Tracing the cognitive and affective roots of ‘party competence’: Italy and Britain, 2001

This paper presents findings from a study of the role of “party competence” as an explanatory variable of voting choice. Arguing that party competence can find an independent status in explaining voting choice, and a place in the reasoning of voters, it is shown that it can be distinguished from issue-ownership. Further, it has both a cognitive and affective components—through the role, respectively, of retrospective performance evaluation and of leadership—and exerts a significant independent impact on voters' choice. The analysis is carried out on post-election surveys conducted by Italian (Itanes) and British (Bes) election study in 2001.