Elites resist cooperating with outcast parties because reputation costs weigh on them, not voters

Evidence

As a result, parliamentary colleagues were generally far harder to convince of the communist successors’ acceptability than were the voters. The parliamentarians were led by different considerations than the electorate. Parties in parliament form alliances and vote on policy guided not only by programs or ideology, but keeping in mind they will have to justify these decisions to voters, party members and activists, and potential coalition partners. Voters, on the other hand, have little concern for their “reputation” in this sense – they do not have not publicly justify their decisions, nor do they worry about their identity as parties do. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 1434

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Turns the reader’s professed-conviction question on its head: divergence is driven not by masses hiding bias but by elites bearing accountability and identity costs the masses escape.
• XREF: connects to: Elite belief consistency does not extend to their voters — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1861; Elites flaunt status by absorbing the cost of norm-breaking disapproval. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 217

Broader Connections

• Elite belief consistency does not extend to their voters #expands (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1861