Concept and measurement
Traditional party identification research focused on which party people feel they belong to. Rose and Mishler (1998) measured negative party identification in post-Communist countries by asking which party people would never vote for, showing it was as widespread as positive identification. Medeiros and Noël (2014) reported that in the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia, negative identification affects vote choice independently of positive identification. Bankert (2021) measured the two with separate scales and showed negative partisanship has unique predictive power.
The rise in the United States
Abramowitz and Webster (2016) found that as feelings toward the opposing party cooled sharply in the United States, straight-ticket voting and the nationalization of elections strengthened together. Abramowitz and Webster (2018) explained that many Americans dislike their own party yet behave like rabid partisans because of their aversion to the other side. This aligns with the affective polarization reported by Iyengar et al. (2012), in which animus toward the other side grows more than ideological differences.
Consequences and significance
Caruana et al. (2015) showed that in Canada negative partisanship affects turnout and strategic voting. Negative partisanship can mobilize voters and raise turnout, but there are concerns that it makes compromise harder and turns politics into a zero-sum contest. From the perspective of social identity theory, it exemplifies how hostility toward an outgroup can drive collective behavior as much as ingroup identity.
FAQ
- What is negative partisanship in simple terms?
- Voting mainly to stop the party you dislike from winning, rather than out of love for your own.
- Why act as a partisan while disliking parties?
- Even if you dislike your own party, you dislike the other one more, so you keep voting for one side.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Rose, R., & Mishler, W. (1998). Negative and positive party identification in post-Communist countries. Electoral Studies, 17(2), 217–234. Early study in post-Communist countries.
- Iyengar, S., Sood, G., & Lelkes, Y. (2012). Affect, not ideology: A social identity perspective on polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 76(3), 405–431. Rising out-party animus (affective polarization).
- Medeiros, M., & Noël, A. (2014). The forgotten side of partisanship: Negative party identification in four Anglo-American democracies. Comparative Political Studies, 47(7), 1022–1046. Comparative evidence from four democracies.
- Caruana, N. J., McGregor, R. M., & Stephenson, L. B. (2015). The power of the dark side: Negative partisanship and political behaviour in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 48(4), 771–789. Behavioral effects in Canada.
- Abramowitz, A. I., & Webster, S. (2016). The rise of negative partisanship and the nationalization of U.S. elections in the 21st century. Electoral Studies, 41, 12–22. Rise of negative partisanship in the US.
- Abramowitz, A. I., & Webster, S. W. (2018). Negative partisanship: Why Americans dislike parties but behave like rabid partisans. Political Psychology, 39(S1), 119–135. Why people dislike parties yet act as partisans.
- Bankert, A. (2021). Negative and positive partisanship in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Political Behavior, 43(4), 1467–1485. Separate measures of positive and negative partisanship.