Showing papers on "Voting behavior published in 2016"

General Economic Conditions and National Elections

Abstract: The fact that economic conditions influence voters is a leading commonplace of conversation in election years. The question is: Is this fact in fact a fact? Despite the overwhelming popularity of the "fact," it has received neither an explicit theoretical analysis, presumably because it is so obvious that economic adversity should create political adversaries, nor until recently a satisfactory statistical analysis.' Gerald H. Kramer has presented a multivariate analysis of congressional elections which would strongly suggest that fluctuations in the rate of unemployment have no appreciable effect upon elections, but that fluctuations in per capita real income are influential. In the following pages I propose to (1) reaffirm his finding on the electoral unimportance of ordinary fluctuations in unemployment, (2) argue that, contrary to Kramer, fluctuations in real income also do not have important electoral effects, and (3) present an argument based upon rational voter behavior for the unimportance of general economic conditions in national elections.

8. Economic Inequality and Political Representation

Abstract: I examine the differential responsiveness of U.S. senators to the preferences of wealthy, middle-class, and poor constituents. My analysis includes broad summary measures of senators' voting behavior as well as specific votes on the minimum wage, civil rights, government spending, and abortion. In almost every instance, senators appear to be considerably more responsive to the opinions of affluent constituents than to the opinions of middle-class constituents, while the opinions of constituents in the bottom third of the income distribution have no apparent statistical effect on their senators' roll call votes. Disparities in representation are especially pronounced for Republican senators, who were more than twice as responsive as Democratic senators to the ideological views of affluent constituents. These income-based disparities in representation appear to be unrelated to disparities in turnout and political knowledge and only weakly related to disparities in the extent of constituents' contact with senators and their staffs.

Of Echo Chambers and Contrarian Clubs: Exposure to Political Disagreement Among German and Italian Users of Twitter

Abstract: Scholars have debated whether social media platforms, by allowing users to select the information to which they are exposed, may lead people to isolate themselves from viewpoints with which they disagree, thereby serving as political “echo chambers.” We investigate hypotheses concerning the circumstances under which Twitter users who communicate about elections would engage with (a) supportive, (b) oppositional, and (c) mixed political networks. Based on online surveys of representative samples of Italian and German individuals who posted at least one Twitter message about elections in 2013, we find substantial differences in the extent to which social media facilitates exposure to similar versus dissimilar political views. Our results suggest that exposure to supportive, oppositional, or mixed political networks on social media can be explained by broader patterns of political conversation (i.e., structure of offline networks) and specific habits in the political use of social media (i.e., the intensity of political discussion). These findings suggest that disagreement persists on social media even when ideological homophily is the modal outcome, and that scholars should pay more attention to specific situational and dispositional factors when evaluating the implications of social media for political communication.

Government-Opposition or Left-Right? The Institutional Determinants of Voting in Legislatures*

Abstract: This study uses roll-call voting data from 16 legislatures to investigate how the institutional context of politics—such as whether a country is a parliamentary or presidential regime, or has a single-party, coalition or minority government—shapes coalition formation and voting behavior in parliaments. It uses a geometric scaling metric to estimate the “revealed space” in each of these legislatures and a vote-by-vote statistical analysis to identify how much of this space can be explained by government-opposition dynamics as opposed to parties’ (left-right) policy positions. Government-opposition interests, rather than parties’ policy positions, are found to be the main drivers of voting behavior in most institutional contexts. In contrast, issue-by-issue coalition building along a single policy dimension is only found under certain restrictive institutional constraints: presidential regimes with coalition governments or parliamentary systems with minority governments. Put another way, voting in most legislatures is more like Westminster than Washington.

Pocketbook vs. Sociotropic Corruption Voting

Abstract: The article examines the relationship between corruption and voting behavior by defining two distinct channels: pocketbook corruption voting, i.e. how personal experiences with corruption affect voting behavior; and sociotropic corruption voting, i.e. how perceptions of corruption in society do so. Individual and aggregate data from Slovakia fail to support hypotheses that corruption is an undifferentiated valence issue, that it depends on the presence of a viable anti-corruption party, or that voters tolerate (or even prefer) corruption, and support the hypothesis that the importance of each channel depends on the salience of each source of corruption and that pocketbook corruption voting prevails unless a credible anti-corruption party shifts media coverage of corruption and activates sociotropic corruption voting. Previous studies may have underestimated the prevalence of corruption voting by not accounting for both channels.

Party Brands in Crisis: Partisanship, Brand Dilution, and the Breakdown of Political Parties in Latin America

Abstract: Why have so many established political parties across Latin America collapsed in recent years? Party Brands in Crisis offers an explanation that highlights the effect of elite actions on voter behavior. During the 1980s and 1990s, political elites across the region implemented policies inconsistent with the traditional positions of their party, provoked internal party conflicts, and formed strange-bedfellow alliances with traditional rivals. These actions diluted party brands and eroded voter attachment. Without the assured support of a partisan base, parties became more susceptible to short-term retrospective voting, and voters without party attachments deserted incumbent parties when they performed poorly. Party Brands in Crisis offers the first general explanation of party breakdown in Latin America, reinforcing the interaction between elite behavior and mass attitudes.

Voting Against Your Constituents? How Lobbying Affects Representation

Abstract: Citizens delegate the representation of their political preferences to members of Parliament (MPs), who are supposed to represent their interests in the legislature. However, MPs are exposed to a variety of interest groups seeking to influence their voting behavior. We argue that interest groups influence how MPs cast their vote in Parliament, but that this effect varies across groups. While lobbying by sectional groups provides incentives for MPs to defect from their constituents, we expect that cause groups in fact strengthen the link between MPs and their voters. We test our argument based on an innovative study of 118 Swiss public referenda, which allows for directly comparing voter preferences with legislative voting of 448 MPs on these issues. Drawing on a multilevel regression analysis, this study shows that interest groups considerably affect the link between MPs and their voters. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of political representation.

Political information repertoires and political participation

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between various forms of media use and political participation. The major argument is that in today’s high-choice media environment, individuals and groups with the highest level of political interest are more likely to develop richer political information repertoires that involve exploiting both digital and traditional ways of searching for political information. Individuals and groups with richer political information repertories can be expected to have higher levels of political knowledge, efficacy, and participation. This article argues further that a clear connection exists between peoples’ informational and participatory repertoires and tests these propositions using a large, heterogeneous sample of the Israeli public during the 2013 election campaign. The analysis supports the claims of this study, with a few intriguing exceptions.

Infections and Elections: Did an Ebola Outbreak Influence the 2014 U.S. Federal Elections (and if so, How)?

Abstract: In the studies reported here, we conducted longitudinal analyses of preelection polling data to test whether an Ebola outbreak predicted voting intentions preceding the 2014 U.S. federal elections. Analyses were conducted on nationwide polls pertaining to 435 House of Representatives elections and on state-specific polls pertaining to 34 Senate elections. Analyses compared voting intentions before and after the initial Ebola outbreak and assessed correlations between Internet search activity for the term "Ebola" and voting intentions. Results revealed that (a) the psychological salience of Ebola was associated with increased intention to vote for Republican candidates and (b) this effect occurred primarily in states characterized by norms favoring Republican Party candidates (the effect did not occur in states with norms favoring Democratic Party candidates). Ancillary analyses addressed several interpretational issues. Overall, these results suggest that disease outbreaks may influence voter behavior in two psychologically distinct ways: increased inclination to vote for politically conservative candidates and increased inclination to conform to popular opinion.

How Internal Political Efficacy Translates Political Knowledge Into Political Participation: Evidence From Germany.

Abstract: This study presents evidence for the mediation effect of political knowledge through political self-efficacy (i.e. internal political efficacy) in the prediction of political participation. It employs an action theoretic approach—by and large grounded on the Theory of Planned Behaviour—and uses data from the German Longitudinal Election Study to examine whether political knowledge has distinct direct effects on voting, conventional, and/or unconventional political participation. It argues that political knowledge raises internal political efficacy and thereby indirectly increases the chance that a citizen will participate in politics. The results of mediated multiple regression analyses yield evidence that political knowledge indeed translates into internal political efficacy, thus it affects political participation of various kinds indirectly. However, internal political efficacy and intentions to participate politically yield simultaneous direct effects only on conventional political participation. Sequentially mediated effects appear for voting and conventional political participation, with political knowledge being mediated by internal political efficacy and subsequently also by behavioural intentions. The mediation patterns for unconventional political participation are less clear though. The discussion accounts for restrictions of this study and points to questions for answer by future research.

Social Media Use and Online Political Participation Among College Students During the US Election 2012

Abstract: A total of 4,556 US college students were surveyed immediately after Election 2012 to investigate what social media–related psychological and behavioral factors predicted their online political par...

Local Ethnic Geography, Expectations of Favoritism, and Voting in Urban Ghana

Abstract: African democracies are increasingly urban. While ethnicity is generally correlated with vote choice, recent research suggests there may be less ethnic voting in cities. But I show that voting for co-ethnic parties is as common in some urban neighborhoods as in rural areas, while non-existent elsewhere in the same city, combining original survey data, polling station results, and fine-grained census data from urban Ghana. Rather than being explained by the individual salience of ethnic identity or other characteristics of voters themselves, this intra-urban variation is influenced by the diversity and wealth of the local neighborhoods in which parties and voters interact, which change otherwise similar voters’ expectations of the benefits they will receive from a co-ethnic party in different places.

Political Chameleons: An Exploration of Conformity in Political Discussions

Abstract: Individuals do not always express their private political opinions in front of others who disagree. Neither political scientists nor psychologists have been able to firmly establish why this behavior occurs. Previous research has explored, at length, social influence on political attitudes and persuasion. However, the concept of conformity does not involve attitude change or persuasion; it more accurately involves self-censoring to match a socially desirable norm. In an effort to improve our understanding of this behavior, we conduct two experiments to investigate perceptions and behavioral responses to contentious political interactions. Study 1 asked participants to predict how a hypothetical character would respond to a variety of political interactions among coworkers. In Study 2, participants discussed political issues with confederates who were scripted to disagree with them. The studies reveal that individuals are uncomfortable around political interactions in which they hold an opinion counter to the group. Participants both expected a hypothetical character to conform in Study 1 and actually conformed themselves in the lab session in Study 2.

Political trust, extra-representational participation and the openness of political systems

Abstract: The relationship between trust in representative political institutions and extra-representational participation (ERP) is contested. Generally, scholars have assumed that distrust is a major source of ERP. However, empirical studies have yielded inconclusive results. This article contributes to the debate by linking it to recent studies on how contextual factors affect the amount of ERP and interact with micro-level predictors. We take an innovative stance by conceptualizing the openness of political systems in both institutional and cultural terms, and by arguing that the negative micro-level relationship between political trust and ERP should be stronger in more open political systems. With a multi-level analysis of 22 European democracies, we show that citizens who distrust representative institutions are indeed more likely to engage in ERP. Most importantly, our findings indicate that the more open a political system in cultural terms, the stronger the negative micro-level relationship between political trust and ERP.

National Forces in State Legislative Elections

Abstract: The race for the White House is at the top of the ticket, but voters will also choose more than 5,000 state legislators in November 2016. While voters elect and hold the president responsible for one job and state legislators for another, the outcomes of their elections are remarkably related. In analyses of elite and voter behavior in state legislative elections, I show that legislators affiliated with the president’s party—especially during unpopular presidencies—are the most likely to be challenged, and compared with individual assessments of the state legislature, changes in presidential approval have at least three times the impact on voters’ decision-making in state legislative elections. Thus, while state legislatures wield considerable policymaking power, legislators’ electoral fates appear to be largely out of their control.

The Public Economy of Urban Communities

Abstract: Introduction 1. A model of Economic and Political Decision Making 2. Long-run Welfare Criteria 3. Public and Private Interaction under Reciprocal Externality 4. Voting Behavior on Municipal Public Expenditures: a Study in Rationality and Self-interest 5. Emprirical Evidence of Political Influence upon the Expenditure Policies of Public Schools 6. Majority Voting and Alternative Forms of Public Enterprise 7.Urban Transportation Parables 8. Rationalizing Decisions in the Quality Management of Water Supply in Urban-Industrial Areas 9. Geographic Spillover Effects and the Allocation of Resources to Education 10. Spatial Externalities in Urban Public Expenditures: A Case Study 11. The Role of Cost-Benefit Analysis in the Public Sector of Metropolitan Areas.

Context and Political Knowledge: Explaining Cross-National Variation in Partisan Left-Right Knowledge

Abstract: We present a theory that links variation in aggregate levels of political knowledge across countries and over time to corresponding differences in the political context in which voters become (or do not become) informed. Specifically, we argue that the level of partisan left-right knowledge in a given context ultimately depends on how useful the left-right metaphor is for organizing, simplifying, or otherwise facilitating voters’ understanding of political processes. Using survey data on the distribution of left-right knowledge in 59 different contexts (in 18 countries), our analysis reveals that voters understand the relative left-right positioning of parties to a much greater degree when these positions are important predictors of the composition of policy-making coalitions, but that variation in this knowledge does not correspond to the accuracy with which the relative left-right positions of parties predicts more narrow policy positions.

How) Can We Estimate the Ideology of Citizens and Political Elites on the Same Scale

Abstract: Estimating the ideological positions of political elites on the same scale as those of ordinary citizens has great potential to increase our understanding of voting behavior, representation, and other political phenomena. There has been limited attention, however, to the fundamental issues, both practical and conceptual, involved in conducting these joint scalings, or to the sensitivity of these estimates to modeling assumptions and data choices. I show that the standard strategy of estimating ideal point models using preference data on citizens and elites can suffer from potentially problematic pathologies. This article explores these issues and presents a technique that can be used to investigate the effects of modeling assumptions on resulting estimates and also to impose restrictions on the ideological dimension being estimated in a straightforward way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious Beliefs, Gender Consciousness, and Women’s Political Participation

Abstract: Organized religion affords the faithful a variety of civic skills that encourage political participation. Women are more religious than are men by most measures, but religious women do not participate in politics at elevated rates. This discrepancy suggests a puzzle: religion may have a different effect on the political mobilization of men and women. In the present paper, we explore the effect of biblical literalism—a widespread belief that the Bible is the actual word of God, to be taken literally—on political participation. Using the 2012 American National Election Study, we find support for our two hypotheses: (a) biblical literalism is associated with lower levels of gender consciousness, as measured by perceptions of discrimination and strength of ties to women as a group, and (b) reductions in these two factors account for lower political participation among women. Our findings provide new insights into the ways religious and gender identities intersect to influence political mobilization among women, with interesting implications for an American political climate where gender and religion both represent fundamental identities that shape political behavior.

Constructing the Visual Online Political Self: An Analysis of Instagram Use by the Scottish Electorate

Abstract: This paper presents an investigation of how the Scottish electorate utilised photo-sharing on social media as a means of participation in the democratic process and for political self-expression in the periods immediately prior to two recent major democratic votes: the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and the 2015 UK general election. We extend previous HCI literature on the growing use of social media in a political context and contribute specifically on understanding the emergent use of visual media by citizens when engaging with political issues and democratic process. Through a qualitative analysis of images shared on the platform Instagram, we demonstrate that the Scottish electorate did indeed used image-sharing for political self-expression -- posting a variety of visual content, representative of a diversity of political opinion. We conclude that users utilised Instagram as a platform to craft and present their "political selves". We raise questions for future research around power and inequality on such platforms as well as their capability of providing a persistent forum for debate.

Gender and Political Behavior

Abstract: The burgeoning field of gender and political behavior shows that the way in which ordi­ nary citizens connect to the democratic process is gendered. Gender differences in voting behavior and participation rates persist across democracies. At the same time, countries vary substantially in the size of these gender gaps. In contemporary elections, women tend to support leftist parties more than men in many countries. Although men and women vote at similar rates today, women still trail men in important participatory atti­ tudes and activities such as political interest and discussion. Inequalities in political in­ volvement undermine the quality of deliberation, representation, and legitimacy in the de­ mocratic process. A confluence of several interrelated factors (resources, economy, so­ cialization, political context) work together to account for these differences. Today, schol­ ars more carefully consider the socially constructed nature of gender and the ways in which it interacts with other identities. Recent research on gender and political behavior suggests that political context affects different kinds of women in different ways, and fu­ ture research should continue to investigate these important interactions.

Pastors for Pinochet: Authoritarian Stereotypes and Voting for Evangelicals in Chile

Abstract: How does a candidate’s religion affect voting behavior in societies without politically salient interdenominational cleavages? Communicating one’s faith should win votes among fellow believers, but in the absence of intergroup competition, it should not directly affect the vote of out-group members. Yet a candidate’s religion can also influence out-group voting behavior via stereotypes that are politically salient. This article uses a survey experiment, conducted prior to Chile’s 2013 election, to examine how priming evangelicals’ historical support for the government of General Augusto Pinochet affects vote intention for an evangelical candidate for Congress. Identifying a candidate as evangelical boosts vote intention among evangelical respondents but does not directly affect members of the out-group. Among right-wing nonevangelicals, the Pinochet prime increases vote intention for an evangelical candidate, but it has no effect for center-left voters. These results suggest that pinochetismo remains salient for a new generation of right-wing voters in Chile.