In i värmen?

Vinnare- och förlorareffekter och förtroendet för Valmyndigheten

Abstract

In from the cold? Winner-loser effects and confidence in the Election Authority

Research on winner-loser effects has demonstrated the consequences voting for a winning or losing party have on evaluations of democracy: Voting for the winners makes voters more positive toward democracy and the electoral process while voting for the losers makes them more negative. However, in the literature, less attention has been devoted to a possible winner-loser effect on confidence in the institutions responsible for the conduct of elections. In the following study, we bridge this gap by exploring how confidence in Sweden’s Election Authority changed among voters of winning and losing parties. The analyses indicated that, despite the high institutional trust and system support in Sweden, voters lost confidence in the Election Authority if their party lost and gained confidence if their party won. This effect was strongest among voters of the Sweden Democrats. Overall, Sweden Democratic voters gained the most confidence after the 2022 election, probably attributable to the Sweden Democrats shedding their pariah status and invited to real government influence in 2022.