Showing papers on "Voting behavior published in 2019"

Firm-Level Political Risk: Measurement and Effects

Abstract: We adapt simple tools from computational linguistics to construct a new measure of political risk faced by individual US firms: the share of their quarterly earnings conference calls that they devote to political risks. We validate our measure by showing it correctly identifies calls containing extensive conversations on risks that are political in nature, that it varies intuitively over time and across sectors, and that it correlates with the firm's actions and stock market volatility in a manner that is highly indicative of political risk. Firms exposed to political risk retrench hiring and investment and actively lobby and donate to politicians. These results continue to hold after controlling for news about the mean (as opposed to the variance) of political shocks. Interestingly, the vast majority of the variation in our measure is at the firm level rather than at the aggregate or sector level, in the sense that it is neither captured by the interaction of sector and time fixed effects, nor by heterogeneous exposure of individual firms to aggregate political risk. The dispersion of this firm-level political risk increases significantly at times with high aggregate political risk. Decomposing our measure of political risk by topic, we find that firms that devote more time to discussing risks associated with a given political topic tend to increase lobbying on that topic, but not on other topics, in the following quarter.

Political Responses to Economic Shocks

Abstract: How does the experience of economic shocks affect individuals' political views and voting behavior? Inspired partly by the fallout of the financial crisis of 2008, research on this question has pro...

News finds me perception and democracy: Effects on political knowledge, political interest, and voting

Abstract: Recent scholarship suggests that overreliance on social networks for news and public affairs is associated with the belief that one no longer needs to actively seek information. Instead, individual...

Political identities: The missing link in the study of populism:

Abstract: Political identities are crucial for understanding electoral behavior: individuals who identify with a political party behave as loyal supporters who would hardly vote for competitors old or new. A...

The Choice of Regulatory Instruments in Environmental Policy

Abstract: This chapter reviews the relevant intellectual traditions in economics, political science, and law. It considers the demand for environmental policy instruments and examines the supply side. The federal environmental statutes further the disparities by bifurcating the regulatory requirements that apply to new and existing sources. By contrast, political scientists and economists studying the supply side of regulation have focused on the voting behavior of legislators and the institutional structure of the legislature. The chapter explores the nature of demand by firms and individuals, dividing the latter category into several overlapping groups, and then considers the role of interest groups in the political rlarket. It focuses on the origins of supply and demand for a single policy instrument. There are several plausible positive political economy explanations for the nature of the supply of environmental policy instruments. The market model will, in the end, be an imperfect and incomplete description of political behavior.

Spiral of Political Learning: The Reciprocal Relationship of News Media Use and Political Knowledge Among Adolescents

Abstract: This study investigates the dynamics of the reciprocal influence of political knowledge and attentive news use. News media are an important source for political information and contribute to political learning. Yet, this process is optimized with increasing levels of pre-existing knowledge about the political world. In extant literature, mutual interdependence is often suggested, but empirical proof is scarce. We propose to conceptualize the relationship of knowledge and news use as an upward spiral. The model is tested on data from a three-wave panel survey among 888 adolescents using growth curve modeling. The results support the model of a spiral of political learning. Interestingly, the influence of political knowledge on news use is estimated to be higher than the other way round.

Voter information campaigns and political accountability: Cumulative findings from a preregistered meta-analysis of coordinated trials.

Abstract: Voters may be unable to hold politicians to account if they lack basic information about their representatives’ performance. Civil society groups and international donors therefore advocate using voter information campaigns to improve democratic accountability. Yet, are these campaigns effective? Limited replication, measurement heterogeneity, and publication biases may undermine the reliability of published research. We implemented a new approach to cumulative learning, coordinating the design of seven randomized controlled trials to be fielded in six countries by independent research teams. Uncommon for multisite trials in the social sciences, we jointly preregistered a meta-analysis of results in advance of seeing the data. We find no evidence overall that typical, nonpartisan voter information campaigns shape voter behavior, although exploratory and subgroup analyses suggest conditions under which informational campaigns could be more effective. Such null estimated effects are too seldom published, yet they can be critical for scientific progress and cumulative, policy-relevant learning.

The Campbell Paradigm as a Behavior-Predictive Reinterpretation of the Classical Tripartite Model of Attitudes.

Abstract: . In this article, we introduce the “Campbell Paradigm” as a novel variant of Rosenberg and Hovland’s (1960) tripartite model of attitudes. The Campbell Paradigm is based on a highly restri...

Family Matters? Voting Behavior in Households with Criminal Justice Contact

Abstract: Contact with the criminal legal system has been shown to reduce individuals’ political participation, but its effect on friends and family members is less clear. Do people who see loved ones arrested or incarcerated become mobilized to change the system, or do they withdraw from political life? I address this question using administrative data from one large county, identifying registered voters who live with someone facing misdemeanor charges. Court records and vote histories allow me to accurately measure proximate criminal justice exposure and voting for a broader sample of people than survey data would. Using case timing for arrests shortly before and shortly after the election allows me to avoid bias from omitted variables. I find evidence of a short-term demobilization effect for people who see household members convicted or jailed in the weeks before the election, but no evidence of a lasting turnout effect from these experiences.

The Differential Effects of Economic Conditions and Racial Attitudes in the Election of Donald Trump

Abstract: Debates over the extent to which racial attitudes and economic distress explain voting behavior in the 2016 election have tended to be limited in scope, focusing on the extent to which each factor explains white voters’ two-party vote choice. This limited scope obscures important ways in which these factors could have been related to voting behavior among other racial sub-groups of the electorate, as well as participation in the two-party contest in the first place. Using the vote-validated 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, merged with economic data at the ZIP code and county levels, we find that racial attitudes strongly explain two-party vote choice among white voters—in line with a growing body of literature. However, we also find that local economic distress was strongly associated with non-voting among people of color, complicating direct comparisons between racial and economic explanations of the 2016 election and cautioning against generalizations regarding causal emphasis.

The Political Economy of EU Climate and Energy Policies in Central and Eastern Europe Revisited: Shifting Coalitions and Prospects for Clean Energy Transitions

Abstract: The countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have commonly been regarded as climate and energy policy laggards blocking more ambitious EU decarbonization targets. Although recent literature has increasingly acknowledged the differences in national positions on energy and climate issues among these states, there has been little comprehensive evidence about their positioning on EU climate and energy policies and the domestic interests which shape government preferences. The article addresses this gap by tracing the voting behavior of six CEE countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania) on EU energy-related legislation in the Council of Ministers between 2007–2018. The article shows that the contestation of energy policies, particularly of climate-related legislation, in the Council of Ministers has increased over time and that these six CEE countries have indeed most often objected to the adoption of EU legislation. The CEE states do not, however, have a common regional positioning on all EU energy policies. Voting coalitions among the six CEE countries differ substantially across energy policy areas. The lack of a common regional position and changing national preferences have enabled the adoption of a relatively ambitious EU Energy and Climate Package for 2030. The differences in national voting patterns are explained by the evolving interests and the ability of key domestic political and economic actors to adapt to and explore benefits from the ever-expanding EU energy and climate policies.

We Were the Robots: Automation and Voting Behavior in Western Europe

Abstract: We investigate the impact of robot adoption on electoral outcomes in 14 Western European countries, between 1993 and 2016. We employ both official election results at the district level and individual-level voting data, combined with party ideology scores from the Manifesto Project. We measure exposure to automation both at the regional level, based on the ex-ante industry specialization of each region, and at the individual level, based on individual characteristics and pre-sample employment patterns in the region of residence. We instrument robot adoption in each country using the pace of robot adoption in other countries. Higher exposure to robot adoption is found to increase support for nationalist and radical-right parties. Unveiling some potential transmission channels, higher robot exposure at the individual level leads to poorer perceived economic conditions and well-being, lower satisfaction with the government and democracy, and a reduction in perceived political self-efficacy.

Broadening the individual differences lens on party support and voting behavior: Cynicism and prejudice as relevant attitudes referring to modern‐day political alignments

Abstract: Social-cultural and economic-hierarchical ideological attitudes have long been used to explain variation in political partisanship. We propose two additional, stable attitudes (political cynicism and ethnic prejudice) that may help explaining contemporary political alignments. In a Belgian (N = 509) and Dutch sample (N = 628), we showed that party support can be segmented into four broad families: left, libertarian, traditionalist, and far-right parties. Both studies revealed that social-cultural and economic-hierarchical right-wing attitudes were negatively related to left party support and positively to libertarian, traditionalist and far-right support. Importantly, additional variance was consistently explained by political cynicism (lower libertarian and traditionalist support), ethnic prejudice (lower left support), or both (higher far-right support). Study 2 additionally demonstrated these patterns for self-reported voting. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Older, Younger, or More Similar? The Use of Age as a Voting Heuristic*

Abstract: Objective The descriptive representation literature has found that individuals prefer to vote for candidates who share similar characteristics as themselves. However, the relationship between the age of a voter and the age of a candidate is a gap in the literature that remains to be filled. The objective of this study is to examine such relationships. Methods Utilizing the 2010 and 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, along with independently collected information on candidates’ ages, we use a series of logistic regressions to model the relationship between the age of a voter and the age of a co‐partisan candidate. Results Our analyses suggest that a candidate's age can and does act as a voting heuristic for members of the electorate. However, the strength of these findings is dependent upon the electoral context, individuals’ education levels, and the political party with which an individual affiliates. Conclusion The effect of age has been an overlooked heuristic within the voting behavior literature. Members of the electorate prefer to vote for co‐partisan candidates who are closest to themselves in age.

Groceries for Votes: The Electoral Returns of Vote Buying

Abstract: Despite the prevalence of vote buying in many developing democracies, the evidence of its persuasive effects is very limited. This article proposes a way to evaluate the electoral impact of vote bu...

Gendered Nationalism and the 2016 US Presidential Election: How Party, Class, and Beliefs about Masculinity Shaped Voting Behavior – Erratum

Abstract: We examine which Americans were likely to believe that American society has grown “too soft and feminine,” a concept we have characterized as gendered nationalism, and how such gendered nationalist attitudes influenced voting behavior in the 2016 presidential race. Our analysis shows that party, gender, education, and class shaped attitudes about gendered nationalism: Republicans, men, and members of the working class were more likely to support gendered nationalist views. We identify a strong, significant relationship between gendered nationalist attitudes and the probability of voting for Donald Trump, even after controlling for partisanship, ideology, race, religion, and other factors. Moreover, gender differences in candidate support were largely driven by gender differences in beliefs that the United States has grown too soft and feminine. Our research adds to the growing scholarly evidence indicating that gendered beliefs are likely to have a bigger impact on American political behavior than a voter's gender alone.

Direct and indirect effects of prejudice: sexism, information, and voting behavior in political campaigns

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of gender-based prejudice on candidate evaluation and voting behavior. It uses a unique experimental design to test for direct effects of sexism on candidate evaluat...

Brothers or Invaders? How Crisis-Driven Migrants Shape Voting Behavior

Abstract: We study the electoral effects of the arrival of 1.3 million Venezuelan refugees in Colombia as a consequence of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis. We exploit the fact that forced migrants disproportionately locate in places with earlier settlements of Venezuelans after the intensification of the crisis. We find that larger migration shocks increase voter’s turnout and shift votes from left- to right-wing political ideologies. These effects are predominantly driven by voter’s concerns on the economic effects of migrants as well as by a novel channel that we call electoral manipulation, whereby political parties make the forced migration shock salient to voters in order to demonize the political agenda of contenders.

We Were the Robots: Automation and Voting Behavior in Western Europe

Abstract: We investigate the impact of robot adoption on electoral outcomes in 14 Western European countries, between 1993 and 2016. We employ both official election results at the district level and individual-level voting data, combined with party ideology scores from the Manifesto Project. We measure exposure to automation both at the regional level, based on the ex-ante industry specialization of each region, and at the individual level, based on individual characteristics and pre-sample employment patterns in the region of residence. We instrument robot adoption in each country using the pace of robot adoption in other countries. Higher exposure to robot adoption is found to increase support for nationalist and radical-right parties. Unveiling some potential transmission channels, higher robot exposure at the individual level leads to poorer perceived economic conditions and well-being, lower satisfaction with the government and democracy, and a reduction in perceived political self-efficacy.

Migrant votes ‘here’and ‘there’: Transnational electoral behavior of Turks in the Netherlands

Abstract: Whether there is a trade-off between ‘here’ (country of settlement) and ‘there’ (the country of origin) is one of the key political questions and concerns regarding political attitudes and behaviors of immigrant minorities. We take this issue by the horns and study three components of political attitudes and behavior within a transnational framework among Dutch-Turkish citizens in the Netherlands: turnout, political trust and interest, and party choice. The empirical data draws on original exit polls held during the Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections at a polling station in 2014 (n = 791) and in 2015 (n = 456). We find that that gender and country of birth influence electoral participation; social class (working class background as labor migrants) influences voting behavior. While there is a trade-off for political trust and voting behavior, there is no trade-off for political interest. These findings call for a more nuanced approach to transnational political behavior that is attentive to processes of convergence between ‘here’ and ‘there’ and the diversity within migrant groups.

Compulsory Voting Rules, Reluctant Voters and Ideological Proximity Voting

Abstract: Political theorists have argued that democracies should strive for high turnout, leading to an argument for the introduction of compulsory voting, one of the surest ways to increase turnout. Others have warned that this obligation comes at a cost of lower quality votes. We investigate these claims by examining the impact of compulsory voting on proximity voting. First, we examine individuals’ voting behavior in three countries with strong compulsory voting laws: Australia, Belgium and Brazil. Election surveys in these countries include a hypothetical question about the likelihood of voting without legal obligation. We continue with an examination of the effects of compulsory voting in Switzerland, which varies across cantons. Our results support the ‘reluctant voter’ hypothesis: Compelling voters to vote tends to weaken the impact of proximity considerations on electoral behaviour, although this effect remains limited and is only significant in half of the elections that were investigated.

Do Voters Discount Political Scandals over Time

Abstract: This paper explores how political scandals are discounted over time Previous research has shown that voters respond disproportionately to recent economic conditions when evaluating incumbents We

Mobilization Around New Convenience Voting Methods: A Field Experiment to Encourage Voting by Mail with a Downloadable Ballot and Early Voting

Abstract: Election reform has allowed citizens in many states to choose among convenience voting methods. We report on a field experiment that tests messages derived from theories about government responsiveness, choice, information, and convenience on the methods that citizens use to vote, namely early voting, absentee voting by mail, and absentee voting using a ballot downloaded from the internet. We find that any treatment discussing a downloadable ballot increases its usage, and the only treatment to increase use of the early voting option emphasized its implementation as a response to citizen demand. Treatments presenting the full range of convenience voting options increase turnout slightly. The most effective treatments also influence the behavior of others in the recipient’s household. Overall, the results demonstrate the efficacy of impersonal messages on voter behavior. The results have implications for the abilities of election administrators and political campaigners to structure the methods voters use to cast their ballots.

The Economic Analysis of Populism. A Selective Review of the Literature

Abstract: Economic analysis is essential to the understanding of the rise and fall of populism. The conceptual and analytical framework of economics to the study of populism is still in its infancy, but great advances have been made in recent years. This paper reviews some key contributions behind this progress. When analyzing populism, economists face two methodological hurdles: lack of consensus and clarity about its definition and reconciling the populist vote with voter rationality. The former has plagued sociologists and political scientists for decades. As to the latter, it raises a conundrum: if populist policies are detrimental to economic growth, as most economists agree, the vote for a populist candidate suggests some irrationality or inefficiency in the political markets. But accepting that individuals are irrational when making political decisions, would imply that they are irrational when making economic decisions unless, of course, there is something fundamentally different about political markets. The works reviewed in this paper propose alternative approaches to address these issues. The most promising line of research in the economic analysis of populism incorporates and expands concepts developed by academics in other social sciences such as political theory, sociology, history and social psychology.

Understanding the Political Ideology of Legislators from Social Media Images

Abstract: In this paper, we seek to understand how politicians use images to express ideological rhetoric through Facebook images posted by members of the U.S. House and Senate. In the era of social media, politics has become saturated with imagery, a potent and emotionally salient form of political rhetoric which has been used by politicians and political organizations to influence public sentiment and voting behavior for well over a century. To date, however, little is known about how images are used as political rhetoric. Using deep learning techniques to automatically predict Republican or Democratic party affiliation solely from the Facebook photographs of the members of the 114th U.S. Congress, we demonstrate that predicted class probabilities from our model function as an accurate proxy of the political ideology of images along a left-right (liberal-conservative) dimension. After controlling for the gender and race of politicians, our method achieves an accuracy of 59.28% from single photographs and 82.35% when aggregating scores from multiple photographs (up to 150) of the same person. To better understand image content distinguishing liberal from conservative images, we also perform in-depth content analyses of the photographs. Our findings suggest that conservatives tend to use more images supporting status quo political institutions and hierarchy maintenance, featuring individuals from dominant social groups, and displaying greater happiness than liberals.

Inequality, macroeconomic performance and political polarization: An empirical analysis

Abstract: This paper investigates the macroeconomic and social determinants of voting behavior, and especially of political polarization, for 20 advanced countries using annual data ranging from 1970 to 2016 and covering 291 parliamentary elections. Using a panel estimation approach and rolling regressions we find empirical evidence supporting that a) traditionally established mainstream parties (center-left, center, and center-right) are penalized for poor economic performance; b) far-left (populist and radical parties) parties benefit from increasing unemployment rates; c) greater income inequality has increased the electoral support for far-right parties, particularly in recent times. Further, we do not find empirical support for the notion that social and economic globalization has led to an increase of popularity of far-right parties. These results have wide reaching implications for the current political situation in the Western world.

Fairness views and political preferences: Evidence from a representative sample

Abstract: We elicit distributional fairness ideals of impartial spectators using an incentivized elici- tation in a large and heterogeneous sample of the German population. We document several empirical facts: i) egalitarianism is the predominant ideal; ii) females are more egalitarian than men; iii) men are relatively more efficiency minded; iv) left-leaning voters are more likely to be egalitarians whereas right-leaning voters are more likely to be efficiency minded; and v) young and highly-educated participants hold different fairness ideals than the rest of the population. Moreover, we show that the fairness ideals predict preferences for redistribution and intervention by the government, as well as actual charitable giving, even after controlling for a range of covariates. Hence, our paper contributes to our understanding of the underpinnings of voting behavior and ideological preferences, as well the literature that links lab and field behavior.