The worst of both worlds?

Abstract Noting the evidence that market cosmopolitans diverge from a spatial logic of electoral behaviour, Chapter 5 examines whether this behaviour can be explained by parties’ non-ideological, or ‘valence’, attributes. Building on previous research, I theorize that social liberals are ‘the worst of both worlds’ in valence terms, being neither successful enough to be known for governing competence nor novel enough to claim to bring a new perspective to politics, thereby repelling spatially compatible voters. I test this using the same analytical approach as Chapter 4, with the addition of two separate valence controls to examine whether this explains market cosmopolitans’ non-spatial behaviour. I find that while the differences between these voters and the rest of the electorate generally decrease when such controls are included, these differences remain substantial in most cases, suggesting social liberals’ lack of success cannot be put down to valence factors alone.