Republican democracy and compulsory voting

In this article, I focus on Chapters 4 and 5 of On the People’s Terms, chapters that deal with democratic influence and control. I take an applied political science approach to how Pettit’s republic might be practically achieved by exploring the under-appreciated capacity of elections to mobilise the resistance-prone, contestatory public upon which his republicanism depends. Whereas Pettit tends to focus on public contestation between elections and only demands that the public has the opportunity to vote when elections are held, I argue that they should be given a more prominent role within his republic and further, that access to voting is not enough: rather, citizens should actually vote. In order to ensure that participation is socially inclusive and that the public’s attempts at influence are ‘individualised’, ‘unconditioned’ and ‘efficacious’ in the manner Pettit desires, I suggest that compulsory voting should be a major pillar of his republicanism.     

More than wishful thinking: Causes and consequences of voters’ electoral expectations about parties and coalitions

Accurate expectations about the outcome of elections play a central role in psychological and economic theories of voting. In the paper, three questions about voters’ expectations are investigated. First, we identify and test several factors that influence the overall accuracy or quality of voters’ expectations. Second, the phenomenon of “wishful thinking” is tested and confirmed for expectations about the electoral performance of individual parties and coalitions. Finally, two mechanisms how expectations might influence voting behavior are identified and tested. Based on surveys from Austria and Germany, the results suggest that voters not only rely on expectations to avoid casting “wasted” votes for parties without electoral chances, but that they are able to engage in fairly sophisticated strategic coalition voting.     

The second-order election model revisited: An experimental test of vote choices in European Parliament elections

This paper examines the micro-foundations of the second-order elections model of European Parliament (EP) elections. We extend the existing literature in several ways. First, we propose an individual-level model of voting behaviour in second-order elections. Second, we present the first study using experimental methods to test the predictions of the second-order model, allowing us to test the individual-level propositions about vote choice in a controlled environment. Importantly, we also examine the conditioning effect of information on the ‘second-order’ nature of voting behaviour in EP elections. Our findings show that while voters base their EP vote choices primarily on domestic preferences, those who are given additional information about the European integration dimension are also more likely to vote on this basis.     

When do voters actually think “It’s the Economy”? Evidence from the 2008 presidential campaign

Studies linking election outcomes to economics frequently assume that the economy’s salience is constant. This study shows that the economy’s salience systematically fluctuates. The number of voters focused on economic issues shifted dramatically throughout the 2008 campaign as the recession worsened and this change occurred well before the financial markets collapsed in September 2008. However, even during the recession substantial numbers of individuals said their vote was based on non-economic issues and for these individuals there was no relationship between their assessment of the economy and their electoral choice. Consistent with extant theories of issue attention, citizens who were the hardest hit by the recession and those who had the most anxiety about suffering a financial dislocation in the future were most likely to consider economic performance electorally important while secure voters were less likely to be economic voters.     

Economic voting under the economic crisis: Evidence from Greece

Having joined the Eurozone in 2001, Greece experienced a short period of economic euphoria before confronting a major financial crisis some nine years later. In the period between joining the Eurozone and accepting the joint IMF/EU bailout package, the economic situation facing Greek voters changed dramatically. I use this setting to test the economic voting hypothesis. Using longitudinal aggregate data from 1981 to 2009, I investigate the relationship between macroeconomic indicators and vote share of the incumbent party to test the “grievance asymmetry” hypothesis. Moreover, by using individual-level data from 2004 to 2009, I investigate the extent to which retrospective sociotropic evaluations about the state of the economy are associated with support for the incumbent party. The results suggest that sociotropic economic evaluations are associated with government party support, but in a period when the economy is at its worst the incumbent has no real chance of winning and should expect support only from its long-time loyal supporters.     

PIGS or not? Economic voting in Southern Europe

Economic voting has been little studied in the nations of Southern Europe. Here we examine economic voting in the Southern European countries of Portugal, Italy, Spain, and Greece – the PIGS. Through the analysis of a large, ten European nation survey pool, we establish that economic voting exists in the PIGS, with a strength that significantly exceeds that in non-PIGS of Northern Europe. The explanation for such a difference, we suggest, lies in the generally less complex governing coalitions and the poorer economic performance that characterize these Southern European nations. This relatively greater strength of the economic vote in the PIGS implies their electorates will hold government tightly accountable for management of the ongoing economic crises they face.     

Valence beyond consensus: Party competence and policy dispersion from a comparative perspective

Part of the growing literature on valence politics interprets the electoral impact of party competence perceptions as resulting from consensus over ideological positions in contemporary societies. The relationship between valence politics and consensus, however, is usually based on either disputable theoretical assumptions or on single-country analyses. In this paper I empirically test the assumptions linking valence politics and policy consensus in a comparative perspective across 21 political systems. The results show no evidence that valence is associated with consensus, and some evidence that the electoral effect of valence is correlated with certain forms of policy dispersion, such as ideological party polarisation. The implication that perceptions of party competence are significantly informed by spatial-based considerations is discussed.     

Transnational absentee voting in the 2006 Mexican presidential election: The roots of participation

In many of the major migrant-sending countries of the developing world, governments have extended political rights to expatriates, often including the right to vote via absentee ballot. Little is known about the factors that shape transnational electoral participation, however. Using official records provided by the Mexican Federal Electoral Institute, we model the incidence of expatriate ballot solicitations prior to the 2006 presidential election in Mexico. Based on a series of event count regression analyses conducted at the level of U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, we find that transnational involvement in the election depended not only on socioeconomic factors but also on the concentration of Mexican civic associations within the local community, the presence of Spanish-language media, and distance from the Mexican border. This suggests that the roots of immigrant transnational participation include factors familiar to social scientists as well as dynamics uniquely relevant to immigrant communities.     

Voting,clientelism, and identity: experimental evidence from Montenegro

ABSTRACT

The study analyses ethnic voter-candidate linkages and the electoral consequences of such linkages in an ethnically divided Montenegrin society. I argue that vote choice in Montenegro is a function of the dominance of the identity cleavage between the two largest, dominant ethnicities: Montenegrins and Serbs. I conducted a two-stage experiment on a sample of 240 students where, in the first stage, the respondents were given cues as to a candidate’s ethnicity. The results suggest both a co-identity linkage and a positive effect of ethnic information shortcuts on voters’ choices among Montenegrin respondents. For Serbs, ethnic cues failed as a substantive information shortcut in producing electoral advantage. However, additional analysis of the observational data from CSES 2016 provided more evidence to support the identity linkage hypothesis. In an additional experimental stage, respondents were introduced to vote-buying information about the same candidate, under the assumption that the defection rate would be lower for the co-identity candidate. Here, the defection rates remain stable regardless of the co-identity attachment. The overall results suggest that with additional ethnic political parties present, defection as a consequence of illicit behaviour will not translate into a significant transfer of power between ethnic groups.     

Registrants,Voters, and Turnout Variability Across Neighborhoods

Although political participation has received wide-ranging scholarly attention, little is known for certain about the effects of social and political context on turnout. A scattered set of analyses—well-known by both political scientists and campaign consultants—suggests that ones neighborhood has a relatively minor impact on the decision to vote. These analyses, however, typically rely upon data from a single location. Drawing on official lists of registered voters from sixteen major counties across seven states (including Florida) from the 2000 presidential election, we use geographic/mapping information and hierarchical models to obtain a more accurate picture of how neighborhood characteristics affect participation, especially among partisans. Our research shows that neighborhoods influence voting by interacting with partisan affiliation to dampen turnout among voters we might otherwise expect to participate. Most notably, we find Republican partisans in enemy territory tend to vote less than expected, even after accounting for socioeconomic status. Our findings have implications for campaign strategy, and lead us to suggest that campaign targeting efforts could be improved by an integration of aggregate- and individual-level information about voters.