Conflict or cooperation? How opposition party behaviour affects voters’ party evaluations

Opposition parties are central actors in accounts of democracies (e.g. Dahl 1966). Prior research addressed issues such as institutional factors to gauge the power wielded by opposition parties, and how they affect opposition parties’ choices for engaging in conflictual behaviour vis-à-vis the government or opting for cooperative approaches. However, scant attention has been devoted to understanding citizens’ views of such opposition party behaviour. We aim to fill this gap by examining how opposition parties’ choices of conflict or cooperation with the government affect citizens’ evaluations of both opposition and government parties. Our study centres on the case of Germany, where the considerable institutional power vested in opposition parties provides a framework for genuine choice between cooperation and conflict. We use data from four large-scale survey experiments in which we systematically manipulated opposition party behaviour. These experiments were conducted between 2020 and 2022, allowing us to study the effects of opposition party behaviour in different contexts, including cases of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in the realm of more everyday politics. Although mixed, the results suggest that cooperative opposition party behaviour provides a promising, often overlooked avenue for opposition parties to attract citizens.