Issue Competence and its Influence on Voting Behavior in the Swiss 2015 Elections

The Liberal Radical party and – even more so – the Swiss People's party are the two winners of the Swiss 2015 election. In this contribution, we evaluate whether and to what extent issue ownership voting may help to account for the electoral success of these two parties. To that end, we distinguish the two dimensions – the associative and the competence dimension – of the concept and we rely on data from the on‐line, four‐wave panel survey carried out in the context of the Swiss election studies. Our results highlight the stability of issue ownership perceptions during the course of the campaign on the aggregate level, but they also show the substantial importance of issue ownership voting, on the individual level. More specifically, in line with earlier studies we find that competence issue ownership has a direct impact on the vote choice, whereas the impact of associative issue ownership is far more limited. For both parties under study, being seen as the most competent party on two important issues (migration and the economy) significantly contributes to the explanation of the vote choice.     

Compensatory Voting in Direct Legislation. Evidence from Switzerland

In elections, voters sometimes compensate for post‐election bargaining processes by electing parties that are more extreme than themselves. We investigate compensatory voting in direct democracy. Our goals are to develop and test a measure of compensatory voting in direct legislation and assess its extent of compensatory voting. Empirically, we draw on the case of Switzerland, a country with frequent popular votes. We operationalize compensatory voting as voting ‘yes’ on a popular initiative in spite of endorsing arguments that speak against this initiative, under the condition of being well‐informed about the initiative. Using data from post‐ballot surveys on 17'570 individuals having voted on 63 popular initiatives in the period 1993 to 2015, our analysis shows that compensatory voting has not significantly increased in Switzerland in this period.     

Jeremy Bentham,John Stuart Mill and the Secret Ballot: Insights from Nineteenth Century Democratic Theory

As part of a series of demands for political reform in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Jeremy Bentham famously made a case for use of the secret ballot in elections. The advocacy of Bentham and his disciples on this issue fed into broader and at times robust public debate, particularly in the 1830s. On the opposite side of this debate was another leading political theorist, John Stuart Mill, who opposed secret ballot reform. This paper re‐examines the contours of this debate, making the case that it has important implications for contemporary political theory and debates about democracy. Firstly, and in terms of making sense of the debate itself, it points to the need to make a distinction between the “voter intimidation” argument and the Benthamite preference aggregation argument. Secondly, it suggests that distinguishing between vote‐buying and voter's dependence provides support for defenders of the secret ballot. Thirdly, it demonstrates the potential application of the idea of voting held in “trust” to the so‐called boundary problem in democratic theory. Finally, it points to the potentially wide but overlooked application of the Chartist idea of open voting (allowing the oppressed to identify their allies) in contemporary political theory.     

So Close But So Far: Voting Propensity and Party Choice for Left‐Wing Parties

While the bulk of the literature focuses on the vote for parties from different blocs, the purpose of our article is to study the vote for two parties that are ideologically very close to each other: The Social Democrats and the Greens in Switzerland. To that end, we develop a two‐step model, where voters first make a selection of parties that are acceptable to them and then make their electoral choice out of this set of acceptable alternatives. We use voting propensities as a measure of the first, consideration step and we show that they strongly depend on the distance between voters and parties on the Left–Right scale. With regard to the second, choice stage of the electoral process we hypothesize about the factors that may account for the varying ability of the two parties to convert potential voters into real voters. Our empirical tests provide encouraging support for our hypotheses regarding the impact of socio‐demographic variables and issue voting. Strategic considerations, by contrast, do not seem to matter.     

Referendums Are Never Merely Referendums: On the Need to Make Popular Vote Processes More Deliberative

While there is much to command about Cheneval and el‐Wakil's ( 2018 ) proposal in favor of a nuanced and fine‐grained approach to popular vote processes as well as their specific defense of optional, bottom‐up, and binding referendums as democratic supplements to our existing representative institutions, I argue that their approach does not pay sufficient attention to the pre‐voting phase of the process that has to do with the laundering of raw preferences into generalized and informed ones, namely deliberation. I offer two suggestions to render the voting occuring in referenda more deliberative, namely the pre‐voting use of what I call “open mini‐publics” and that of Citizens’ Initiative Review. I also defend the use of top‐down and mandatory referenda in the context of a more open and technologically empowered deliberative democracy.     

Repudiating or Rewarding Neoliberalism? How Broken Campaign Promises Condition Economic Voting in Latin America

Why do voters reward or punish the incumbent government? A number of studies show that economic performance often drives support, though the strength of this relationship is often conditional. This article suggests that economic voting may also be conditioned by the breaking and keeping of campaign promises. A number of presidents throughout Latin America have campaigned explicitly against neoliberal economic policies, only to pursue them aggressively once in office. This study argues that presidents who abandon their promises assert the executive's responsibility for the economy and raise the salience of economic issues in the next election. Consequently, voters respond rationally to these policy switches, rewarding them when they succeed and punishing them when they fail. Using data from 78 presidential elections across 18 countries, this study finds substantial evidence that broken promises exacerbate the consequences of poor economic performance and magnify the benefits of good economic performance.     

Really ‘Two Deeply Divided Electorates’? German Federal Elections 1990–2013

It has become both a tradition and a key feature of electoral studies after 1990 to frame the debate about German voting behaviour in terms of East and West. To study national voting patterns has become a synonym for comparing both parts of the country. The corresponding findings are frequently interpreted as an answer to the recurring question whether the Germans (still) form a disunited electorate or not. However, the comparative look at electoral results in East and West conceals regional fragmentation within both areas – the key for evaluating the relevance of East–West frictions. By analysing those aspects, which are widely believed to yield deep East–West gaps, the article shows that only left-wing voting and electoral turnout indicate two unchangingly distinct voting habits for the complete post-unification time. Right-wing voting (divergence) and volatility (convergence) in turn were subject to major shifts.     

Uncounted Votes: Informal Voting in the House of Representatives as a Marker of Political Exclusion in Australia

This article examines the implications of high levels of informal (or invalid) voting in Australian national elections using a social exclusion framework. The rate of the informal vote is an indicator of social and political exclusion with particular groups of Australians experiencing inordinate electoral disadvantage. Poorer voters, voters from non‐English speaking backgrounds and those with low education levels are especially disadvantaged by factors peculiar to the Australian voting experience. We begin by exploring the character and pattern of informal voting and then canvass the technical and socio‐economic factors which explain it. We conclude by considering proposed options for reducing informality, some of which are: the abandonment of compulsory voting, major structural change to the voting system as well as ballot re‐design, electoral education and community information initiatives.     

An Integrated Model of Vote Choice in Argentina, 2009

This article studies voter behavior in Argentina. Do voters vote based on issues? Do they vote based on economic performance? What segments of the population are more or less likely to do so? What is the relative impact of issues and the economy in vote choice? To provide a reliable answer to these questions, this study uses a mixed‐logit model of spatial voting with nonpolicy components. Contrary to the common belief, the analysis finds that issue voting is a statistically significant and important factor. Economic voting is prevalent in the middle and upper classes, but not among poor voters.     

Leader Effects and Voting for the Populist Radical Right in Western Europe

Charismatic leaders are often assumed to drive the electoral success of populist radical right parties. Yet, little attention is given to how voter evaluations of leaders influence individual voting behavior. To our knowledge, no systematic and comparative tests of this empirical question exist. In this paper, we test to what extent voters’ support for populist radical right parties is fueled by leaders' appreciation. In order to examine leader effects on the populist radical right vote, we rely on an original dataset pooling 29 National Election Studies from ten established West European parliamentary democracies (1985‐2018). Our analysis finds that: (1) voters’ evaluation of party leaders is significantly associated with voting for populist radical right parties; (2) leader evaluations are more important than left‐right self‐placement when it comes to voting for the populist radical right, and (3) leader effects are more important for populist radical right voters than for other voters.     

Strategic Overshooting in National Council Elections

The Swiss party system has become strongly polarized over the last decade, following the rise of the Swiss People's Party and the electoral losses of center parties. This article suggests that these developments are, at least in part, a consequence of strategic behaviour among voters. As the government policy is the result of institutionalized multiparty bargaining, voters have incentives to compensate for this watering‐down by supporting parties whose positions are more extreme than their own. This article empirically tests extent and conditions of compensatory voting in the 2007 National Council Elections using Selects survey data. Our results suggest that compensatory voting generally outweighs voting based on ideological proximity and increases with rising district magnitude.     

The Impact of Postal Voting on Participation: Evidence for Switzerland

Many countries are forging ahead with convenient balloting methods, in particular electronic and postal voting, in order to re‐engage voters. In this paper, we test whether the cost reductions through postal voting increase turnout. The empirical analysis is based on a newly collected data set on the introduction of postal voting in Swiss cantons. We take advantage of the unique fact that voting by mail was introduced at different times across cantons. This allows identifying the impact of postal voting on turnout, independent of time, issue and canton‐specific effects. The estimated average effect on turnout is roughly 4.1 percentage points for an average turnout of 43 percent between 1970 and 2005.     

Scaling up Deliberation: Testing the Potential of Mini‐Publics to Enhance the Deliberative Capacity of Citizens

This paper tests the possibility of embedding the benefits of minipublic deliberation within a wider voting public. We test whether a statement such as those derived from a Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) can influence voters who did not participate in the pre‐referendum minipublic deliberation. This experiment was implemented in advance of the 2018 Irish referendum on blasphemy, one of a series of social‐moral referendums following the recommendations of a deliberative assembly. This is the first application of a CIR‐style voting aid in a real world minipublic and referendum outside of the US and also the first application to what is principally a moral question. We found that survey respondents exposed to information about the minipublic and its findings significantly increased their policy knowledge. Further, exposing respondents to minipublic statements in favour and against the policy measure increased their empathy for the other side of the policy debate.     

The practice and implications of legislative proxy voting in Ukraine

Governing parties often face the challenge of coordinating the behavior of legislators to pass bills and achieve their policy goals. Solutions to this collective action problem vary, but generally involve a combination of inducements and punishments to encourage legislators to toe the party line. “Ghost voting,” a form of proxy voting in which legislators record roll-call votes in place of their absent co-partisans has been noted over time in many representative institutions. This article addresses the process of proxy voting in Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, empirically demonstrating that proxy voting has been widespread and essential to the success of crucial legislation. At the same time, proxy voting creates impediments to measures of legislative unity and undermines accountability.     

When Do Issue Opinions Matter,and to Whom? The Determinants of Long‐Term Stability and Change in Party Choice in the 2003 Swiss Elections

While various studies have highlighted the short‐term importance of issue‐voting for party choice, little attention has so far been paid to its long‐term relevance. Relying on longitudinal data from the 2003 Swiss federal elections, we examine under what circumstances issue‐specific considerations affect stability and change in party choice. We postulate that the impact of issue‐specific considerations is likely to vary depending on a set of mediating factors. Analyzing four mechanisms of stability and change (reinforcement, activation, conversion, and demobilization), we find first that issues matter more when they are pressing, central, and polarizing. Furthermore, issue positions affect the vote more significantly for the parties that are more profiled on them. These results are in line with those on short‐term effects. However, they reveal a stronger influence of shifts in issue opinions in the long‐term than in the short‐term. Finally, we do not find any substantial variations in the effect of issue preferences across individual characteristics (political sophistication and party identification).     

The Transformation of Australian Electoral Analysis: The Two‐Party Preferred Vote — Origins,Impacts, and Critics

Measuring party support in Australia by constructing a “two‐party preferred” vote has had a profound effect, not only on the way political scientists, journalists, and politicians understand electoral “swing” and predict electoral outcomes, but also on their understanding of the party system, their thinking about electoral fairness, and their views about which party or parties can legitimately claim government. This article traces the origins — the maternity as well as the paternity – of the “two‐party preferred”. It documents its spread from federal to state elections, even as voting systems in some states have switched from exhaustive preferential to optional preferential. It discusses its wide‐ranging impact, and its implications for notions of electoral fairness and the legitimacy of election outcomes. It evaluates various criticisms of the concept — technical, pragmatic, and conceptual. And it notes the implications for marginal seat campaigning of the commonly observed “uniform swing”— implications completely at odds with the idea that marginal seats matter.     

A Divided Family: Race,the Commonwealth and Brexit

Abstract

The Commonwealth has long been conceptualised as ‘a family of nations’ in a reflection of the size, diversity and shared values of the organisation. As the discussion in post-Brexit Britain engages with questions of race and immigration, it is important to consider the role the Commonwealth played in the referendum campaigns. The combination of the Leave campaign’s promises to reinforce ties with ‘kith and kin’ in Commonwealth countries with the xenophobia that defined the campaign prompts the question what exactly does the Commonwealth mean in modern Britain? The EU referendum revealed two Commonwealths—one reflecting the backgrounds of Britain’s ethnic minorities, and one centred on the three majority white nations of Australia, New Zealand and Canada. This article will offer an investigation of these conflicting visions of the Commonwealth in the referendum, as well as the voting motivations of Commonwealth nationals and British citizens of Commonwealth descent.     

Relative deprivation,protests and voting in Kenya

While protests and voting are forms of political participation, their theoretical and empirical literature has largely developed independently and remains unintegrated, despite a possible common causal mechanism. This paper explores the possibility that perceptions of relative deprivation could be a common causal mechanism. It identifies three forms of relative deprivation – intra-personal, inter-personal, and fraternalistic. Using the Afrobarometer survey data for Kenya, the paper tests the influence of each of the three forms of relative deprivation on the likelihood of voting or participating in protests. The results show that intra-personal relative deprivation influences the likelihood of protesting and voting, by raising the former while reducing the latter. However, inter-personal and fraternalistic relative deprivations are not significant predictors of the likelihood of either protesting or voting.     

The Link Between Voting and Life Satisfaction in Latin America

What is the relationship between voting and individual life satisfaction in Latin America? While studies of Western Europe suggest that voters are happier than nonvoters, this relationship has not been explored in the younger democracies of the developing world, including those of Latin America. Using multilevel regression models to examine individual‐level survey data, this study shows a positive correlation between voting and happiness in the region, noting, however, that the relationship is attenuated in those countries that have enforced compulsory voting. We then explore the causal direction of this relationship: while the existing literature points to voting as a possible determinant of individual happiness, it is also possible that happier individuals are more likely to vote. Three different strategies are used to disentangle this relationship. On balance, the evidence suggests that individual happiness is more likely to be a cause rather than an effect of voting in Latin America.     

Maximising Direct Democracy – by Popular Assemblies or by Ballot Votes?

Abstract: According to a widespread but empirically hitherto untested perception, assembly democracy is the ideal‐typical form for direct democracy. This paper examines whether this perception coincides with empirical evidence by systematically comparing the actual extent of citizens’ direct‐democratic involvement in assembly democracies and in ballot‐box democracies. A longitudinal and cross‐sectional analysis of new data on the Swiss cantons reveals strikingly clear patterns: cantons with popular assemblies provide citizens with more and more easily accessible direct‐democratic rights, and they hold popular votes more frequently. On the other hand, cantons with ballot‐box voting are more successful in involving the citizens in direct‐democratic decision‐making with respect to turnout rates.