Many Ways to Be Right: Why One Conservative Attitude Can Shift Cross-Pressured Voters

This article asks how voters who hold progressive and conservative attitudes across economic and cultural issues—so-called cross-pressured voters—resolve those tensions in Western Europe, and what that means for mainstream parties. Using the growing share of cross-pressured voters as a lens, the study argues there is a stable asymmetry in mass attitudes: having progressive views on both dimensions often associates with left support, but being conservative on at least one dimension tends to push voters to the right. The brief preserves the article’s framing and evidence without extending claims beyond the original abstract.

Survey data from 1990–2017 Asymmetry: conservatism pulls voters right Focus on center-right party trade-offs

Data and methods

The analysis uses survey data collected from 1990 to 2017 to examine patterns of mass attitudes and vote choice in Western Europe. The abstract identifies cross-pressure as the key measurement—attitudinal positions on economic and cultural issues—and treats shifts in vote choice as the outcome of interest. The study compares voters with matching progressive attitudes on both dimensions to those who are conservative on one dimension.

Main findings

According to the abstract, the article reports a persistent asymmetry: voters with progressive attitudes on both economic and cultural issues commonly support the left, whereas being conservative on a single issue is frequently sufficient to move voters rightward. The study concludes that, overall, cross-pressures in the examined period are resolved in favor of the right and that this resolution creates particular trade-offs for center-right parties.

• Cross-pressured voters have become a notable share of the electorate in Western Europe.
• Cross-pressures tend to resolve toward the right rather than the left, per the abstract.