Morality and Competence in Shaping the Images of Political Leaders

Psychological models of forming impressions about other people assume that this process is strictly connected with social categorization. Therefore, it is clear that the results of many studies show that the evaluations of other people are based on two crucial and separable criteria: morality and competence. Obviously morality and competence are two fundamental and distinct dimensions of the perception of politicians. These dimensions substantially influence voters’ behavior toward politicians and are clearly visible both in the preelection polls as well as in the scientific analyses concerning forming the images of politicians. The evaluations of politicians on the morality and competence dimensions are central in forming the interpersonal attitudes in which the dominant elements are affect and respect toward the evaluated person. Consequently, affect and respect are crucial factors in establishing the support of candidates for political offices. The morality and competence dimensions trigger the causal structures in the voter's mind in which formed attitude creates affect and respect, which determine voting behavior.     

Policy responsiveness to all citizens or only to voters? A longitudinal analysis of policy responsiveness in OECD countries

A close connection between public opinion and policy is considered a vital element of democracy. In representative systems, elections are assumed to play a role in realising such congruence. If those who participate in elections are not representative of the public at large, it follows that the reliance on elections as a mechanism of representation entails a risk of unequal representation. In this paper, we evaluate whether voters are better represented by means of an analysis of policy responsiveness to voters and citizens in democracies worldwide. We construct a uniquely comprehensive dataset that includes measures of citizens’ and voters’ ideological (left–right) positions, and data on welfare spending in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries since 1980. We find evidence of policy responsiveness to voters, but not to the public at large. Since additional tests suggest that the mechanism of electoral turnout does not cause this voter-policy responsiveness, we outline alternate mechanisms to test in future research.     

Measuring youth and college student voter turnout

Young adulthood is a critical period in civic development. However, measuring electoral participation among this group generally—and the many young people who go to college in particular—is fraught with potential pitfalls stemming from a reliance on survey-based measures of voting. In this note, we compare patterns of youth turnout in two large-scale, survey-based datasets commonly used to measure voting, the Current Population Survey and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, to two voter-file based datasets: the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) and a comprehensive nationwide voterfile provided by the Data Trust. We find high levels of concordance between measures in the NSLVE, Data Trust, and the CPS. However, despite linking their sample to validated voter records, the CCES does not mirror these benchmarks. We conclude by discussing the challenges and opportunities that shape the study of youth turnout.     

Measuring ‘closeness’ in 3-candidate elections: Methodology and an application to strategic voting

Past research suggests that voter behavior is influenced by perceptions of electoral competitiveness. For example, when an election is perceived to be close, voters will be more likely to turnout and/or cast strategic votes for their second-most preferred candidate. Operationalizing electoral competitiveness in three-candidate elections presents previously unrecognized methodological challenges. This paper first shows that many past strategies for measuring ‘closeness’ in three-candidate contests have violated at least one of three basic properties that any such measure should satisfy. We then propose a new measurement grounded in probability ratios, and prove formally that ratio-indices satisfy these axiomatic criteria. Empirical analyses using this new index provide novel and nuanced findings on the extent and causes of strategic voting in the 2010 British general election. The paper's operational strategy should be generally applicable to research on voting in elections, legislatures, and organizations.     

Who votes for mayor? Evidence from midsized American cities

Who, or what, governs the mosaic of the almost 39,000 general purpose local governments across the United States? While the determinants of voter turnout in both national and sub-national elections have been well studied, there is a dearth of empirical literature examining voter turnout at the municipal level. Utilizing an original dataset of 356 midsized US cities drawn from the Midwest, South, and Northeast regions, this paper ponders the drivers of mayoral turnout, and asks if electoral timing, competitiveness, or characteristics of the electorate best predict turnout. Sequenced hierarchical linear models and OLS regressions are employed to control for sub-national effects, and model results indicate that election timing greatly dictate who governs midsized American cities. While local competitiveness and characteristics of the electorate also matter, their explanatory value is greatly over-shadowed by timing.     

Political Branding: Political Candidates Positioning Based on Inter-Object Associative Affinity Index

The article presents the conception of positioning politicians based on a three-stage approach to political branding. The main assumption is that a political brand—and politician's image as its crucial component—is conceptualized as consisting of a node in memory to which a variety of associations are linked. These associations—positive, negative, or neutral—must be shared with other rival candidates as well as with an prototypical ideal candidate, understood as a model and standard of comparison while developing detailed marketing strategies. One of the most valuable methods that has been used to measure these associations is associative overlap technique developed by Szalay. This measure is based on free verbal associations and it expresses the degree of similarity among objects (words, persons, groups) based on the number of similar responses (associations) they elicit in common. The first stage of branding, candidates’ positioning in various segments of voters, focuses on such affinity between politicians and is based on multidimensional scaling techniques. At the second stage, mutual relationships between particular elements (positive and negative, common and distinctive), of which a politician's image consists, are defined. The third level of political branding links the results of positioning to voters’ decisions. This framework of branding political candidates is presented on the basis of empirical research focused on Polish presidential candidates’ perception and evaluation in the 2005 presidential election. The results of the performed research show that it is not only the strengthening of politicians’ positive features but also neutralizing the negative ones that contributes to his higher expected quality.     

Elite behaviour and citizen mobilisation

This article studies the relation between self-serving elite behaviour and citizen political participation. It uses a fixed effects approach to analyse the association between portfolio investment in tax havens and voter turnout, using data from 213 parliamentary elections in 65 countries for the period 1998–2014. For well-functioning democracies a positive relation between the use of tax havens and voter turnout is found, suggesting that self-serving elite behaviour is associated with citizen political mobilisation rather than voter apathy. The estimated relationship is stronger in the period after the 2008 economic crisis, when elite behaviour was a particularly salient issue.     

They See Dead People (Voting): Correcting Misperceptions about Voter Fraud in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

The 2016?US Presidential election was unique for many reasons, especially the widespread endorsement of falsehoods about the candidates and the electoral process. Using a unique experiment fielded the week prior to the election, we examine whether correcting information can overcome misperceptions about election fraud. We find that providing counter information is generally ineffective at remedying misperceptions and can, depending on the source, increase endorsements of misperceptions among Republicans. Although information from a fact-checking source is generally unconvincing, when given with evidence from an unlikely source – in our experiment, Breitbart News – both Republicans and Democrats decrease beliefs in voter fraud.     

Testing for Fiscal Illusion in Wisconsin Towns

Fiscal illusion, a theory of the impact of government revenue structures on voter decision-making, has been studied extensively by economists and political scientists; however, empirical verification has been limited. This study builds on Lowery's (1987a) work by examining the relationship between suggested illusionary revenues and measures of electoral stress. Here, electoral stress is measured as constituent contacting—one possible measure of voter influence—for local government officials up for re-election. Using a combination of survey data from over 1,000 Wisconsin town board members, audited fiscal data and U.S. Census data, we were able to test for fiscal illusion. Our findings show that when looking at five revenue types (conditional grants, unconditional grants, property taxes, user fees and charges, and debt service) there is some evidence suggesting officials seeking another term in office will tend to support fees and charges as a revenue structure over other structures. Overall, there is little consistent evidence suggesting that elected officials are manipulating revenue structures for electoral gain. Revenue structures are mostly influenced by social and economic factors, such as median household income, population changes, and per capita property valuation.     

Manifestos and elections in Ghana's Fourth Republic

Debate continues over the factors that influence electoral outcomes or voter behaviour and alignment in elections all over the world. Several factors have been noted, including the manifestos of political parties. In spite of the potential influence of the party manifesto, several comparative and empirical studies on elections in Ghana have paid little or no attention to manifestos in determining the electoral outcomes of political parties in the Fourth Republic.This paper makes a contribution to the debate by examining how manifestos have influenced the electoral chances of the two main political parties which have been in and out of government in Ghana since the inception of the Fourth Republic, namely, the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party. Analysis covers the five elections held in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. Specifically, it discusses not only the ability of the manifestos to shape policy debate but also to some extent, influence electoral outcomes. The paper concludes with some lessons learned.