Party Failure, Voter Emotions and Retaliation Intentions in the Context of Digitalization

Digital transformation is reshaping the value relationship that political parties, like firms, maintain with their stakeholders; voters’ reactions are now visible not only at the ballot box but also on social media and in interpersonal networks. This study adapts concepts from the consumer-brand relationship and consumer retaliation literature to political parties and examines the effect of perceived party failure severity on three response intentions (direct complaining to the party, public complaining on social media and negative word of mouth) through voters’ anger and perceived betrayal. The effects of perceived justice and inferred benevolence on negative emotions and the moderating roles of party love and party trust are also tested. Data from 383 eligible voters in Türkiye, collected through an online survey, were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling, bootstrapping and moderation analyses. Failure severity strongly increases anger and perceived betrayal, which are linked to different response channels: anger to direct complaining, which functions as voice directed at the party, and betrayal to public complaining on social media and negative word of mouth. At the level of total indirect effects, however, failure severity increases only direct complaining; its total indirect effect on social media is non-significant and that on negative word of mouth is negative, so failure translates into indirect retaliation only to the extent that it is experienced as betrayal. Hypotheses regarding perceived justice, inferred benevolence, party love and party trust were not supported. Interpreted through a value co-destruction lens, the findings contribute to the political marketing literature on the dark side of the voter-party relationship and offer implications for managing voter complaints in a digitalized communication environment.