Federal Election Research Articles

German gays go green? Voting behaviour of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in the 2021 German federal election

Previous analyses have shown the existence of a sexuality gap in voting behaviour between those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB), and those who identify as heterosexual (Hertzog 1996). On the basis of these findings, it is generally assumed that LGBs vote primarily for liberal and left-wing parties because they are most likely to represent the group's interests in the political space. Using the 2021 German federal election as a case study, this article provides substantial findings, showing that, when controlled for the ideological proximity between voters and parties, sexuality affects in several ways how LGBs identify with and vote for parties in Germany. Positive effects can be demonstrated for the Greens, the Left, and – in contrast to previous assumptions – the far-right AfD. This is the first study to examine systematically the voting behaviour of LGBs and heterosexuals in Germany.

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy January to June 2022

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy January to June 2022

Macro‐Political Structures, Change, and Stasis in Undergraduates' Political Identities in Canada and the United States – A Comparative Historical Analysis

AbstractAmerican research has found that change in political identification is a possible outcome of a university education, particularly in the liberal arts. By contrast, Canadian survey data collected in 1963, 1967, 2013, and 2017 point to there being no change in political identification on the part of undergraduates in a Canadian university with a liberal arts curriculum. In contrast to the United States, by means of cluster analyses conducted on the results of surveys of the American federal elections of 1964 and 2016, and the Canadian national elections of 1965 and 2015, I show that the political identification of two cohorts of Canadian undergraduates is more likely an artifact of the national multi‐party system in Canada than it is the result of a university education.

Digital Advertising in U.S. Federal Elections, 2004-2020

Digital advertising is now a commonplace feature of political communication in the United States. Previous research has documented the key innovations associated with digital political advertising and its consequences for campaigns and elections. However, a comprehensive picture of political spending on digital advertising remains elusive because of the challenges associated with accessing and analyzing data. We address this challenge with a unique dataset (N=3,639,166) derived from over 13 million expenditure records reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) between 2004 and 2020. Employing a machine learning model to classify expenditures into nine categories including digital ads and services, this paper makes four key observations. First, 2020 was a watershed election in the growth of digital campaign spending. Second, there are clear partisan differences in the resources allocated to digital advertising. Third, platform companies play a central role in an otherwise partisan market for digital ads and services. Fourth, digital platforms and consultants occupy a distinct ideological niche within each party.

Special Issue Conclusion

The GLES Open Science Challenge 2021 was a pilot project aimed at demonstrating that registered reports are an appropriate and beneficial publication format in quantitative political science that helps to increase transparency and replicability in the research process and thus yields substantial and relevant contributions to our discipline. The project resulted in the publication of this special issue, which includes seven registered reports based on data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) collected in the context of the 2021 German federal election. This concluding article of the special issue brings together the perspectives of the participating authors, reviewers, organizers, and editors in order to take stock of the different experiences gained and lessons learned in the course of the project. We are confident that future projects of a similar nature in political science, as well as authors, reviewers, and editors of registered reports, will benefit from these reflections.

Special Issue Introduction

The GLES Open Science Challenge 2021 was a pioneering initiative in quantitative political science. Aimed at increasing the adoption of replicable and transparent research practices, it led to this special issue. The project combined the rigor of registered reports—a new publication format in which studies are evaluated prior to data collection/access and analysis—with quantitative political science research in the context of the 2021 German federal election. This special issue, which features the registered reports that resulted from the project, shows that transparent research following open science principles benefits our discipline and substantially contributes to quantitative political science. In this introduction to the special issue, we first elaborate on why more transparent research practices are necessary to guarantee the cumulative progress of scientific knowledge. We then show how registered reports can contribute to increasing the transparency of scientific practices. Next, we discuss the application of open science practices in quantitative political science to date. And finally, we present the process and schedule of the GLES Open Science Challenge and give an overview of the contributions included in this special issue.

How Partisanship Matters: A Panel Study on the Democratic Outcomes of Perceived Dirty Campaigning

Uncivil campaigning and deceitful campaign techniques are increasingly relevant phenomena in politics. However, it remains unclear how they share an underlying component and how partisanship can influence their associations with democratic outcomes. We introduce the concept of dirty campaigning, which is situated at the intersection of research on negative campaigning and political scandals. Dirty campaigning involves violations of social norms and liberal-democratic values between elite political actors in terms of style and practices, such as uncivil campaigning and deceitful campaign techniques. In a two-wave panel study (<em>N</em> = 634) during the 2021 German federal election campaign, we investigate the associations of perceived dirty campaigning by the least and most favorite party with distrust in politicians, trust in democracy, attitudes toward dirty campaigning regulation, as well as perceived harmful consequences of dirty campaigning for democracy. We find that perceived dirty campaigning by the least favorite party increases perceptions of harmful consequences of dirty campaigning for democracy over time. In contrast, perceived dirty campaigning by the most favorite party decreases perceptions of harmful consequences of dirty campaigning for democracy as well as attitudes toward dirty campaigning regulation over time. Perceptions of harmful consequences of dirty campaigning for democracy increase distrust in politicians over time and vice versa. Our findings suggest that the outcomes of dirty campaigning can depend on partisanship and can have important implications for the quality of democracy.

Federal Election Campaign Spending Among Political Action Committees Affiliated with Physician Society Organizations.

Federal Election Campaign Spending Among Political Action Committees Affiliated with Physician Society Organizations.

The disastrous business of presidential campaigns: The effect of disaster declarations on presidential elections in FEMA Region 3.

The issuance of disaster declarations has become a politicized matter. Prior research has demonstrated that presidents are more generous in awarding disaster relief in federal election years, and that there is a prevalence to award governors from the opposing political party. Additionally, voters tend to reward presidents seeking re-election to a greater degree for disaster response assistance rather than funding preparedness. The original research for this paper explores the impact of natural disasters on re-election rates and analyzes voter trends during presidential election years in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Region 3 states for congruence with existing literature covering a national scope. Evaluations of the behaviors and (re)election margins of Presidents Bush and Obama are explored, and implications for President Trump's re-election effort are based on quantitative data and qualitative comparisons.

Political spending, related voluntary disclosure, and the cost of public debt

Following the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case of 2010, which removed restrictions in relation to firms’ political spending, and building on the growing debate over whether voluntary political spending disclosure (VPSD) provides valuable information, we examine the effect of political spending on the cost of public debt and the role of VPSD on this effect. Based on a measure of VPSD that became available in 2012 and a large dataset on US firms’ actual political spending, manually extracted from different filings, we provide novel evidence that, in the post-Supreme Court decision period, political spending increases the cost of public debt. This is consistent with the uncertainty associated with political spending. Moreover, we find that the level of voluntary disclosure weakens the positive association between political spending and the cost of public debt. These results hold across multiple specifications as well as when we use a sudden release of firms’ political spending as an exogenous shock to political spending.

Public Policy Analysis in the Field of National Security: A Study on the Securitization of Illegal Asylum Seekers During the John Howard Administration in Australia

This article aims to understand the securitisation process of MV Tampa asylum seekers during the leadership of John Howard, who tended to perceive them as a threat. As one of the countries that ratified the International Convention regarding asylum seekers, this action became a problem because it was considered a form of Australia's inconsistency towards the Convention and drew many reactions from other related parties. This article aims to discover how MV Tampa asylum seekers are framed as a national threat to Australia using the concept of Securitisation and Illegal Asylum Seekers. In this article, the author uses a qualitative method with data collection techniques through document-based studies, internet-based studies, and interviews. The author finds that the policies taken by Australia are not always state-centric because of John Howard's motives in facing the 2001 federal election. In addition, asylum seekers tend to be framed as an existential threat to social security in Australia.

Climate change, society, and health inequities.

Climate change, society, and health inequities.

East German History and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy

On September 25, 2017, Germany awoke to the horrifying reality that the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party founded in 2013, had romped to third place in the previous day's federal election. With 12.6% of the vote, the party became not only the official face of the opposition to Angela Merkel's not-so-grand coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), but also the first far-right party to enter the Bundestag since the 1950s. Election watchers soon noticed that the AfD had racked up stunning margins in the states that once made up the German Democratic Republic (GDR), coming in first on the second ballot (Zweitstimme) in Saxony and second in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. That the AfD, a racist and xenophobic party that campaigns against European integration and immigration, should do so well in once-socialist states bespoke East Germany's strange resonances in German culture and memory nearly thirty years after its dissolution.

Политический абсентеизм как часть мировоззрения студенческой молодежи города Москвы

The article examines the factors influencing the non-active participation of Moscow students in the political life of society. It is noted that, as a rule, passive and active political absenteeism is distinguished in the worldview of the capital's youth. The results of the study conducted by the authors showed that the majority of respondents are interested in political events in the country and the capital, but only a small part of them purposefully follow the changes and dynamics of political life in Moscow and Russia. The Internet as the main source of information of the capital's students, other popular channels provide many opportunities to gain the necessary knowledge about politics in a digital society, but a large information flow and its lack of consistency, and often frankly "fake", distorted information do not allow students to fully understand various aspects of political life, respondents often demonstrate the superficiality of their political views. The purpose of our work is to study the nature of political absenteeism in the worldview of Moscow students. The consideration of the problem was based on the results of an initiative targeted political and sociological study among students of three Moscow universities conducted through the Internet platform Google Forms. A sociological survey in the form of an online questionnaire was chosen as the most representative method of collecting empirical data. The sample is a target, quota by gender (N=210). To analyze the results obtained, the following general scientific methods were used: description, analysis, synthesis, classification. The analysis of the survey results showed that municipal elections arouse the least interest among respondents, federal elections are the greatest, but at the same time every third respondent is subject to absenteeism. Among the main reasons was the lack of confidence in the institution of elections, as well as the predictability of their results. The upcoming presidential elections of the Russian Federation in 2024 arouse considerable interest among students. The respondents' protest potential was also studied. The majority of respondents prefer conventional forms of protest and have a sharply negative attitude to various manifestations of extremism. The novelty of the study is to identify the features of the manifestation of absenteeism of student youth in a megalopolis. The prospect of further research is to consider the dynamics of the attitude of students to political participation, as well as regional differences in the types and manifestations of absenteeism in the worldview of the younger generation of Russia.

Identifying Utility-Maximizing and Equilibrium Coalitions of Political Parties in Government Formation Processes Using a Visualization Approach

As the formation of government coalitions between two or more political parties is a typical procedure in multiparty systems after elections and the parties’ decision on what coalition to form heavily influences policy outcomes, electorates, academics, and other stakeholders like journalists or party officials increasingly need digital tools that can determine the parties’ most preferred coalitions. This article presents a novel visualization tool for identifying utility-maximizing choices and equilibrium coalitions to provide users with rapid analyzing capabilities revealing parties’ most preferred coalitions in the aftermath of parliamentary elections. We demonstrate our tool’s analytical leverage taking the 2017 German federal elections as in-depth example. Our tool is available online at www.mytuc.org/mcbz .

Legislators do not harness voter support for disaster preparedness

AbstractNatural disasters are worsening, but elected officials have not adequately invested in programs that would improve disaster preparedness. Federal spending and election outcomes have been taken to suggest policymakers' failure to support long‐term preparedness results from a lack of interest in disaster preparedness among voters and a pervasive preference among voters for more spending on disaster relief than preparedness. However, our national survey experiment on state legislators and public preferences shows that the public is equally interested in disaster preparedness and relief and that both the public and legislators are open to increases in spending on preparedness. The support for preparedness can be motivated by information about past disaster losses rather than having to make difficult predictions about future losses. This study suggests the lack of preparedness spending stems not from voter disinterest, but from a failure of legislators to harness voter support for preparedness. Specifically, the legislators included in our study report being less responsive to attentive voters' preferences on preparedness than relief.

Who polarizes Twitter? Ideological polarization, partisan groups and strategic networked campaigning on Twitter during the 2017 and 2021 German Federal elections 'Bundestagswahlen'

Political campaign activities are increasingly digital. A crucial part of digital campaigning is communication efforts on social media platforms. As a forum for political discourse and political communication, parties and candidates on Twitter share public messages and aim to attract media attention and persuade voters. Party or prominent candidate hashtags are a central element of the campaign communication strategy since journalists and citizens search for these hashtags to follow the current debate concerning the hashed party or political candidate. Political elites and partisans use social media strategically, e.g., to link their messages to a broader debate, increase the visibility of messages, criticize other parties, or take over their hashtags (hashjacking). This study investigates the cases of the most recent 2017 and 2021 German federal elections called 'Bundestagswahlen'. The investigation (1) identifies communities of partisans in retweet networks in order to analyze the polarization of the most prominent hashtags of parties, 2) assesses the political behavior by partisan groups that amplify messages by political elites in these party networks, and 3) examines the polarization and strategic behavior of the identified partisan groups in the broader election hashtag debates using #BTW17 and #BTW21 as the prominent hashtags of the 2017 and 2021 elections. While in 2017, the far-right party 'Alternative für Deutschland' (AfD) and its partisans are in an isolated community, in 2021, they are part of the same community as the official party accounts of established conservative and liberal parties. This broader polarization may indicate changes in the political ideology of these actors. While the overall activity of political elites and partisans increased between 2017 and 2021, AfD politicians and partisans are more likely to use other party hashtags, which resulted in the polarization of the observed parts of the German political twitter sphere. While in 2017, the AfD polarized German Twitter, 2021 shows a broader division along the classical left–right divide.

The coming of age for paid digital campaigning: equalization or normalization in the 2019 Belgian federal elections?

PurposePaid digital campaigning tools play an increasingly pivotal role in individual election campaigns worldwide. Extant literature often juxtaposes the equalization theory, which argues that these tools create a level playing field, and the normalization theory, which contends that strong and resource-rich politicians benefit most from digital tools. This article aims to inform this debate by looking at it from a campaign expenditure perspective beyond the Anglo-American bias of most research on the subject.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use an original dataset on campaign expenditures and resources of 1,798 candidates running for 13 Belgian parties in the 2019 federal parliamentary election. Relying on multilevel statistical models, the authors link the candidates' digital campaign expenses to their incumbency status, which is expected to affect digital campaigning.FindingsWhile earlier work on majoritarian cases often showed contradicting results, this study on the Belgian flexible-list proportional representation (PR) case provides strong support for the equalization theory by demonstrating that incumbents are not only less inclined to spend on digital tools than challengers, but also spend a smaller part of their budget on these tools.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the literature by exploring the equalization versus normalization debate from a campaign expenditure perspective using a made to purpose dataset in a non-Anglo-American context.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2021-0679

If not now, when? Climate disaster and the Green vote following the 2021 Germany floods

Can first-hand experience of a climate-related natural disaster make citizens more likely to vote in favour of progressive climate politics? Leveraging the rare occurrence of a large-scale disaster just two months before a federal election, we use a difference-in-differences design to study the short-term electoral effects of the devastating 2021 Germany floods on voter support for Germany’s major environmentalist party, the Green Party. Compared to other German voters, those living in areas affected by the floods were marginally (0.4–1.6 percentage points) more likely to vote for the Greens. The largest increases in Green vote share are observed in municipalities which were directly exposed to flooding. Contrary to expectation, we tend to find larger increases in Green Party support in the less severely affected areas. Despite substantial increases in turnout in affected areas, we find that the observed increase in vote share for the Greens was rather driven by a persuasion effect on voters who previously supported other parties. In the absence of evidence that the floods led to an increase in voters’ issue prioritisation of climate change, our results highlight the limited possibility for major natural disasters to induce increased localised support for Green parties.

Assessing Minimum Accessible Voting Equipment Requirements through Simulation

The 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires that polling locations offer at least one accessible voting device to ensure that voting is equitable for all voters in federal elections. However, little empirical evidence indicates the efficacy of one accessible device to serve the electorate assigned to an in-person polling location, and it is unclear when additional accessible voting equipment is required. Given the continued challenges and disenfranchisement faced by voters with disabilities and recent changes to election law, it is critical to understand how the allocation of accessible voting equipment meets the needs of voters. This analysis applies discrete-event simulation modeling to generate voter wait time estimates for systems employing different allocations of accessible voting equipment. We find that allocating only one accessible voting device fails to keep wait times below 30 minutes for voters with disabilities, particularly in counties with a large proportion of voters with disabilities and in precincts with medium to high in-person voter turnout. These results suggest that accessible voting equipment allocation requirements must be flexible, adaptable, and jurisdiction-specific in order to be responsive to voter needs and meet the HAVA requirements.