The impact of value orientations on election outcomes

Abstract

Assuming that parties compete along a single left-right axis, most researchers assessing the impact of party positions on voting behaviour have typically tested whether the distance or proximity between voters’ and party positions on left-right issues affects party choice or, less often, aggregate election outcomes. This piece of research suggests that the impact of other value orientations, namely materialism versus post-materialism, on election outcomes should be compared with the impact of those values representing the so-called industrial stage of development in West European societies. It then estimates models of vote share for each one of the main European party families (Socialists, Christian Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals, Left, Greens, Far Right) based on party distances from the average voter on a ‘left-right’ and a ‘materialism–post-materialism’ scale. Model building aims at testing the hypothesis that the vote share of parties belonging to ‘new politics’ party families is significantly related to their proximity advantage on the materialism–post-materialism value orientation.