Making votes count in parliament or government?

Several scholars have sought to elucidate voting strategies in proportional representation (PR) systems. The argument is that the existence of coalition governments forces voters to consider potential alliances and to vote in order to maximize their chances of influencing the outcome. In this paper, we argue that this vision is incomplete as PR, just as single-member district plurality, also creates incentives for voters to desert parties that have little chances of obtaining a seat in their district. We validate this theoretical claim using two different surveys conducted during the 2014 Belgian federal and regional elections. Our results show that both government and district viability have a substantial and distinct effect on vote choice.     

Winning, Losing and Satisfaction with Democracy

Previous research has shown that those who won an election are more satisfied with the way democracy works than those who lost. What is not clear, however, is whether it is the fact of winning (losing), per se, that generates (dis)satisfaction with democracy. The current study explores this winner/loser gap with the use of the 1997 Canadian federal election panel study. It makes a theoretical and methodological contribution to our understanding of the factors that foster satisfaction with democracy. At the theoretical level, we argue that voters gain different utility from winning at the constituency and national levels in a parliamentary system, and that their expectations about whether they will win or lose affect their degree of satisfaction with democracy. On the methodological front, our analysis includes a control group (non-voters) and incorporates a control for the level of satisfaction prior to the election. The results indicate that the effect of winning and losing on voters' satisfaction with democracy is significant even when controlling for ex ante satisfaction before the election takes place, and that the outcome of the election in the local constituency matters as much as the outcome of the national election. They fail to show, however, that expectations about the outcome of the election play a significant role in shaping satisfaction with democracy.     

Electoral formulas: A macroscopic perspective

The paper offers a macroscopic view of the legislative electoral formulas in force in 166 sovereign countries, whether democratic or not. The purpose is to determine which formulas are the most widespread, and whether the prevalence of a formula is correlated with geographical, historical, economic, and political factors. While plurality and PR systems are equally frequent, the former tend to be found in more populated countries. PR prevails in Europe and South America, and among the most democratic countries, while the plurality rule is more typical of Asia, Africa, and North America, and is especially popular among former British colonies. Large countries are more likely to opt for single–member districts. No significant correlation emerges between the level of economic development or French colonial background and any electoral formula. The study suggests that the selection of an electoral system is not merely the outcome of party interest, but is also strongly influenced by ideas about what is good, just, or efficient.     

Why do people vote? An experiment in rationality

The study presents the findings of an experiment conducted during the 1993 Canadian fedeal election campaign. Students in two universities were exposed to a ten-minute presentation about the rational model of voting and the ‘paradox’ that so many people vote when it is apparently irrational on a cost-benefit basis. Our data indicate that exposure to the presentation decreased turnout in the election by seven percentage points. This result contributes to the debate abut the effect of rational-choice models on real political behavior. More important, the experimental panel data permit the presentation's effect to be decomposed, and this helps explain why people do vote. In this study, turnout was reduced mainly because the presentation diminished the respondents' sense of duty, an effect that was indirect, because there was no reference in the presentation to such motives. Framing the voting act in rational-choice terms induced some students to reconsider whether they should feel obliged to vote.     

Assessing the psychological and mechanical impact of electoral rules: A quasi-experiment

The paper assesses the influence of electoral rules on vote choice and election outcomes using a quasi-experiment conducted during a recent Canadian provincial election. Respondents were invited to vote under three voting systems (first past the post, alternative voting and proportional representation) and to answer a short questionnaire. We examine how the distribution of votes and seats is affected, and we ascertain how much of the total difference is due to psychological and mechanical effects. We find that a PR system would have increased legislative fractionalization by the equivalent of one effective party and that the mechanical effect is much more important than the psychological effect. As for AV, its mechanical and psychological effects act in opposite directions.     

The formation of party preferences: Testing the proximity and directional models

Abstract. We review the methodological debate between defenders of the proximity and directional models. We propose what we believe to be a rigorous and fair test of the two models, using the 1997 Canadian Election Study. The analysis is based on responses to questions in which the various issue positions are explicitly spelled out. We rely on individual perceptions of party positions because it is individual perceptions that matter in the formation of party preferences but we control for projection effects through a multivariate model that incorporates, in addition to indicators of distance and direction, socio–demographic characteristics, party identification, and leader ratings. We also take into account whether a party is perceived to be extreme. The empirical evidence vindicates the proximity model.     

Civic Duty and Voter Turnout

We argue that two different sets of considerations shape the decision to vote or abstain in an election–ethical and non-ethical. First the citizen may vote out of a sense of duty. Failing that, she may vote because she has strong preferences about the outcome of the election. Abstention occurs when neither duty nor a sufficiently strong preference is present. The implication is that while duty and preference each have strong positive effects on turnout, they also have a negative interaction effect, since the impact of preference is much weaker among those with a sense of duty. We present a wide array of empirical evidence that systematically supports our claim that the turnout decision is importantly shaped by this causal heterogeneity. Thus a turnout model misses something fundamental if it does not take into account the effect of civic duty.

     

Issue Importance and Performance Voting

Issue importance mediates the impact of public policy issues on electoral decisions. Individuals who consider that an issue is important are more likely to rely on their attitudes toward that issue when evaluating candidates and deciding for whom to vote. The logic behind the link between issue importance and issue voting should translate to a link between issue importance and performance voting. Incumbent performance evaluations regarding an issue should have a stronger impact on the vote choice of individuals who find that issue important. The analysis demonstrates that there is a significant interaction between performance evaluations and issue importance. People concerned about an issue assign more weight to their evaluations of the government's performance on that issue when making up their mind.