How Citizens Judge Extreme Legislative Dissent: Experimental Evidence from Canada on Party Switching

Prior research suggests that voters prefer legislators who dissent from their party (e.g. by speaking out or rebelling in legislative votes) to those who remain loyal to their party. We examine whether this preference extends to extreme instances of dissent where legislators switch parties. Using what we believe is the first survey experiment to examine party switching, we show that, overall, Canadian voters are not more likely to approve of an …