Bloc Voting Research Articles

Legacy of the Religious Right and the U.S. Presidential Election of 1980

Political parties have evolved throughout the history of the United States, yet we have never seen such a polarizing state of politics as we see in 2024. Through the use of academic journals and speeches, this paper explains the turbulent state of U.S. politics by exploring the increased involvement of the Religious Right in politics. Starting with the history of the Religious Right and focusing on the U.S. presidential election in 1980, this paper outlines how the increased activity of the Religious Right has caused a divide in American politics. It will discuss how the presidential election of 1980 solidified a religious voting bloc. The paper also reviews the increased use of religious rhetoric especially during George W. Bush’s presidency (2001-2009). This paper finds that the inclusion of religion in secular matters has proven to be provocative. Yet, the Religious Right strives to protect the “traditional family” by encouraging participation in politics, especially on topics such as abortion, women’s rights, and gay rights.

Turkey’s Evolving Political Terrain: A Study of Post-2016 Coup Relations Involving Religious and Sociopolitical Movements

ABSTRACT This article undertakes an examination of the pro-government İsmailağa movement and the Adnan Oktar movement in Turkey, delving into the nuances of their affiliations with the AK Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party) and, specifically, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan following the coup attempt in 2016. It seeks to address the following questions: How did the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey impact the dynamics shaping the AK Party government’s interactions with religious movements such as İsmailağa and the Adnan Oktar movement, and what factors contributed to the intricacies and shifts observed in power dynamics within this framework? Furthermore, what potential ramifications do these transformations entail for political and religious influence within the nation? The thesis posits that despite Erdoğan’s reliance on religious movements as a voting bloc and a critical element in efforts to fill the void left by the exclusion of the Fethullah Gülen movement from governmental positions, religious movements do not enjoy the same degree of autonomy as they did prior to the coup attempt. Moreover, Erdoğan has adopted a more circumspect and distrustful stance, not only toward dissenting movements but also toward pro-AK Party movements. By concentrating on İsmailağa and the Adnan Oktar movement, we can discern Erdoğan’s disposition toward religious movements and the shift that has manifested in the relationship between the government and religious movements. This article draws upon a diverse array of sources, including deliberations from Turkey’s Grand Assembly, to glean insights into the interactions between the government and religious movements.

Protecting the win, and securing the base: Kenya’s 2022 presidential election dispute and outcome

ABSTRACT In much of Africa, opposition presidential candidates face the benefits of incumbency and often accuse the government of rigging. But in Kenya’s 2022 presidential election, it was the government-favoured candidate, Raila Odinga, who lost and accused the electoral body of rigging. Then-incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta had mobilised allies and senior government officials to support Odinga against his own deputy president, William Ruto, who won the election. Drawing on interviews, court proceedings and media coverage, we argue that Kenyatta and Odinga campaign compared poorly with Ruto’s robust mobilisation approach and use of class and religious narratives that resonated with voters. Also, the steadfast determination of the chairperson of the electoral body to withstand pressure of manipulation and to produce a transparent election by posting results on a publicly accessible portal created an atmosphere of openness that made it difficult to support rigging claims. This provided evidence to protect Ruto’s win. The claims of rigging served a purpose: they helped Odinga to secure his strongholds as a critical support base in subsequent power negotiations and likely as future voting blocs.

From Voting Bloc to Fragmentation: The Chinese Opposition Votes in the 2021 Sarawak State Election

This study analyses the voting patterns among the Sarawakian Chinese and their pro-opposition inclination in the 2021 Sarawak State Election (SSE21). It begins by recounting how the national opposition alliances, former Pakatan Harapan (PH) alliances—Barisan Alternatif (BA) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR)—gained popularity among the Chinese voters in Sarawak since the 2006 state elections. The voting trends reveal changes in Chinese voting patterns, from a voting bloc to fragmented votes, and their openness to local opposition parties in the recent state elections. In order to examine the plurality voting pattern and the extent of fragmentation, this research studies two Chinese-majority urban constituencies, Batu Lintang and Bukit Assek in Sarawak. It contends that the Chinese political leanings, including their tendency to embrace regionalism, are profoundly shaped by local and national political developments. In the past two decades, ethnopatronage politics and prevalent corruption practices partly explain the Chinese’s quest for regime change. The Sarawak government’s emphasis on regional identity and multiculturalism in its official narrative nurtures a sense of belonging, which also impacts Chinese identity politics. This article argues that the decision to support minor parties advocating for separatism can be read as strategic voting of the regional minority who feel deprived of their equal rights. It also contends that political fragmentation among the Chinese might persist if PH fails to consolidate its previous support. Otherwise, it spells the decline of Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) and Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK). The sustainability of local opposition parties depends on the internal reform of parties. The parties should reduce the influences of personal politics as it tends to breed party-hopping, which places parties’ future or institutional development at risk of uncertainty.

Black Millennials, Slipping Alliances, and the Democratic Party

Abstract Recent election cycles show a reluctance among Black millennials to support the Democratic Party, which suggests that they are not captured by the party like their predecessors. While we know that African Americans have historically remained a loyal voting bloc, it is important to analyze whether there are generational differences with respect to Black Democratic Party loyalty. In this study, I analyze Black millennial partisanship identification and compare it to Black non-millennials (Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers). To test this, I employ a multi-method approach. My results show that while Black millennials continue to identify with the Democratic Party, they are not as loyal to the Democratic Party when compared to Black non-millennials. Further, I find that Black millennials are not changing loyalties to the Republican or a third party. Instead, Black millennials are willing to withhold their vote altogether if they are not satisfied with any Democratic candidates. My work has critical implications in how we understand Black politics and reveals that Democratic candidates will have to earn Black millennials vote going forward.

The Democratic Majority and the 2016 American Presidential Election: Feminist Political Behavior Across Multiple Axes of Identity

Scholarship on women voters using an intersectional lens has shown feminists and women of color within the Democratic Party to be a powerful force in electoral politics—specifically, Black and Latina women—are the most reliable voters. Combined, they represent the majority of women voters in the Democratic Party, and they have shown themselves to be a sizeable voting bloc in the last two American presidential election cycles. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Studies (ANES), we demonstrate important differences in support for the Democratic candidate (Hillary Clinton) between feminists and women of color—Black and Latina—underscoring the need to study gender, race, and ethnicity simultaneously (versus independently) when they are co-constitutive identity categories. By examining women and the groups the Clinton campaign appealed most to—feminists, Black, and Latina women—we add to the scholarship in political science that followed this unique election and demonstrate the importance of feminist identity for vote choice and various modes of political behavior for women voters. Knowing and understanding how women respond through affect and how this affect can result in political behaviors will help determine what it takes for future historic first candidates to emerge successful.

Bloc Voting for Electoral Accountability

How do citizens hold local politicians accountable? I argue that citizens, especially through neighborhood associations, can use bloc voting as a bottom-up, grassroots strategy to pressure politicians for public services. Politicians monitor polling station voting, and communities switch allegiance if politicians do not deliver. I measure the perceived and actual relationships between community characteristics, bloc voting, and water access—an essential resource prone to political manipulation. I analyze an original household survey and conjoint experiment merged with electoral data in rural Brazil, and qualitative interviews illustrate theoretical mechanisms. Bloc voting is more likely in communities with high trust and participation, and bloc voting improves water access for association members. However, this strategy is only worthwhile for communities that can demonstrate their vote at their polling station. In contrast to top-down explanations of bloc voting, I highlight the interaction of collective action and electoral institutions for accountability and public service provision.

Gen Z Attitudes Towards American Democracy and Reform

Political scientists have expressed concern about the current state of democracy in the United States, which is widely regarded as a pioneer in the modern democratic world. This study focuses on three institutional practices and systems—gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and Misinformation/hate speech—that are deemed detrimental to democracy/undemocratic and in need of reform. While Gen Zers (born between 1997-2012) are projected to become a significant voting bloc in future elections, there is limited research on their political opinions. To gauge the attitudes and preferences of Gen Zers regarding American democracy and potential institutional/practice reforms, a survey of 215 participants was conducted. The findings indicate that the majority of Gen Zers express concern about the state of democracy and are open to the idea of reform, although they do not strongly support any specific reform. Respondents displayed significant support for reforming gerrymandering, while opinions on reforming the Electoral College and addressing Misinformation/hate speech were divided along partisan lines. A subsequent focus group highlighted the participants' emphasis on the importance of civic engagement and media literacy education in high schools, as well as the need for more comprehensive local and federal curricular mandates.

The End of the Ethnic Bloc Vote? Ethnic Minority Leavers After the Brexit Referendum

The 2016 referendum on UK membership in the European Union (EU) led to a realignment of voters along their referendum position (Fieldhouse et al. 2021; Sobolewska and Ford 2020). By December 2019, both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party received approximately 80% of their support from voters who had been on “their” side during the referendum (Fieldhouse et al. 2021). Brexit identities were akin to partisanship, with affective polarization and perceptual screening (Sobolewska and Ford 2020; Sorace and Hobolt 2021). Research also traces the Brexit vote to a growing values divide (Evans and Menon 2017), with ethnocentric attitudes found on opposing sides of the referendum (Sobolewska and Ford 2020). The views of ethnic minority voters, as traditional victims of white ethnocentrism, have been seen largely in this debate as the same as the identity of liberal Remainers. However, despite the assumption that minorities naturally would fall on the side opposing white ethnocentrism, the referendum marked the biggest departure from the traditional ethnic minorities bloc vote since 2005, when a substantial minority of Muslim voters deserted Labour over the Iraq War (Curtice, Fisher, and Steed 2005). The Leave side in the 2016 referendum received approximately one third of the votes of ethnic minorities (Martin, Sobolewska, and Begum 2020), despite Leave also drawing a majority of its support from “UKIP-curious” voters (Evans and Mellon 2019) who had voted for or considered supporting the anti-immigrant radical-right United Kingdom Independence Party.

Grievances, Policies or Clientelism? The Different Logics behind Ethnic Voting in Democracies and Autocracies

In this article, we explore the reasons why some ethnic groups tend to vote along ethnic lines while others do not. We argue that existing explanations for ethnic voting can be grouped into three main approaches: policy-based, grievance-based, and clientelism. However, we contend that inconsistencies in previous empirical research come from a failure to account for the political context in which ethnic voting occurs. Specifically, we argue that ethnic voting in democracies operates on a different logic than in non-democratic regimes. Our argument posits that policy- and grievance-based factors are the primary determinants of ethnic voting in democracies, whereas clientelist networks play a crucial role in understanding ethnic voting in autocratic regimes. To test our hypotheses, we use a sample of 428 ethnic groups from 33 African countries between 2005 and 2018, as well as a novel survey-based measurement of voting preferences among ethnic group members. Our findings support our hypotheses: in democratic regimes, grievance-based and policy-based explanations have strong explanatory power, whereas clientelism is the primary driver of ethnic bloc voting in autocracies. We conclude that both regime type and the different underlying mechanisms of clientelism require greater consideration in the research on ethnic voting.

An untapped coalition: partisanship and political participation among people with disabilities

ABSTRACT The disability politics literature has found that having a disability significantly decreases an individual’s voting propensity. Using data from the 2020 American National Election Study, the present paper explores several mechanisms driving such depressed levels of voter turnout. Considering the central role of partisanship in American political behavior, we investigate the partisan ties, ideological preferences, and vote choice of individuals reporting a disability. We also consider their overall experiences with the political system, with particular emphasis on political knowledge, political interest, and attitudes towards voting. Data suggest that those reporting a disability do not differ significantly from those not reporting a disability in terms of party affiliation, ideological orientation, and vote choice. Although individuals with disabilities exhibited high levels of political interest in 2020, they were no more or less likely to participate in alternative forms of political engagement, such as activism online. One noteworthy finding demonstrated in our analyses is that those with disabilities largely tend to view voting as a choice, rather than a duty. Our conclusion places these findings into the context of partisan coalition building and voter mobilization, providing several suggestions for how disability scholars might continue to advance understanding of this large, growing voting bloc.

SITUATING CHINESE AND INDIAN ENGAGEMENT IN AFRICA: A ‘NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA’?

Africa is often touted as the continent of opportunities. Lately, Africa has realized this potential and has been seeking to turn ‘potentiality’ into ‘actuality.’ It has been at the cusp of geopolitical changes taking place in the regional as well as global order. Governments and businesses from all around the world are rushing to strengthen diplomatic, strategic, and commercial ties. This paper limits its study to understand the role played by India and China in Africa and how it is shaping Africa as well getting shaped in the process. India and China have emerged as two great Asian powers with vibrant economy and huge demography with global ambitions. Not only does Africa offers unexplored resources to feed these rapidly growing Asian giants, it also holds immense geopolitical importance as a voting bloc of 54 countries to shape global opinion in the United Nations and elsewhere. While Africa is big enough for both these emerging powers, but there is a growing concern that the rivalry between China and India could play out to the detriment of African interests and lead to a ‘new scramble for Africa.’

Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

The Greening of the Others: The Destination of Alliance and Green Party Transfers in the 2023 Northern Ireland Local Government Elections

ABSTRACT: Northern Ireland’s elections have always been fought over whether that polity should remain in the UK or become part of a united Ireland. Since 1970 a fluctuating proportion of the electorate have voted for such parties as the Alliance and Green parties, which are currently neutral on this constitutional issue. Previous studies of PR-STV transfers have tended to focus on overall transfers to parties; this paper analyses the transfers from these two parties in the 2023 local government elections, in count distributions where both nationalist and unionist bloc candidates were available. The analysis shows that nationalists benefited disproportionally from these transfers. It is estimated that most of Northern Ireland’s voters gave either a first preference or their highest non-Other preference to nationalist bloc candidates. Opportunities and challenges facing reunificationists and unionists are discussed in the new context of a nationalist bloc vote plurality amid increasing calls for a border poll.

The Saints and the State: The Mormon Troubles in Illinois

The Saints and the State: The Mormon Troubles in Illinois

Voting Rights: Justice Alito’s False, Partisan Facts

In October 2022, during oral arguments in a US Supreme Court case concerning reapportionment, Justice Samuel Alito suggested from the bench that racial bloc voting in Alabama is a partisan, ideological difference, unrelated to race. Steve Suitts reviews this voting rights case and briefly explains how Alito ignores Alabama's long history of race-based voter suppression and why, if adopted in future cases, Alito's ahistorical assertion could devastate Black voters' chances to win voting rights challenges across the nation.

Political mobilization of layered ethnic identities

ABSTRACT The ethnic identities of many communities in Central Asia, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa are layered: larger-scale superordinate ethnic groups consist of smaller-scale subordinate ethnic (sub)groups. This underappreciated feature of ethnicity has far-reaching political ramifications. In settings where ethnic identities are layered, politicians can access the considerable benefits of coethnic voting by mobilizing the electoral support of fellow members of any ethnic layer. Presented with such choices, election candidates adapt their identity mobilization strategies to the ethnic composition of electorates in order to target and coordinate with suitable coethnic electorate segments, form winning coalitions, and fragment the voting blocs assembled by their electoral rivals. The multiplicity and malleability of available layered identities facilitates both the construction and fragmentation of cross-segment alliances as well as individual segments. Evidence from fifty-four electoral contests in Marsabit in Northern Kenya provides support for this argument.

Making the Vote (In)Accessible: Election Administration Laws and Turnout Among People with Disabilities

ABSTRACT Approximately 12.7% of Americans are considered to have a disability. Yet, despite belonging to a potentially significant voting bloc, people with disabilities report high rates of abstention from voting. Prior research examining difficulties those with disabilities can have in casting a ballot find that convenience voting reforms, such as mail-in voting rules, may increase the likelihood that an individual with a disability reports voting. States offer a variety of methods in which voters may cast a mail-in ballot and they vary in restrictiveness, raising the question of how these election administration laws affect turnout rates among people with disabilities. We examine the effects of state election administration laws on voter turnout at the state and individual levels for people with disabilities and compare them to their effects on the non-disabled population for the years 2008–2020. We find that convenience voting reforms such as same-day registration and election-day registration boost turnout for both populations by similar magnitudes while all mail elections decrease the turnout gap between people with disabilities and the non-disabled. We also find that strict photo identification laws have disparate effects on people with disabilities, similar to prior findings on marginalized groups.

Regional cleavages in African politics: Persistent electoral blocs and territorial oppositions

Do socio-economic cleavages shape electoral dynamics in African countries? Previous individual-level and party systems research on African politics has de-emphasized socio-economic factors, contributing to the common view that ethnic cleavages and short-term ethnic alliances define politics both locally and nationally. Focusing on Kenya, Zambia, and Malawi, we draw on methods in electoral geography to offer a spatial analysis of geographic patterns in constituency-level electoral returns over three decades that reveals the existence of persistent regional voting blocs that, in their temporal stability and multiethnic character, are not well explained by prevailing theory. The anomalies open the door to a reinterpretation national electoral structure and dynamics in the three countries that takes the geographic clustering of the persistent voting blocs as a clue to their etiology. We propose an interpretation that focuses on core-periphery cleavages in national electorates, following Lipset and Rokkan's (1967) classic model of territorial oppositions in countries undergoing political and economic integration and modernization. DHS data and proxies for regional economic activity support this interpretation. Socio-economic cleavages of the type explored in comparative political economy literatures on spatial inequality and territorial politics may be more salient in African electoral politics than previously thought.

Frank C. Musser, the Coalition Party, and the Fight to End Machine Party Politics in Post–Progressive Era Lancaster, Pennsylvania

The politics of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, between 1921 and 1930 serve as a case study for national developments. Between the failure of the 1912 "Bull Moose" Party campaign for the White House and the rise of Franklin Roosevelt and the 1933 New Deal coalition, advocates for urban liberalization and social welfare progressivism built a political bridge in the Keystone state. Led in part by businessman Frank C. Musser, this new movement married some of the specific principles of the new alliance while also working to break the hold of the traditionalist Republican Party machine that had held Lancaster County in its grip since the 1860s. In this new era of Lancaster City and County politics, Musser and his allies discovered the efficacy, albeit limited, of employing new campaign tactics and engaging new voting blocs in the process of city and county politics while fashioning a legacy of municipal reform.