Electoral Research Research Articles

Getting the Message Across: Perceived Effectiveness of Political Campaign Communication

Do political actors communicate effectively during electoral campaigns? We introduce a novel concept in electoral research, the “perceived effectiveness of political parties' election campaigns.” This evaluation concentrates on the extent to which a party is seen as getting its message across to the voter. Empirical analyses using survey data and a media content analysis during the 2009 European Parliamentary elections show that the more exposed to news about a particular party, the more a voter feels that this party gets its message across. A party's perceived campaign effectiveness is greater when one or two other parties are also mentioned in a particular news item, which may make the party's profile more pronounced. Furthermore, the greater a voter's interest in the campaign, the larger the effect of exposure on party evaluations. The article concludes by discussing party evaluations and campaign effectiveness in the light of our findings.

Voter overrepresentation, vote misreporting, and turnout bias in postelection surveys

Figures from postelection surveys often grossly overestimate election turnout. Two distinct phenomena are responsible for this gap: overrepresentation of actual voters and vote misreporting by actual nonvoters among survey respondents. Previous accounts of turnout bias are inconclusive in that they either focus on a single component, or fail to separate between the two. In this paper, we formally decompose turnout bias in election surveys into its constituent parts, assess their empirical prevalence and heterogeneity using an extensive collection of 49 vote validation studies from six countries, and employ Bayesian meta regression techniques to account for cross-study differences. Our results indicate that both election and survey characteristics such as actual voter turnout and survey response rates differentially affect the components of turnout bias. We conclude with a discussion of the threats and potentials of our findings for survey-based comparative electoral research.

Ensino superior e voto: análise do comportamento eleitoral da comunidade uspiana em 2010

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar os resultados de uma pesquisa eleitoral realizada nos Campi da USP-Capital pelo Centro de Estudos das Negociações Internacionais (CAENI) e pelo Instituto Júnior de Pesquisas Sociais (IJPS) durante o período de campanha do segundo turno da eleição presidencial de 2010. Discutimos o processo de amostragem e a implicação de pesquisar sobre um universo de pessoas mais escolarizadas e jovens do que a população total. Mostraremos que é mais fácil isolar um comportamento prospectivo nessas condições do que em uma amostra onde o universo é a população de eleitores inteira do país.

Choosing between Representing Women or Representing Ethnic Groups in Europe? Adding and Subtracting Plurality, Representation, and Democracy

Does choosing between electoral rules also mean choosing between electing women or ethnic candidates? Most electoral system and representation research assumes rules which benefit women also benefit ethnic candidates. The conclusions often come from studies of women, single countries, or national not immigrant minorities. Recent studies of local European elections suggest rules which encourage some personal voting or plurality over party-centric rules such as open not closed lists increase the number of ethnic MPs. The rules which benefit ethnic and women candidates differ. This paper attempts to answer if choosing personal voting/plurality vs. party-centric rules mean choosing between women and ethnic minorities. Unlike most studies, we analyze how closed vs. open list PR and decentralized nomination affect national ethnic, immigrant ethnic and women candidates differently in Western countries. Geographic distribution and constituency differences alter the effect of the rules. Using Dutch, UK, Canadian, New Zealand and other elections, we find that open list and grassroots nomination improve immigrant ethnic, but, weaken women candidates' chances. Choosing rules may mean choosing between ethnic and women candidates.

Modelling Ordinal Electoral Systems: The Uniqueness of South Australian Legislative Elections

Understanding the relationship between voting methods and electoral outcomes is one of the central challenges of electoral systems research. In the case of ordinal voting systems, theory and empirical models directly conflict as to whether particular ordinal voting methods significantly affect electoral outcomes. This conflict is partially due to the lack of a model that can simulate real legislative elections reliably enough to empirically test theoretical claims. In this research note, the authors argue that South Australian lower house elections constitute a unique legislative case where sufficient data are publicly available to generate such a model. They then describe the new model and critically examine its accuracy and limitations. They conclude that their model is sufficiently robust to form a basis for future research into the impact of ordinal voting systems on outcomes in legislative elections.

Asian Embeddedness and Political Participation: Social Integration and Asian-American Voting Behavior in the 2000 Presidential Election

Despite the abundance of electoral research, a recurring finding is that Asian-Americans in multivariate analyses are less likely to vote compared to all other Americans. Yet Asians have high levels of education and income, the strongest predictors of voting behavior. This article goes beyond individual-level characteristics and examines how the ways in which Asian-Americans are connected to communities moderate individual-level characteristics and influence their electoral participation. Using hierarchical generalized linear modeling, variability in Asian-American voting behavior is studied with 2000 Current Population Survey voting data and county data primarily from the 2000 U.S. Census. The main findings are that social integration, either by highly assimilating communities or through ethnic organizing, facilitates political incorporation and electoral participation. Where neither condition exists, Asian-Americans are less likely to vote.

Disproportionality and voter turnout in new and old democracies

A long-standing puzzle in electoral research is why the disproportionality of electoral systems has a negative effect on voter participation in established democracies, but not in new democracies. We propose a learning theory of electoral system’s effects, and test it in a cross-national analysis and by using Spain as a case study. Electoral disproportionality is unrelated to voter participation in early elections after democratization, but the relationship is increasingly visible as democracies grow older. The case study uncovers two mechanisms: small parties optimize their mobilization strategy only after the first democratic elections, and the difference in the turnout rates of small party supporters and large party supporters grows over time. Time is needed before the consequences of electoral systems are fully revealed. Importantly, the findings suggest that studies carried out just after an electoral system is created or reformed may provide downward biased estimates of their long-term consequences.

Animal spirits: the effect of economic expectations on economic output

The public is characterized as able forecasters of future economic performance. They engage in rational expectations. Empirical evidence exists to bolster the claim. This article considers the possibility that the public does more than predict economic output. They may engage in a self-fulfilling prophecy where belief about the future economy translates into personal financial behaviour (e.g., consumption and investment) that actually drives economic performance. After controlling for rational expectations with elite forecasts, leading indicators and past economic performance, it is shown that between 5% and one-third of the variance in economic output can be explained by prospective economic sentiment. This result has broad implications for electoral behaviour research.

Damn the Base, Moderate Speed Ahead: The Suburban Strategy

Building on the scholarly literature on political parties, voting behavior, and social movements, this paper examines the perceived decline of the Republican Party, a result of two consecutive electoral defeats (2006 and 2008). This study argues that there is a unique, but clear and viable path for the Republican Party to follow. Through the analysis of electoral history, demographic research, polling, and case study data, this work argues that the Republican Party needs to expand beyond the Southern Strategy and undergo ideological reform. Using comparative analysis, this argument details the relative underperformance of social conservatives as compared to fiscal and national security conservatives in crucial regions of the country, lending support to the notion that the Republican Party should divorce itself from the socially conservative wing of its base. This paper also considers possible coalition structures, especially within the context of the 2008, 2010, and 2012 elections.

Stability or Decline? Class, Religion and the Vote in Germany

This article looks at the development of the relation between social divisions and voting in Germany in the Bundestag elections after German unification. Considering the data from German electoral studies since 1994, it examines how social class impinged on support for the Social Democrats and for the post-communist PDS/Left and how church attendance and religious denomination affects the tendency to vote for Christian Democrats. It seems that it is much too early to write off the electoral relevance of social cleavages. The ‘core constituencies’ of cleavage-based parties have anything but disappeared and still show marked differences in voting patterns. In addition there are striking east–west differences in the patterns of electoral behaviour, especially regarding support for the post-communists. There is some, though not overwhelming, evidence of change in the social patterns of voting. But these changes hardly justify the elimination of the concept of social cleavages from electoral research. Instead, the results are consistent with the view that the politicisation of social cleavages depends on parties' appropriate mobilisation strategies and policies.

The Comparative Analysis of Electoral and Partisan Politics: A Comment on a Special Issue of West European Politics

The research papers assembled in this West European Politics issue are placed in an encompassing framework specifying components of the electoral and party studies research area. This makes it possible to identify complementarities, conflicts, and empty spaces left by the papers. Especially the conditioning of individual party preference through the structure of partisan alternatives needs more work. Generally analysis of the interaction of micro- and macro-level mechanisms impinging on the vote choice is called for.

Strategies for Dealing with the Problem of Non-overlapping Units of Assignment and Outcome Measurement in Field Experiments

Researchers conducting field experiments are sometimes faced with the challenge of analyzing field experiment results when the unit of assignment does not coincide with the unit of outcome measurement. For example, in electoral research, election results may be reported at a level of geography defined by electoral law, while the assignment of treatment can be made only at a level of geography different from this. Using examples from field experiments conducted in Canada and Mexico, we describe this problem and its consequences for analysis and interpretation of field experiment data and results. We also offer a number of practical solutions analysts can employ when faced with non-overlapping units of assignment and outcome measure in field experiments.

Elections and Electoral Research in West Germany

Elections and Electoral Research in West Germany

Electoral Research in Japanese Political History

Electoral Research in Japanese Political History

Trends and Issues in Japanese Electoral Research

Trends and Issues in Japanese Electoral Research

Political Participation/National Election Study

The chapter gives an overview of recent developments within participation and electoral research, and discusses the current state of affairs with regard to data provision and access. It concludes with several recommendations: (a) to tag a small number of key political variables as constant elements of the future question programmes of both the ALLBUS and the GSOEP, thereby creating substantial amounts of synergy at little marginal cost; (b) to establish a National Election Study in Germany by providing the current GLES project (which is funded by the DFG to study the 2009, 2013 and 2017 national elections) with a constant logistic and methodological support infrastructure by GESIS, and on the long run by providing a regular follow-up study to this project with a stable basis of reliable public funding and a firm institutional embedding, preferably by including it into the remit of GESIS; (c) to adapt the data services of the statistical offices in several respects more closely to the data requirements of participation and electoral research; (d) to establish a formal obligation for public agencies to submit survey data collected under their auspices in due time to the public domain for purposes of secondary analysis.

Protest, Neo-Liberalism or Anti-Immigrant Sentiment: What Motivates the Voters of the Extreme Right in Western Europe?

Over the last three decades, the parties of the “Extreme”, “Radical” or “Populist” Right have become a political staple in Western Europe. However, comparative evidence on the motives of their voters is relatively scarce. This article assesses the empirical effects of the most prominent alleged motivational factors on the extreme right vote –“pure” (i.e. performance related) protest, anti-immigrant sentiment, and neo-liberal economic preferences – while controlling for a whole host of background variables. While protest and neo-liberalism have no statistically significant impact whatsoever, immigrant sentiment plays a crucial role in all countries but Italy. Its effect is moderated, however, by general ideological preferences and party identification. Consequentially, comparative electoral research should focus on the circumstances under which immigration is politicised.

Procedural Transparency and the Credibility of Election Surveys

The success and influence of survey-based electoral research is fueling the ambitions of survey analysts and producers. As a result, many new forms and uses of survey data are emerging. These new activities bring with them important questions about credibility. I address several of these questions by discussing common practices in the production and analysis of election surveys. I contend that the continuation of some of these practices threatens the credibility of individual studies and, in some cases, the election-oriented survey enterprise as a whole. In all of these cases, however, I argue that a commitment to increased transparency about analytic and/or production decisions can enhance credibility. In the process, I provide suggestions and examples of how transparency can be increased.

Procedural transparency and the credibility of election surveys

The success and influence of survey-based electoral research is fueling the ambitions of survey analysts and producers. As a result, many new forms and uses of survey data are emerging. These new activities bring with them important questions about credibility. I address several of these questions by discussing common practices in the production and analysis of election surveys. I contend that the continuation of some of these practices threatens the credibility of individual studies and, in some cases, the election-oriented survey enterprise as a whole. In all of these cases, however, I argue that a commitment to increased transparency about analytic and/or production decisions can enhance credibility. In the process, I provide suggestions and examples of how transparency can be increased.

Measuring Left-Right Political Orientation: The Choice of Response Format

Although left-right items are a standard tool of public opinion research, there is little agreement about the optimal response format. Two disputes can be identified in the literature: (1) whether to provide respondents with a small or large number of answer categories, and (2) whether or not to administer the response scale including a midpoint. This study evaluates the performance of the 101, 11, and 10-point left-right scales, which directly speak to the two disputed aspects of measuring the left-right dimension. Drawing on data from a split ballot multitrait multimethod experiment carried out in a methodological pretest to the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the analysis shows that the choice of a response format makes a difference in terms of data quality: the 11-point left-right scale produces the highest validity of left-right data closely followed by the 10-point scale. Moreover, an application from electoral research illustrates that the choice of response formats affects substantive interpretations about the nature of the left-right dimension. Since all three scales perform about equally well in terms of reliability and the ease of administration, the findings suggest that the 11-point left-right scale should be used in survey research.