Supply and demand in the market cosmopolitan space

Abstract Chapter 3 examines the two most basic explanations as to why liberal parties have not gained support in practice: firstly, a shortage of voters, and secondly, a shortage of liberal parties, holding market cosmopolitan positions. Voter-level data from the European Election Study and the British Election Study show no distinct shortage of voters occupying such positions, as market cosmopolitans’ numbers have risen at the expense of other ideological profiles. Party-level data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, meanwhile, show that while the liberal party family is ideologically diverse, the majority of its members (whom I term ‘social liberals’) also hold market cosmopolitan positions. Yet such parties have not achieved much electoral success, as evidence suggests market cosmopolitan voters tend to favour parties of the traditional left and right. The chapter concludes by presenting a further potential explanation: that market cosmopolitan voters are not following a spatial logic of electoral behaviour.