The party leader effect in the 2023 elections

This chapter examines the infuence of the party leader (PL) on party choice in the 2023 parliamentary elections. Party-voter ties in Finland are changing as the traditional political cleavages have weakened, in turn resulting in increasing electoral volatility, for example, the phenomenon of individual voters switching parties between elections. As voters are becoming more volatile, other factors are gaining in importance for explaining individual-level party choices. One of these factors is the so-called PL effect, that is, the infuence that the party leader has on party choice. The growing interest in the PL effect could be considered a logical outcome of a political and social environment becoming increasingly individualized. Even as the personal popularity of the PL and the party are expected to be closely associated, parties are prone to elect PLs considered to have the potential to increase the party’s chances for electoral success. In Finland, the emergence of PS under the leadership of Timo Soini (1997–2017) is widely attributed to the personal popularity of Soini, just to mention one of the most recent examples of a positive PL effect on a specifc party in a Finnish context. However, it is also possible that, instead of being a resource for the party, the PL could become something of a problem, thus contributing to a reversed PL effect.