Partisan Reactions to Endogenous Election Timing: Evidence from Conjoint Experiments in Japan

In parliamentary democracies, the government often decides election timing in its favor. Despite a growing interest in voters’ perceptions of opportunistic elections, we know little about when voters evaluate election timing announced by the government as desirable. To address this question, we analyze voters’ perceptions of endogenous election timing, showing that popular desirability of election timing depends on the nature of electoral competition and voter partisanship. Using conjoint experiments, we demonstrate that calling a snap election damages the evaluations of opposition supporters and non-partisans, who prefer having viable alternatives at elections. Specifically, we found that opposition and non-partisan voters tend to think changes in timing as undesirable when government support is high and the opposition’s coordination is likely to fail. In contrast, government supporters are less sensitive to when elections are called. Our findings help us understand the consequences of opportunistic elections.