Consider, as another example, the Italian election of 1994, where the dynamics we identify disadvantaged Berlusconi’s at-the-time nascent political formation.

By election day, electoral support shifted away from the Lega significantly but candidacies had already been allocated. Thus, a generous ex-ante endowment of candidacies for the Lega led to its overrepresentation in terms of seats.

We analyze the allocation of (FPTP) candidacies among the partners of the main pre-electoral coalitions. The right-wing coalition distributed candidacies (largely) proportional to their partners’ momentary strength in the polls as well as in a manner that safeguarded incumbent MPs.

Consider, for instance, the over-time development between frequent church service attendance and living in a union household on affect towards Christian and Social Democrats.

However, this reflects a return to the close link that already existed at the heyday of the original cleavages. What is new is that voters’ affect is less patterned by social structure than in the past.

We find that citizens‘ affective orientations towards parties – their instinctive, unmediated, and embodied summary evaluations of them – are tied more closely to vote choice than in the past.