Federal Election Research Articles

Refugee Labor Market Access Increases Support for Immigration

Does the economic integration of refugees affect public attitudes toward migration? We assess this pertinent question by examining a policy change in Germany, where the government significantly eased labor market access for refugees in the majority of the country. Using administrative employment data, we show that the policy led to a substantial increase in refugee employment, while natives’ wages and employment rates remained unaffected. The policy also had a positive effect on natives’ attitudes toward migration. Voters exposed to more refugees in the labor market were two percentage points more likely to vote for pro-migration parties across both state and federal elections. Additional survey analyses suggest that our results are driven by positive native–refugee interactions in the workplace.

Can wedge strategies by mainstream parties cross-cut the anti-immigration far right vote?

Anti-immigration campaigns have helped far right parties to establish themselves in party systems around the world. We examine whether mainstream parties can employ wedge issue campaigns that divide the far right anti-immigration vote to win back electoral support. Wedge issues that cross-cut the anti-immigration vote may enhance the electoral support of mainstream parties, as long as they do not simultaneously alienate pro-immigration voters. We evaluate this expectation using a panel survey experiment conducted during the 2021 German federal election. The first wave allows us to identify wedge issues that the mainstream CDU/CSU can stress to cross-cut the anti-immigration vote. The second wave raises the salience of these issues by manipulating the perceived issue agenda of the CDU/CSU using hypothetical campaign posters. While our results show that wedge issue strategies are not effective on average, exploratory analyses reveal the potential of strategically targeted messaging in winning back support of some anti-immigration voters.

The effect of socioeconomic policy and competence messages on populist radical right support: Evidence from a pre-election survey experiment

Does highlighting socioeconomic policy considerations or mainstream parties’ government competence reduce support for populist radical right (PRR) parties? Such “defuse” messages may attract PRR voters without alienating mainstream parties’ core electorate and thus, have advantages over an accommodative strategy. This study tests four “defuse” messages in an original survey experiment on a sample of 1,786 likely PRR voters in the context of the 2017 German federal election. The findings show that potential PRR voters are hardly swayed by these messages. This result is in notable contrast to findings from prior experimental studies about the malleability of PRR support. Exploratory analyses suggest that some of these null findings may mask heterogeneities. Both respondents who were surveyed during the first days of fieldwork and those with less political knowledge responded to some treatments in the expected way. Overall, these findings point to a limited responsiveness of PRR voters to “defuse” messages.

Mobilization in the Context of Campaign Functions and Citizen Participation

Mobilization strategies are an essential part of political parties’ campaign communication. By mobilizing voters and supporters, parties promote civic participation in politics, the forms of which have multiplied given the possibilities of user activities on social media. To define their online mobilization strategies, parties have to choose which forms of participation (e.g., voting, donating, or liking or sharing a post) they will seek to mobilize. Understanding mobilization as a communicative appeal to engage audiences in participatory actions, in our study we conceptually linked parties’ mobilizing appeals with three campaign functions—information, interaction, and mobilization—to systematize different types of mobilization. We applied that categorization to the social media campaigns of parties and top candidates in Germany and conducted a manual quantitative content analysis of 1,495 Facebook and 1,088 Instagram posts published in the run-up to the 2021 federal election. Results show that parties primarily mobilized their audiences to vote and seek out more information (e.g., on the party’s website). Although user reactions are generally an important factor of performance on social media, parties mostly avoided calls to like, share, or comment on posts. When compared, the strategies of parties and candidates indicate that mobilization is more the task of parties than of candidates. Differences between Facebook and Instagram can be attributed to the different technical affordances of the platforms. Because Facebook, unlike Instagram, supports clickable links in posts, parties are more likely to encourage users on Facebook to seek out more information online.

Canada's Federal Electoral Districts, 1867–2021: New Digital Boundary Files and a Comparative Investigation of District Compactness

AbstractWe introduce new data resources to enable spatial and nonspatial research on Canadian elections, electoral history and political geography. These include a comprehensive set of distinct identification codes for every federal electoral district in Canada from 1867 to the present, a complete set of digital boundary files for these electoral districts, historical census data aggregated to federal electoral districts, and tools to connect our district identification codes to federal election results. After describing the construction and content of these new resources, we provide an example of their use in a comparative-historical analysis of district compactness in Canada and the United States. We find that, in contrast to the United States, postwar institutional changes to district boundary-drawing processes had little effect on district compactness in Canada.

Cutting the Gordian Knot: Reassessing Australia's Lend‐Lease Settlement1

During the Second World War, Australia received almost $2 billion worth of Lend‐Lease aid from the United States — the largest foreign debt ever incurred by the Commonwealth. The settlement terms for this debt, however, were never defined or discussed during that conflict, remaining “an uncertain obligation to be assessed by an unknown person on an unspecified day of judgment.”2 This paper examines the economic, military, and geopolitical factors that shaped Australia's Lend‐Lease Settlement Agreement of June 1946. It focusses on the military aircraft which accounted for a quarter of this foreign debt. The least saleable of all Lend‐Lease surpluses, these also proved the most challenging for US and Australian negotiators. Having contested initial US claims and secured sizeable debt reductions, Lend‐Lease settlement was trumpeted by the Chifley government as a great diplomatic success. Findings from this investigation indicate instead that Australia's Lend‐Lease settlement terms were restrictive, and possibly punitive, having been substantially determined by US domestic and partisan‐political considerations. Moreover, these details and their significant implications were withheld from the public, the media, and the parliamentary opposition in the months leading to the September 1946 federal election.

Face-to-face: Three facial features that may turn the scale in close electoral races

When voters in political elections intend to vote for a candidate who represents their political interests, they cannot avoid being influenced by the visual appearance of the candidates. In fact, many political campaigns are dominated by billboard advertising that mainly focuses on politicians' face portraits. While extant research already showed that a candidate's visual appearance has an impact on electoral outcomes, the present research goes a step further and investigates which specific facial features increase or decrease a politician's likelihood of winning an election. Evaluating 17 facial features, we identified mouth width, the ratio of eye height/width, and eyebrow height as relevant predictors of electoral success. In particular, we find across a correlative study, an experimental study, and an analysis of German Federal Elections that a wide mouth and large eyes that extend vertically have a robust and coherent influence on the likelihood of getting votes. Thin eyebrows increase the likelihood of getting votes in our hypothetical voting scenarios but not in the analysis of real election data. Furthermore, we show that the effects of the mouth and the eyes are statistically mediated by perceived trustworthiness and perceived dominance. In terms of real-life relevance, our analysis suggests that these three facial features can make the difference in close races.

Pandemic Populism: Explaining Support for the People's Party of Canada in the 2021 Federal Election

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has seen opponents of public health mandates deploy a range of populist and anti-elite arguments. The 2021 Canadian federal election was an exceptional “pandemic election” in which the COVID-19 health crisis took centre stage. But the election campaign also saw the populist People's Party of Canada (PPC) rise to prominence by opposing pandemic-related public health restrictions. While the party failed to win a seat, it did manage to triple its vote share (1.6 per cent to 4.9 per cent). It is unclear, however, what factors led to the rise in support for the PPC. To explore this issue, we draw on an original post-election survey (n = 18,950) and focus on populist attitudes and opposition to COVID-19-related public health restrictions. Results from regression models and structural equation models (SEMs) indicate that opposition to public health restrictions was a much stronger factor than populism in shaping support for the PPC.

Are Openly LGBTQ2+ the New Sacrificial Lambs? Campaign Contexts and the Gendered Implications for LGBTQ2+ Candidates

AbstractRecent increases in the number of openly LGBTQ2+ candidates have not resulted in a corresponding rise in the number of LGBTQ2+ politicians elected to the Canadian House of Commons, reviving the hypothesis of the “sacrificial lamb” candidacies. Drawing upon Lovenduski and Norris’ work on political recruitment, we analyze the backgrounds and experiences of the 172 LGBTQ2+ candidates who ran in the 2015, 2019 and 2021 federal elections in Canada. Our approach is based on the idea that LGBTQ2+ candidacies are the new sacrificial lambs of Canadian politics, although some of them seem less likely to be sacrificed than others. Indeed, we highlight how the electoral opportunities (for example, district competitiveness) afforded to LGBTQ2+ cis men are more likely to result in success than those afforded to LGBTQ2+ cis women or gender minority candidates.

All You Need is Love? An analysis of the election campaign of the Green Party in 2021 on Facebook.

The 2021 federal election in Germany was very different from previous elections. For the first time, the environmental party, The Greens, ran a candidate for chancellor. In addition, the election campaign was increasingly digital due to the Corona pandemic. Citizens increasingly turned to the internet for information. In this context, Facebook was the most used social network for reading, sharing, and discussing political news. This paper examines the Green Party's use of Facebook during the election campaign to identify characteristics of their communication behaviour and user reactions. The empirical investigation is carried out by means of a qualitative content analysis according to Mayring. In the period from 01/04 to 26/09/2021 a total of 251 posts of the Green Party were analysed. The tool Fanpage Karma was used for this purpose. Based on the number of posts, relevant topics of the online election campaign were identified. We also looked at how often and with which reactions users responded to the party's posts. The results of the study show that the 2021 chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock plays a prominent role. She is mentioned in 30.68% of all posts. In addition, environmental policy, the party's core issue, takes up a comparatively large amount of space with a total of 111 posts (44.22%). Of these, 39.84% deal with climate-related issues. The results of the analysis also show that the party has a broader range of topics. Social issues are mentioned in 38.65% of the posts and the image of being a ‘single-issue party’ is being shed to some extent. It can also be seen that The Greens, who are among the winners of the 2021 election, publish a comparatively low number of posts. At the same time, they receive the second-most ‘Love’ reactions, and the most ‘Loves’ per post. The study shows Facebook's status in the online election campaign of the German environmental party in the 2021 federal election. It provides information about the scope of use and topic setting on the social platform. At the same time, the results show to what extent and with what reactions the posts have been addressed.

Resurgence of regional coalitions in Sarawak and Sabah since the federal elections of 2018 and 2022

ABSTRACT This article examines the resurgence of regional coalitions in Sarawak and Sabah following the 14th and 15th General Elections, respectively. It shows how federal-level government changes in Malaysia can result in the realignment of regional parties in Sarawak and Sabah, which had significantly shaped Malaysia’s political landscape as BN’s frontline states. The resurgence of the regional coalitions, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), demonstrates not only the fragmentation of national politics and the rise of regionalism but also the ease with which regional parties dominated by strongmen and aided by patronage can realign, enter and exit coalitions.

Do voters want their parties to be office- or policy-seekers in coalition negotiations?

Do voters want their party to be office- or policy-seekers in coalition negotiations? This question has been left unstudied in political science research so far. While existing research shows that policies matter for voters when forming their preferences for coalitions, in this study it is argued that voters find it at the same time important that their preferred party gains offices. Specifically, voters’ office-seeking considerations are expected to increase the more indifferent they are to the policy content of a coalition agreement. To test this assumption, an original conjoint experiment among Green Party voters in the context of the German federal election in 2021 has been conducted. The findings demonstrate that voters’ office-seeking considerations become more important the more similar coalition agreements are with regard to their policy content. These findings have important implications for the understanding of voters’ preferences regarding coalitions.

Time to Move On

The reform of Canada’s federal electoral system was a key platform promise of the Liberal party throughout the 2015 election campaign. Justin Trudeau famously proclaimed that the 2015 federal election would be the last in Canada under a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system; but, as several years followed, there was no change, and discourse surrounding the issue has largely fizzled out (Small, 41). Canada’s FPTP system has not changed since confederation, and it remains among only four other democracies worldwide that use “this archaic electoral system” (Rebick). FPTP is considered to create two main issues in Canadian politics: distortion of votes, and heightened regionalism. Voting behaviour and outcomes are currently distorted through unequal vote weight, ‘wasted votes’, and the phenomenon of strategic voting. Regionalism leads to national division, skews which issues are considered electorally important, negatively alters party behaviour, and changes how political preferences are perceived in Canada. Together, these effects are disengaging the Canadian public from political participation. This paper will explain the ways in which vote distortion and regionalism plague Canada’s current electoral system and the health of its democracy, and demonstrate how a shift towards a mixed-member proportional representation (MMPR) electoral system can alleviate those issues. Specifically, MMPR’s provision of a broader second vote nullifies the effect of wasted votes and strategic voting, while discouraging political parties from engaging in behaviour that targets specific electoral regions and produces political polarization.

The Gendered Effect of Parenthood on Voting Behaviour in the 2021 German Federal Election

ABSTRACT The effect of parenthood on voting behaviour has so far been largely neglected in electoral research or is assumed to have a negligible effect. However, the 2021 German federal election campaign faced the politicisation of two main family- and children-related issues (i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change). Based on a comparison of data in the 2017 and 2021 German Longitudinal Election Study, we investigate the gendered effect of parenthood on voting behaviour. Our multinomial logistic regression analysis points to a significant parenthood effect for women during the 2021 election: women with at least one child under the age of 11 have an 8-percentage point higher probability of voting for the Greens than women without children in that age group (controlling among other things for education, age, religiosity and left-right identity). We do not find a similar effect for men. Further analyses suggest that this effect is partly due to a larger importance of climate change issues among mothers of young children. We conclude by highlighting the potential relevance of parents as an electorate force when family- and children-related issues are politicised during electoral campaigns.

Political Knowledge to Go: An Analysis of Selected Political Influencers and Their Formats in the Context of the 2021 German Federal Election

This study provides insights into the role of political social media influencers (PSMI) as relatively new actors in political communication. It examines their content and motives in the context of elections. Considering the German federal election in 2021, it uses content analysis of 20 PSMI offers with 301 pieces of content and a supplemental online survey to explore how PSMI communicated on various platforms/formats (Instagram posts/videos, podcast episodes, TikTok, YouTube) in the 2 months before the election. The findings show that the PSMI in this sample, who were all nominated for an award, provided (basic) political knowledge for a broad target audience without significant prior knowledge. In line with this, the findings further reveal that while the content of the PSMI overall was characterized by a high density of information, their density of opinion or self-presentation was comparatively low, with platform affordances influencing these characteristics. This corresponds to the motives stated by the PSMI in the supplemental online survey. While the findings for the PSMI in our sample are to some extent in line with role conceptions of journalists in Germany—the sample spans from professional journalists to influencers without any connection to journalism—they diverge in other respects from routines of the profession. The findings of our country-specific contribution allow for a more systemic understanding of PSMI, especially in the context of elections, by highlighting that they can add to information sources available by offering (basic) political education, especially for a young target audience on social media.

2022 Charles Todd Oration

The Charles Todd Oration is an annual event run by TelSoc and is named for Charles Todd, the Postmaster-General of South Australia, who was responsible for completing the Overland Telegraph Line from Darwin to Adelaide in 1874. The 2022 Oration was delivered in Sydney on 21 October 2022 by The Hon. Michelle Rowland, MP, Minister for Communications. At the time she had been in the role for about 5 months following the change of government at the Federal election on 21 May 2022. The Minister used her speech to set out the Government’s aims for the communications sector and its initial priorities, and to reflect on her appreciation of the circumstances and potential for the sector, its stakeholders and end-users of communications services. References and endnotes have been added by Jim Holmes, Chair of TelSoc, to enable further reference by interested readers on the matters noted, and for the accuracy and relevance of which TelSoc accepts complete responsibility.

Mind the gap(s): Winning, losing, and perceptions of electoral integrity in mixed-member proportional systems

This study investigates whether and how experiences of winning and losing at the ballot box shape voters' views about the integrity of the electoral process in Germany's mixed-member proportional system. Relying on comprehensive data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) 2021, the analysis provides evidence for a consistent winner-loser gap in voters' electoral-integrity perceptions, with electoral losers evaluating the electoral process systematically more negative than electoral winners. Moreover, the analysis shows that the winner-loser gap is particularly pronounced for voters who lost in two consecutive federal elections (‘repeated losers’) as well as for those who suffered electoral defeat with both their list and district votes (‘double losers’). These findings provide novel insights on how voters in mixed-member proportional systems cope with winning and losing at the ballot box, highlighting that electoral losers place (part of) the blame for their electoral defeat on the electoral process and procedures as such. In addition, the findings point to the relevance of specific features of electoral systems in shaping winner-loser gaps in electoral-integrity beliefs.

Distilling the distillers: examining the political activities of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States

BackgroundUnderstanding of the alcohol industry’s means of influencing public policy is increasingly well established. Less is known, however, about the specific organisations that lead the political strategies of the alcohol industry. To fill this gap, this paper explores the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), a key trade association in the United States (US), which also operates internationally.MethodsThis study explores how DISCUS is organised and the main political activities it pursues to advance its policy interests. The study triangulates data from several sources, including DISCUS documents, as well as federal lobbying and election expenditure data.ResultsThis study demonstrates that DISCUS is a key political actor in the US and global alcohol policymaking context. There are identifiable strategies used by DISCUS to shape alcohol policy debates, including framing and lobbying. We also find key synergies between these strategies and identify their operation at varying levels of policy decision-making.ConclusionsGenerating more secure inferences about the nature of the alcohol industry’s efforts to advance its interests, and with what success and at what cost, requires researchers to investigate other trade associations in different contexts, and use other data sources.

PANDEMIC POLITICS: THE 2021 AND 2022 GERMAN AND AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGNS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

One of the effects of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic has been to further accelerate the incorporation of social media activities into political and electoral campaigning. Especially as a result of lockdowns and other restrictions to offline public life, overall social media use has increased in many countries; health concerns have severely curtailed conventional in-person political campaigning activities, from doorknocking to mass rallies (even if some candidates are openly flouting health measures in order to appeal to fringe, COVID-denialist voters); and concerns about the safety of in-person voting processes have also led to a growth in postal voting well ahead of election day, potentially increasing the importance of political messaging early on in election campaigns. In addition, of course, the pandemic itself, and the health, economic, and social measures taken by different governments to address and manage its implications, have also become a dominant theme in most political contests. Political parties around the world have scrambled to keep up with and engage with these changing circumstances, voter behaviours, and political debates, and it is therefore time to re-examine the current state of affairs. This panel does so by focussing on social media campaigning in two of the most recent major national elections: the German federal election campaign in August and September 2021, and the Australian federal election campaign in March to May 2022. The four papers included in this panel examine political campaigning, public engagement, and journalistic coverage on Facebook and Twitter, as well as political advertising practices on Facebook, and in combination offer a very timely new perspective on electioneering in the final stages of a multi-year global pandemic.

Voting at 16? 16–17‐Year‐Old Germans Vote as Correctly as Adults

Lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 years has recently been a hot topic of the political debate in many democratic countries. This study investigated whether the voting quality of 16–17‐year‐olds is inferior to that of the voting population. Shortly before the 2021 German federal election, two samples, representative for age and gender, indicated personal preferences about various political issues and weighted them according to importance, allowing for the calculation of individual expected values for political parties. Participants then indicated their voting choice. These choices were normatively correct when individuals voted for the party that best reflected their preferences, that is, the one maximizing the expected value. Results show that the voting decisions of 16–17‐year‐olds were as good as those by eligible voters. The study indicates that the exclusion of 16–17‐year‐old Germans in democratic elections cannot be justified by their lack of decision‐making ability.