Gender differences in the effects of personality traits on voter turnout

This study examines whether the Big Five personality traits have different effects on male and female turnout. Previous research has reported an association between personality traits and turnout, but their results have been inconsistent. Nevertheless, there is a solid evidence of gender differences in personality traits and past studies have not taken into consideration the option that personality–turnout relationship might be gender-differentiated. The current study empirically finds that conscientiousness and emotional stability can significantly increase female turnout, but have no effect on male turnout. Furthermore, openness to experience exerts opposite effects on male and female turnout. As openness to experience increases, men become more likely to vote, whereas women become less likely to cast their ballots. However, extraversion and agreeableness are not associated with turnout, regardless of gender. To sum up, this study provides robust evidence that the effects of personality traits on turnout vary by gender and suggests that any future study of the topic must include interaction between gender and personality in order to estimate the effect of personality on turnout in a more accurate manner.     

The Cadillac,the mother-in-law,and the ballot: Individual and contextual roots of ambivalence in Swiss direct democracy

Citizens may experience irreconcilable and conflictive values or feelings about a political issue. They may, for instance, both believe in a woman's right to autonomy over her body (pro choice) and that human life begins before birth (pro life). This conflictive situation – referred to as ambivalence in relevant literature – has detrimental effects on political choices. For instance, ambivalence may enhance instability in candidates' evaluations, delay the formation of vote intentions, and finally weaken predictions on vote choices.This being, literature has less looked at what may induce ambivalence, and especially on how informational context may affect it. Our paper aims to compensate for this lack, by assessing under which individual and contextual conditions ambivalence has more chances to be felt by citizens. Through a series of hierarchical estimations based on post-electoral data on Swiss direct democracy and original data retracing content of political campaigns, we will demonstrate that individual determinants (political sophistication, exposure to political campaigns, and heuristics) as well as political campaigning (intensity and negativism) strongly determine the existence of ambivalence.     

Linking coalition attitudes and split-ticket voting: The Scottish Parliament elections of 2007

The Scottish Parliament elections of 2007 were the third to be held under the country’s mixed-member proportional system. As voters continue to adapt to the new system, we explore two aspects of its use: i) preferences for coalitions as opposed to single-party government, and ii) ticket-splitting. The two are considered together for two reasons. First, both can be seen as manifestations of a preference for multiple parties, and as a result they share a number of likely predictors in common. In empirical practice, however, we find that rather different factors predict the two variables: ticket-splitting looks to be based on strategic partisan or ideological calculation, whereas coalition attitudes are less about partisan interests and more about an overall view of the kind of policies and politics delivered by coalitions. Second, there is potential for a causal connection between our two dependent variables, and indeed we do find clear evidence of such an attitude–behaviour link: some voters appear to split their ticket precisely because they would prefer a coalition.     

The relative weight of character traits in political candidate evaluations: Warmth is more important than competence,leadership and integrity

Decades of research has found that voters’ electoral decisions to a significant degree are affected by character evaluations of candidates. Yet it remains unresolved which specific candidate traits voters find most important. In political science it is often argued that competence-related traits are most influential, whereas work in social psychology suggests that warmth-related traits are more influential. Here we test which character trait is the more influential in global candidate evaluations and vote choice using observational data from the ANES 1984–2008 and an original experiment conducted on a representative sample of English partisan respondents. Across the two studies we find that warmth is more influential than competence, leadership and integrity. Importantly, results hold across a wide range of alternative specifications and robustness analyses. We conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications of the results.     

How domestic contexts shape international private governance: The case of the European Accord and American Alliance in Bangladesh

The international nature of supply chains has led to the rise of private authority in regulating the environmental and social impacts of production, which companies frequently address through corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the form of private governance (PG). Despite its claim to establish “global” rules, PG usually has national origins, and multiple efforts to address the same issue from different national perspectives frequently coexist. Numerous studies have explored the impact of national business systems on companies' domestic CSR practices, yet little is known about what factors shape CSR practices like PG internationally. Therefore, this study seeks to understand how differing domestic contexts shape approaches to CSR in the form of PG in host countries. I explore this empirically through the comparative case study of competing PG initiatives in the post-Rana Plaza Bangladesh garment industry, uniquely conceived to govern companies' practices rather than certify products. It combines empirical findings with the comparative CSR literature to hypothesize about ideal types of PG organizing in US and European contexts. It extends the analysis to also account for other influential factors, such as stakeholder pressure, thus demonstrating how institutional and agentic factors amalgamate to shape firms' choices. By explicating linkages between international PG and its domestic context, as well as between the comparative CSR and PG literature studies, this study extends our understanding of how and why international PG practices and preferences vary for firms originating from different environments.