The Electoral Success of Beauties and Beasts

Les prises de positions, les programmes politiques ou encore les résultats précédents des candidats et des partis n'expliquent que partiellement leur succès électoral. D'autres mécanismes, plus simples, jouent aussi un rôle. Dans cet article, nous explorons l'influence de l'attractivité physique sur le nombre de votes de préférence reçus par 744 candidats à l’élection au Conseil national en Suisse en 2007. Le système électoral suisse de scrutin proportionnel avec liste ouverte offre une excellente opportunité d’étudier de tels effets, car les électeurs ne choisissent pas simplement entre partis ou entre candidats, mais également entre candidats au sein du même parti. Nous démontrons un effet robuste de l'attractivité physique sur le nombre de votes de préférence reçus par un candidat. L'effet est aussi important pour les femmes que pour les hommes. Cette influence de l'attractivité est essentiellement liée au fait que les candidats attractifs ont une plus grande probabilité d’être remarqués.     

Decomposing the Vote: Individual,Communal, and Cantonal Sources of Voting Behavior in Switzerland

This article considers individual, communal, and cantonal sources of voting behavior in the 2007 National Council elections in Switzerland. Using hierarchical linear models, it is shown how the vote propensity for the five main parties (CVP, FDP, Greens, SP, and SVP) varies across individuals, communes, and cantons. Key explanatory factors at each of these levels are explored, as well as cross‐party differences in the effects of these factors.     

The Class Basis of Switzerland's Cleavage between the New Left and the Populist Right

This article argues that a full grown cleavage has surfaced in Swiss politics, separating a libertarian‐universalistic (the New Left) from a traditionalist‐communitarian camp (the Populist Right). Based on survey data of Switzerland's parliamentary election 2007, it examines the cleavage's micro‐foundations and shows that the class constituencies of the New Left (the Social‐Democratic and Green Parties) and the Populist Right (the Swiss People's Party) present the almost exact mirror image of each other. The former draws disproportionate support from the salaried middle class, notably socio‐cultural professionals, whereas the latter is rallied by small business owners, production and service workers. Although anchored in the employment structure, this divide is not primarily about the economy and resources, but about culture and identity. It thus strongly correlates with opposing cultural attitudes. While small business owners and workers prefer cultural demarcation and defend national traditions, salaried professionals strongly favour international integration and multi‐culturalism.     

Stability and Change in Party Preference

This article analyses stability and volatility of party preferences using data from the Swiss Household‐Panel (SHP), which, for the first time, allow studying transitions and stability of voters over several years in Switzerland. Analyses cover the years 1999–2007 and systematically distinguish changes between party blocks and changes within party blocks. The first part looks at different patterns of change, which show relatively high volatility. The second part tests several theories on causes of such changes applying a multinomial random‐effects model. Results show that party preferences stabilise with their duration and with age and that the electoral cycle, political sophistication, socio‐structural predispositions, the household‐context as well as party size and the number of parties each explain part of electoral volatility. Different results for within‐ and between party‐block changes underlie the importance of that differentiation.     

Has Television Personalized Voting Behavior?

Scholars and political observers have suggested that television has “personalized” voting behavior in American presidential elections by encouraging citizens to cast ballots on the basis of candidate image and personality. Though an oft-heard assertion, little solid evidence exists that this is true, and the reinvigoration of partisanship and the persistence of ideological conflict suggest personalization may be less pervasive than supposed. In this paper, I use National Election Studies data to examine whether voters are more concerned with candidates’ personal characteristics now than they were at the outset of the television era. I find, however, that voters are no more likely today to mention candidate personality as a reason for their vote choice than they were in the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, while personality affects voting behavior, its influence on candidate choice is not significantly larger than it was a half-century ago. The results are not contingent on exposure to television or political awareness and are insensitive to different measures of perceptions of candidate image. The findings are consistent with the resurgence of partisan voting in American elections and suggest that some concerns about TV’s effects on political judgment are exaggerated.

Mixed evidence for a relationship of cognitive fatigue to political engagement

Daily cognitive fatigue is widespread, yet we are still learning about its influence on political behavior. Existing research suggests fatigue will reduce consumption of politics at the margin. Moreover, when fatigued individuals do engage with political material, they should be more likely to choose content and decision rules that require minimal effort. We find mixed empirical evidence for these claims. In observational data, we find a negative relationship between fatigue and engagement, on average, but the coefficients are typically small and statistically insignificant and we find substantial variation across different measures of fatigue. In three experiments, we find mixed evidence that manipulated fatigue reduces the demand for political content over sports and other non-political entertainment. In a fourth experiment, we find no evidence that manipulated fatigue shapes heuristic versus systematic processing. We discuss the limitations of our study, its relationship to existing work, and avenues for future research.     

Personalized politics: Evidence from the Czech and Slovak Republics

What role do political party leaders play in individual vote choice? Recent literature argues that leaders are increasingly important for decisions at the ballot box. Moreover, scholars suggest leaders may be particularly consequential in volatile, under-institutionalized party systems, like those of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Accordingly, we investigate the extent to which leader evaluations matter for individual voting decisions, and whether these evaluations are more consequential than ideological proximities between voters and parties. We also explore whether leaders matter more for leader-centered, ideologically blurry, and populist parties. Through a comparison of the 2017 Czech and 2020 Slovak elections, we find that leader evaluations are strongly associated with voting decisions and that these evaluations tend to be more consequential than ideological proximity. We also show that leaders are more important for parties with strong “brands” – those that have most differentiated themselves from their competitors.     

When long-distance relationships don't work out: Representational distance and satisfaction with democracy in Europe

We assess the impact of party representation on satisfaction with democracy. Our proposition is that such representation is not only about having a chosen party in government; citizens also derive satisfaction from having their views represented by a political party. We test this through an individual-level measure of policy (in)congruence: the ideological distance between a voter and his or her closest party. Via multi-level modelling of European Election Study data from 1989 to 2009, we find that perceived policy distance matters: the further away that voters see themselves from their nearest party – on either a left-right or a European unification policy dimension – the less satisfied they are with democracy. Notably, this effect is not moderated by party incumbency or size. Voters derive satisfaction from feeling represented by a nearby party even if it is small and out of office. Our results caution against a purely outcomes-driven understanding of democratic satisfaction.     

A voter-centric explanation of the success of ideological candidates for the U.S. house

In recent years, ideological candidates for the U.S. House have become increasingly successful, to the point where their chances of being elected are indistinguishable from moderates. However, scholars have still not uncovered exactly why this is happening. Using survey data from the American National Election Studies, I find that voter-centric explanations of vote choice – a voter's partisanship, ideology, and presidential approval rating – have increasingly predicted their vote choice in U.S. House elections from 1980 to 2016. Using data on candidate ideology, I find that candidate ideology is an increasingly poor predictor of individual vote choice over time. Original experimental data supports these claims, finding only a small electoral advantage for moderates, compared to ideologues of their own party, and evidence suggesting that, at least among Democrats, ideological candidates are rated more favorably than moderates. Taken together, these results suggest that the increased electoral success of ideological candidates can be attributed to changes in voters' decision calculus, rather than structural or candidate-centric explanations.     

The design,purpose, and effects of voting advice applications

In recent electoral politics, one of the most striking internet-related developments is the increasingly widespread use of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs). In this introduction to the symposium devoted to analysing the design, purpose, and effects of voting advice applications, we briefly discuss the literature on these tools for voters, articulate the aims of the symposium, and summarise the six contributions. These papers represent the leading edge of an emerging subfield of electoral research, which has not only significant practical relevance but also research links with many other fields in political science.