its bills. How do voters evaluate parties that support a minority government? Will they respond to different frames about the significance of the commitment that support parties have made to government policy and survival? In a survey experiment, I test whether framing a written agreement as effective will cause voters to attribute more or less responsibility to the support parties and find that they respond to different frames by altering their perceptions of the importance of the agreement, but not their responsibility attribution.


Collaboration or competition? Experimental evidence for coalition heuristics

May 2022

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7 Reads

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6 Citations

European Journal of Political Research

Does coalition formation have a causal effect on the perceived ideological distance between the coalition members? Observational research shows that voters typically think of parties that form a coalition government as more ideologically similar than those that do not, holding everything else constant. Their many qualities aside, the existing studies are not able to establish a causal relationship between coalition formation and changing perceptions. It is quite possible that voters are reacting to concurrent changes in parties' stated policy and not the coalition information itself. In this paper, I present two survey experiments that isolates the difference between telling voters that two parties can cooperate and telling them that they cannot. In both experiments, I find evidence supporting the theory of coalition heuristics. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved


Figure 4. Outcome and Counterfactual Perceptions of Positions on General Left/Right Dimension on the Mainstream Right after Coalition Formation
Party Placement Before/After Coalition Formation, 2002
Party Placement Before/After the Support Agreement, 2010
Coefficient Estimates for Perceived Party Position on Asylum
ATT Averaged Over All Periods
Mainstream Sell-Outs? How Collaboration with the Radical Right Changes Perceptions of Party Positions on Immigration

December 2020

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27 Reads

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7 Citations

Government and Opposition

European mainstream right parties are increasingly choosing to include radical right parties in coalition governments or other types of stable and committed cooperation. How does this cooperation affect voters’ perceptions of party positions? This article examines whether coalition signals have a significant impact on voters’ perceptions of the specific policy issues that were at stake in the bargaining process. More specifically, does the issue ownership of the radical right cause voters to perceive mainstream parties as radicalizing on immigration issues pertaining to asylum and multiculturalism? I compare the perceptions of Dutch parties before and after two coalition formations that (formally and informally) involved a radical right party: the coalition with the List Pim Fortuyn in 2002 and the support agreement with the Freedom Party in 2010. Furthermore, I examine the long-term effects of the Danish mainstream right government's reliance on the support of the radical right Danish People's Party in 2001–11.


The electoral cost of coalition participation: Can anyone escape?

August 2018

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56 Reads

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27 Citations

Party Politics

It is a well-established empirical finding that governments on average lose votes during their time in office. This exploratory analysis examines whether all members of coalition governments suffer the electoral cost of governing equally. Using electoral data from 20 parliamentary systems from 1961 to 2015, I compare the electoral performance of junior coalition members, the prime minister of a coalition, and single-party governments. Furthermore, I examine the conditioning effects of economic performance, legislative institutions as well as party ideology and size. I find that there are substantial differences in the electoral cost of governing for different types of coalition participation. The evidence suggests that the prime minister in a coalition is partially insulated from the penalties of government and thus should try to attract junior coalition members whenever possible.

Citations (4)


... Müller 2024). Auf diese Weise muss sie weniger um einen Rückgang der Unterstützung bei zukünftigen Wahlen fürchten (siehe Fortunato et al. 2021;Hjermitslev 2024). Ein Beispiel für eine solche Minderheitskoalitionsregierung ist die 2022 ins Amt gekommene schwedische Regierung von Premierminister Kristersson, die aus den konservativen Moderaten, den Liberalen und den Christdemokraten besteht, jedoch parlamentarisch von den rechtspopulistischen Schwedendemokraten gestützt wird. ...

Reference:

Theorie und Empirie der Vergleichenden Koalitionsforschung: Stand und Ausblick
Punishing the pseudo‐opposition: Accountability under a minority government
  • Citing Article
  • August 2023

European Journal of Political Research

... Our key expectation is that, when party elites signal that they can work and govern together, there will be a decrease in the mutual affective dislike among their partisans. In addition to examining the overall effect of coalition signals on affective distance, we also examine whether these effects are due to changes to perceived ideological distance (Fortunato and Stevenson, 2013;Falcó-Gimeno and Muñoz, 2017;Hjermitslev, 2022) and/or due to warmer personal relations between party leaders (Huddy and Yair, 2021). We test our expectations in an online survey experiment conducted in Austria in fall 2021. ...

Collaboration or competition? Experimental evidence for coalition heuristics
  • Citing Article
  • May 2022

European Journal of Political Research

... Yet this also parallels what Cas Mudde (2010) has characterized in the European context as the "pathological normalcy" of radical right values, whose popular appeal can be traced to how the radical right draws from mainstream values and concerns rather than offering radical alternatives to them (also see Buštíková, 2014;Lubbers & Coenders, 2017;Mondon & Winter, 2020). Participation by radical right parties in the political process, whether within coalition governments or opposition, has moreover tended not to moderate included radical parties, but rather to pull mainstream political discourse and policy outputs rightward (Akkerman & Rooduijn, 2015;Down & Han, 2020;Han, 2015;Hjermitslev, 2020;Minkenberg, 2013). The United States lacks most European democracies' multi-party systems wherein extreme groups and interests have the potential to achieve independent political representation. ...

Mainstream Sell-Outs? How Collaboration with the Radical Right Changes Perceptions of Party Positions on Immigration

Government and Opposition

... Ein grundlegendes Modell für die Koalitionsbildung in komplexen, mehrdimensionalen Räumen haben Laver und Shepsle (1996) Laver und Shepsle (1990, 1996 anschließende Literatur hat sich vor allem kritisch mit der Annahme der ministerial discretion auseinandergesetzt und auf empirisch beobachtbare, wenngleich selbst imperfekte (Goodhart 2013) Kontrollmechanismen hingewiesen, wie Staatssekretäre (Thies 2001), Parlamentsausschüsse (Mattson und Strøm 1995;Martin und Vanberg 2005, 2020 und Koalitionsverträge (Müller und Strøm 2008;Bowler et al. 2016;Klüver et al. 2023). ...

The electoral cost of coalition participation: Can anyone escape?
  • Citing Article
  • August 2018

Party Politics