Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication

An increasing number of citizens change and adapt their party preferences during the electoral campaign. We analyze which short-term factors explain intra-campaign changes in voting preferences, focusing on the visibility and tone of news media reporting and party canvassing. Our analyses rely on an integrative data approach, linking data from media content analysis to public opinion data. This enables us to investigate the relative impact of news media reporting as well as party communication. Inherently, we overcome previously identified methodological problems in the study of communication effects on voting behavior. Our findings reveal that campaigns matter: Especially interpersonal party canvassing increases voters’ likelihood to change their voting preferences in favor of the respective party, whereas media effects are limited to quality news outlets and depend on individual voters’ party ambivalence.     

Does ethnic voting harm democracy?

A large literature argues that ethnic voting is detrimental to democracy. Ethnic voting may have at least three effects: (1) it can reduce uncertainty over electoral results; (2) it may increase the winner-take-all character of elections; and (3) it can lead to a process of ethnic outbidding. However, few studies have tested the effect of ethnic voting on democracy using large-N quantitative analysis. Previous tests instead look at whether ethnic fractionalization hinders democracy. Yet, ethnic diversity does not necessarily lead to the politicization of ethnicity, and it is only when ethnicity is activated as a vehicle of political mobilization that it can destabilize democracy. This article tests the effect of ethnic voting in 58 democracies worldwide between 1992 and 2015. On balance, the evidence suggests that democracies with high ethnic voting levels tend to see the quality of their democracy reduce over time relative to those with less ethnic voting. Ethnic and religious fractionalization, however, have little effect.     

Compulsory voting and ethnic diversity increase invalid voting while corruption does not: an analysis of 417 parliamentary elections in 73 countries

Invalid voting, meaning blank and spoiled ballots, is a regular phenomenon in democracies around the world. When its share is larger than the margin of victory or greater than the vote share of some of the large parties in the country, invalid voting becomes a problem for democratic legitimacy. This article investigates its determinants in 417 democratic parliamentary elections in 73 countries on five continents from 1970 to 2011. The analysis shows that enforced compulsory voting and ethnic fragmentation are strong predictors for invalid voting while corruption has less impact. Our findings suggest that the societal structure is crucial in understanding invalid voting as a problem for democratic legitimacy because greater social diversity seems to lead to either a greater rate of mistakes or lesser attachments of social groups to the democratic process. Thus, rising levels of invalid voting are not only concerning in themselves but also for the divisive factors driving them.     

Regionalizing Multilateralism: Estimating the Power of Potential Regional Voting Blocs in the IMF

This paper explores the voting power of hypothetical regional voting blocs in the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund. We first discuss the prospect of regionally defined groups becoming more significant in the Fund’s decision-making process. After briefly outlining the IMF’s formal decision procedures, including its weighted voting system, use of special majorities, and the function of voting groups in the Fund’s Executive Board we define three indices of a priori voting power — the Banzhaf, Johnston, and Shapley-Shubik indices — which are then applied to existing voting groups. Following this we simulate several regionally defined a priori coalitions and their potential to influence outcomes in passing resolutions in the Fund using a simple majority. The coalitions we specify are based on the assumption that members of the IMF will form into voting blocs based on regionally-defined preferences. The procedures employed use existing voting weights to project the relative strengths of alternative regional blocs that could emerge within the IMF. Our results indicate that the United States would have the greatest voting power in almost all scenarios. A voting bloc comprised of European countries, however, would be able to dominate the United States unless the U.S. formed an Asia-Pacific bloc. Japan, the PRC, and other Asian countries appear to be unable to form voting blocs that would provide them with more voting power than the United States.     

Nonviolent revolutions: civil resistance in the late 20th century

Why do young Africans participate less in elections than their older counterparts? Given Africa's growing youth bulge, this constituency represents a numerically important voting bloc, and their lower participation in elections could undermine the legitimacy of the region's democratic trajectory. We address this question through a multi-level model that relies on individual-level data from the Afrobarometer surveys and country-level data for 19 of the region's more democratic countries. We classify Africa's youth as belonging to two categories, those aged 18–24 and those aged 25–35. We find that key determinants of the youth's voting behaviour include their access to political knowledge and information as well as their perceptions of the electoral context and party system. In the latter regard, the efficacy and fairness of elections and the degree of partisanship increase the youth's decision to vote, while the length of party incumbency is a deterrent to turnout. These findings hold important implications by highlighting that Africa's youth not only need to be exposed to greater fora for learning about the political process and party options but also that political parties in the region need to become more relevant to this constituency.     

The Myth of Media Globalization: Why Global Media Is Not Truly Globalized,by Kai Hafez

Political discussion is often seen as a potential shortcut to enlightened voting. If uninformed individuals receive useful information from their discussion partners, then they can make quality decisions at the ballot box without incurring the costs of becoming informed. Discussion partners, however, have biases and these biases are reflected in what they say about candidates. If individuals accept messages from sources with different preferences, they could end up supporting candidates who benefit their discussion partners instead of themselves. This article argues that egos will often accept messages from individuals with an incentive to mislead. Instead of evaluating the messenger, individuals evaluate the messages. When the messages are all in accord, individuals support the candidate suggested by the messages even if the messengers are all biased. This article presents the results of a group-based experiment in which ego networks were exogenously determined by the researcher. In the experiment, egos tend to vote for their party's candidate, but they defect with greater frequency when they receive messages from members of a different party. This willingness to listen to the other side has detrimental effects for the quality of their decisions.     

Ethnicity Matters: Transnational Ethnic Alliances and Foreign Policy Behavior

This article investigates the influence of transnational ethnic alliances on the international interactions of states. Transnational ethnic alliances exist when both states in a dyad contain members of the same ethnic group. We argue that two types of dyads will experience higher levels of conflict than other dyads: (1) those where an advantaged minority in state A has an ethnic tie to a nonadvantaged minority in state B, and (2) those with a transnational ethnic alliance where the group in one of the states is politically mobilized. Using data from the COPDAB, Minorities at Risk, Polity II, COW, and Penn World Tables projects we find support for these contentions.     

Constituent Influence on International Trade Policy in the United States, 1987–2006

The debate on whether class-based or industry-based coalitions are politically salient in American trade politics has illuminated domestic sources of international trade policy but remains unresolved. In particular, the literature offers contradictory evidence on the dominance in recent years of class-based or industry-based trade politics. This contradiction is mainly due to selective use of congressional votes. This article contributes to this debate by applying a multilevel item-response-theory model to the entire universe of trade-related votes since 1987. This study finds that class-based coalitions are politically salient in current U.S. trade politics. Furthermore, while this study confirms the significance of party influence on trade voting, it finds little support for the view that political parties have dyadic relationships with particular groups of constituents.     

Are Poor Voters Indifferent to Whether Elected Leaders Are Criminal or Corrupt? A Vignette Experiment in Rural India

Although in theory elections are supposed to prevent criminal or venal candidates from winning or retaining office, in practice voters frequently elect and reelect such candidates. This surprising pattern is sometimes explained by reference to voters’ underlying preferences, which are thought to favor criminal or corrupt candidates because of the patronage they provide. This article tests this hypothesis using 2010 data from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where one in four representatives in the state legislature have a serious criminal record and where political corruption is widespread. Contrary to the voter preference hypothesis, voters presented with vignettes that randomly vary the attributes of competing legislative candidates for local, state, and national office become much less likely to express a preference for candidates who are alleged to be criminal or corrupt. Moreover, voters’ education status, ethnicity, and political knowledge are unrelated to their distaste for criminal and venal candidates. The results imply that the electoral performance of candidates who face serious allegations likely reflects factors other than voters’ preferences for patronage, such as limited information about candidate characteristics or the absence of credible alternative candidates with clean records.     

Local determinants of an emerging electoral hegemony: the case of Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey

“Party hegemony” is a macro-level characteristic of party systems, which is a product of persistent and overwhelming electoral victories that leads to domination of the parliamentary system by a single party. Party hegemony can only emerge through a collection of individual-level (albeit aggregated), lower-level structural, and macro-level institutional factors. This article intends to shed light on hegemonic party systems by incorporating all of these aspects. It analyses the case of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey as a hegemonic party in the making. Based on individual-level survey data as well as an original province-level dataset, the article examines the role of ideology, pork barrel politics, economic voting, demographics, and political institutions in AKP's rising hegemony. The replicable nature of the dataset enables further testing of these findings in comparable cases for generalizability.     

The enfranchisement of citizens abroad: variations and explanations

Today, a large majority of states allow at least some of their emigrants to take part in home country elections from abroad. This article first looks at the diffusion of external voting laws and shows that over the past 25 years they have become widely-adopted and are no longer limited to specific professional categories of citizens. Second, the article explains the international diffusion of external voting by discussing the “norm-internationalization hypothesis” and the “electoral-competition hypothesis.” Third, the article attempts to demonstrate that these hypotheses cannot explain why, in a democratic context, states continue to implement a series of hurdles that deter emigrants from using their newly gained rights. Looking at recent developments in Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa, it concludes that the diffusion and variations of external voting laws result from transnational negotiation processes in a context of democratic transformation among various actors whose interests are strongly affected by the inclusion or exclusion of these new voters.     

Ethnic politics and election campaigns in contemporary Africa: evidence from Ghana and Kenya

Why do some political parties in new democracies base their campaigns on promises of national public goods while others do not? Parties in new democracies often eschew programmatic policy proposals in favour of appealing to voters’ ethnic identities, distributing non-programmatic benefits, or emphasizing the personalities of their candidates. However, this is not universally the case. This article examines recent campaign strategies in two nascent democracies in Africa: Ghana and Kenya. The findings suggest that programmatic campaigning is much more common than is assumed, but that parties have different preferences for how much programmatic content they include in their campaigns. The article argues that differences in campaign strategies are largely due to differences in the composition of ethnic support for competing parties. Parties that draw a majority of their support from a single large ethnic group are more likely to develop campaign strategies based on programmatic, policy-based appeals in the form of specific proposals for national public goods than are parties with a more diverse ethnic base of supporters. I argue that these appeals serve as a pre-election commitment to counteract fears among the electorate of domination by the large ethnic core of the party.     

The decline of citizen participation in electoral politics in post-authoritarian Chile

Turnout among registered voters remains high in post-authoritarian Chile, but valid votes as a percentage of the voting-age population have fallen significantly in the post-authoritarian period and blank/null voting, non-registration, and abstention are on the rise. Why? This article tests three rival explanations: (1) lack of political support; (2) depoliticization; and (3) a generational shift in political culture. These theories are not mutually exclusive, but rather explain distinct contours of this electoral phenomenon. Compared to valid voters, blank/null voters exhibit less support for the political system, are less politicized, and more likely to have reached legal voting age during the democratic transition. Although non-registrants also exhibit less political support and are more depoliticized than valid voters, their behaviour is largely explained by a new political culture that stresses individual as opposed to collective participation. In addition to shedding light on this Chilean puzzle, the findings enhance the debates over electoral participation, mandatory voting, and quality of democracy in Latin America and other nascent democracies.     

“Ethnic polarization and the limits of democratic practice”

While several scholars have speculated that ethnic bipolarity, as a particular type of diversity, is related to the weakness of democracy in multiethnic states there exist few studies that test this relationship. This article suggests that ethnic bipolarity, measured as the size difference of the largest politically relevant ethnic communities and as ethno-political polarization, is related to whether a state exhibits tendencies to limit democratic participation. In cases where the size difference between groups is small or polarization is high there exist incentives to limit full democratic contestation. In the face of international and domestic pressures to politically liberalize, numerically dominant yet demographically insecure groups will seek to democratize only enough to satisfy the minimum needs of transparency while preserving their incumbent position. Using a panel of 121 countries between 1991 and 2014, the results of this analysis suggest that ethnic bipolarity and polarization are a strong predictor of whether a state institutionalizes procedures associated with competitive authoritarian regimes.     

The return of censitary suffrage? The effects of automatic voter registration and voluntary voting in Chile

How does a change from a compulsory voting system to a voluntary one affect election turnout? It is often argued that an electoral regime under which voting is voluntary reproduces class bias or, in other words, that the rich vote more than the poor. This bias is corrected either by the introduction of compulsory voting or the existence of strong left-wing parties and trade unions able to mobilize poorer segments of the population. In this article, we put forward an alternative argument. We assert that when voting is voluntary, class bias can disappear if an election is very competitive since this affects both turnout and its socio-economic composition. To evaluate this argument, we examine the case of Chile's 2012 municipal election when voting was voluntary for the first time, instead of compulsory.     

Theorizing national preference formation

This article seeks to explain through the contextualized comparisons of a few critical cases how national preferences on an interstate bargaining issue are formed domestically. It proposes an interaction framework of national preference formation (NPF), which emphasizes the government's policy autonomy, the size of the ruling party or coalition, and the party unity in aggregating divergent domestic preferences for interstate bargaining. The framework is tested against major European Community members' preference formation on Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Case studies reveal that the interaction framework quite accurately describes the national preferences of Germany, Britain, and France over EMU.     

Afghanistan's India–Pakistan dilemma: advocacy coalitions in weak states

This article seeks to examine the foreign policy behaviour of weak states in regions marked by politically turbulent geostrategic environments. An analysis of Afghanistan's foreign policy behaviour vis-à-vis Pakistan and India lends focus to this aim. India–Pakistan rivalry has gained traction as a key factor in determining Afghanistan's stability in the wake of the drawdown of Coalition forces. Missing from this debate, however, is consideration of Afghanistan's agency as a weak state with an independent set of policy preferences. Based on primary interviews with a diverse set of Afghan political actors the article outlines two competing policy advocacies: Pakistan friendly and Pakistan averse. The article argues that these advocacies are key to understanding Afghanistan's India–Pakistan dilemma. Departing from the ethnic lens used to explain Afghan politics and its regional linkages, this article shows that Kabul's relations with Islamabad determine its approach towards New Delhi regardless of ethnic rivalries. Understanding domestic Afghan narratives in this regional context is therefore imperative to adequately assess South Asia's prospective security calculus.     

Minority representation in a semi-democratic regime: the Georgian case

This article suggests that in most semi-democracies, the same solution might not be that favourable to minorities. Many semi-democratic countries either restrict party competition or limit parties of ethnic minorities, including: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, Cameron, Equatorial Guinea, Tanzania, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritania, and Congo (Brazzaville). This article highlights the impact of the electoral system and the importance of political plurality and electoral district design in such contexts. The article argues that the interests of minorities are best protected if they can elect their representatives in small, ethnically homogeneous electoral districts. Plurality or majority voting systems offer minorities the possibility to run with independent candidates. The case study in this article elections to municipal councils in Georgia in 2006 under a mixed electoral system seem to reflect the hypothesized pattern.     

Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage

The proportion of votes cast before election day has risen steadily over the last two decades. Previous research asked how early voting has impacted voter participation. In this article, we ask how early voting has affected the flow of information to voters through the mass media. By increasing the number of days voters are able to vote, are we also increasing the number of days that candidates and campaigns continuously disseminate campaign-related information to the news media? Is news coverage of campaigns quantitatively and qualitatively different when opportunities to vote early are available and utilized? Our expectation is that early voting significantly influences the volume and nature of campaign news coverage. We study the effects of early voting on campaign news coverage of gubernatorial and Senate races in 2006 and 2008. Our findings reveal that the volume and content of campaign news coverage is significantly influenced by early voting.

[Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Political Communication for the following free supplemental resource: Appendix for Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage—Alternative Model Specifications.]