Party Choice Research Articles

The link between separation and political party preference: selectivity or causal influence?

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the impact of separation from marital and cohabiting relationships on political party preferences. Relying on longitudinal data (1999–2017) from the Swiss Household Panel, it examines to what extent differences in party preferences between partnered and separated individuals are the result of a selection effect (with individuals who separate having different party preferences prior to their separation compared with partnered individuals) or of a causal effect (with individuals changing their party preferences following separation). The analyses show that partnered individuals are significantly more likely to support a party with Christian values (the CVP) compared with separated individuals, and indicate that this is due to a selection effect. For populist right (SVP) voting, we find a causal effect of separation. Interestingly, the event of separation increases the likelihood of supporting the populist right SVP. While separated individuals are more likely to support the social democratic party (PSS) than married individuals, we do not find a significant selection or causal effect of separation on support for the PSS. Overall, our results confirm the relevance of taking a dynamic approach distinguishing selection and causal effects and reveal that the effect of separation on voters’ party choice is modest but significant.

Voting for secular parties in the Middle East: evidence from the 2014 general elections in post-revolutionary Tunisia

ABSTRACTArab uprisings paved the way for democratic elections in the Middle East and North Africa region. Yet countries in this region, except for Tunisia, were not able to maintain further democratisation. Tunisia, regardless of economic turbulence and security problems, managed to hold its second parliamentary elections in October 2014, and Ennahda, the party of the popular Islamist movement, could not keep mass support. A large number of studies have examined the rise of the Islamist parties as their electoral success in the post-Arab Uprisings elections by focusing on their organisational strength as well as their social services. However, the social basis of secular parties in the region has been overlooked in the democratisation literature. In this study, four competing arguments, religious–secularism cleavage, nostalgia for the old regime, negative campaign targeting Islamists, and retrospective voting, are considered as the key determinants of citizens’ party choices. By using original election survey data, this study asserts that secular Nidaa Tounes derived its support from secular people, who, at the same time, sympathised with the old regime and disfavoured Islamists.

Transit-oriented autonomous vehicle operation with integrated demand-supply interaction

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) represent potentially disruptive and innovative changes to public transportation (PT) systems. However, the exact interplay between AV and PT is understudied in existing research. This paper proposes a systematic approach to the design, simulation, and evaluation of integrated autonomous vehicle and public transportation (AV + PT) systems. Two features distinguish this research from the state of the art in the literature: the first is the transit-oriented AV operation with the purpose of supporting existing PT modes; the second is the explicit modeling of the interaction between demand and supply.We highlight the transit-orientation by identifying the synergistic opportunities between AV and PT, which makes AVs more acceptable to all the stakeholders and respects the social-purpose considerations such as maintaining service availability and ensuring equity. Specifically, AV is designed to serve first-mile connections to rail stations and provide efficient shared mobility in low-density suburban areas. The interaction between demand and supply is modeled using a set of system dynamics equations and solved as a fixed-point problem through an iterative simulation procedure. We develop an agent-based simulation platform of service and a discrete choice model of demand as two subproblems. Using a feedback loop between supply and demand, we capture the interaction between the decisions of the service operator and those of the travelers and model the choices of both parties. Considering uncertainties in demand prediction and stochasticity in simulation, we also evaluate the robustness of our fixed-point solution and demonstrate the convergence of the proposed method empirically.We test our approach in a major European city, simulating scenarios with various fleet sizes, vehicle capacities, fare schemes, and hailing strategies such as in-advance requests. Scenarios are evaluated from the perspectives of passengers, AV operators, PT operators, and urban mobility system. Results show the trade off between the level of service and the operational cost, providing insight for fleet sizing to reach the optimal balance. Our simulated experiments show that encouraging ride-sharing, allowing in-advance requests, and combining fare with transit help enable service integration and encourage sustainable travel. Both the transit-oriented AV operation and the demand-supply interaction are essential components for defining and assessing the roles of the AV technology in our future transportation systems, especially those with ample and robust transit networks.

Party organization and gender in European elections

Political parties often monopolize the flow of politicians into elected office making it important to understand when, and under what conditions, parties are more or less likely to promote gender equality in representation. This article argues that party choices to nominate women in elections are conditional on the centralization of candidate selection within the party. Gender quotas and characteristics of the electoral environment have differential effects on candidate lists across party types. Leveraging data at the party level, I test when it is electorally feasible and organizationally possible for parties to nominate women for office. I find that candidate selection procedures condition the effects of party strategy and characteristics of the electoral environment on the percentage of women on electoral lists. The results provide insight into how strategic party choices, attenuated by electoral considerations and organization, impact the diversity of representation in political institutions.

Региональные особенности итогов выборов депутатов Государственной думы Российской Федерации седьмого созыва (на материалах социологического опроса жителей Бурятии)

The author reports that the difference between the declared and real voter turnout in Buryatia is bigger than the national average. This is due to the regional depression and the increased social apathy of a large part of citizens caused by a sharp decline in their low monetary income. The research focuses on the relationship between the party choice and the characteristics of the electorate (gender, age, na-tionality, education, employment, family and finan-cial status). Having analyzed the correlation between the party choice and the characteristics of the elec-torate by the Pearson coefficient, the author identi-fies that the choice of Fair Russia is not seriously affected by any factor while the choice of the Com-munist Party of the Russian Federation is strongly influenced by the age of a person. Mostly, elderly citizens voted for it. Gender and education had a less impact on the choice of the United Russia. Women having secondary vocational, incomplete higher and higher education were most likely to vote for this party. When electing the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, such factors as gender, age and nationality played a key role.

Sequential vote choice: Applying a consideration set model of heterogeneous decision processes

This article analyzes the relative effects of a classic set of long-term and short-term determinants of party choice by treating voters' decision processes as a two-stage heterogeneous process. Departing from a consideration set model of voting behavior (CSM), we use panel data collected in Sweden in 2014 to analyze which voters considered voting for more than one party. To evaluate the CSM approach we estimate the relative effects of long-term and short-term determinants, for different parts of the electorate and at different stages of the decision process.Results confirm that the choice process for the ‘considering kind’ of voters is influenced by another mix of long-term and short-determinants than stable and party identified voters. Findings suggest that continued analyses of multi-stage decision making may bring new insights into electoral behavior. We argue that the core ideas of CSM – the sequential decision-making process and heterogeneity in the impact of long-term and short-term determinants – are generally applicable for analyses of voting behavior.

Exploring construction project design as multimodal social semiotic practice

ABSTRACTThe semiotic nature of design and engineering communications has often evaded direct interrogation; specifically the representation of requirements using multiple semiotic modes. This paper explores the semiotic character of requirement representation in the construction project design and engineering process by mobilising a social semiotic analytic framework to reveal how project artefacts (e.g. drawings; digital imagery; physical objects) are multimodal resources that critically affect stakeholder engagement and interpretation. The focused empirical study from a hospital construction project reveals the motivations and effects of multimodal and semiotic communicative choices of different parties (e.g. client; architect; engineer; design consultant) engaged on the same project; the representation (or not) of requirements via various semiotic modes being a social and political process. The contribution of the paper is in revealing the semiotic character of requirement representation and the relevance of semiotic-informed enquiry for an industry continuing to develop new technologies (e.g. virtual reality; BIM – building information modelling) for design and construction work.

Housing Wealth and Party Choice in a Multiparty System: The Netherlands 2006–2012

Recently, housing wealth has come to the fore as predictor of welfare attitudes. However, it is unclear whether people also change their vote based on their housing market position. This article shows, for three Dutch elections in 2006, 2010, and 2012, that housing wealth was a predictor of party choice during housing market downturns. In 2012, individuals in households in negative equity were more likely to vote pro welfare, while respondents most at risk of negative equity were more likely to vote pro-homeownership. This finding is corroborated in our analysis of party choice change. Voters are thus responsive to changing housing wealth positions. Our results are in line with economic voter theories and illustrate the emerging importance of housing wealth for this framework.

Correction to: Policy-specific alienation and indifference in the calculus of voting: a simultaneous model of party choice and abstention

Figure 2 on page 57 was erroneously duplicated in Figure 3 in the typesetting process. Actually, Fig. 3 should have been rendered as follows.

Splitting Votes, Splitting Hairs? Rationale for Split-Ticket Voting at the Federal, Regional, and European Elections of May 2014 in Belgium

This article investigates the determinants of split-ticket voting at the 2014 simultaneous federal, regional, and European elections in Belgium. We seek to explain why over a third of the voters made distinct party choices at different levels of government. Using data from the 2014 PartiRep Survey, we test a model of ballot-splitting, incorporating various types of explanations. Of specific interest to students of federalism, results show that some voters engage in vertical party-balancing. At the same time, perceiving a differential in importance between the levels does not appear as a driver of split-ticket voting, which runs contrary to the main assumption of the “second-order” elections model.

Analyzing Electoral Behavior Using PTV’s: Benefits and Methodological Issues

Abstract In the last decade, the propensity-to-vote (PTV) measure is being increasingly used in the research of electoral behavior. The purpose of this article is to explore the advantages and methodological issues of this measure, applying it for the analysis of the determinants of party choice in the 2016 Lithuanian parliamentary elections. In particular, the article explores the implications of using OLS regression for analysing a generic party with a stacked data matrix instead of cross-classified multilevel modeling.

Strong Impact of Interviewers on Respondents’ Political Choice

Despite much literature on interviewer effects, limited attention has been paid to party preference surveys, although the effect is expectedly strong in this field. This article analyzes interviewer effects in a face-to-face political survey. Specifically, we are interested in whether the interviewer’s own party preference has an effect on the respondent’s party choice. We used cross-classified two-level logistic regression models with median odds ratio as effect size. We found four main results: (1) Place of residence significantly affects political preference, but interviewers do so to the same degree; (2) the size of these effects is comparable to those of demographic characteristics of the respondent; (3) interviewers’ political preference has an effect and it does not disappear once controlled for obvious interviewer characteristics; and (4) the impact of political preference is such that respondents tend to have a preference similar to that of their interviewers.

Cleavages, Protest or Voting for Hope? The Rise of Centrist Populist Parties in the Czech Republic

Clanek analyzuje volebni podporu středových populistických stran v Ceske republice. Na zakladě dat z narodnich volebnich studii a s využitim vybraných teorii volebniho chovani nejde volebni podporu těchto stran vysvětit pomoci tradicnich konfliktnich linii, ale pťedevsim pomoci hodnoceni valencnich charakteristik.

Students as first-time voters: The role of voter advice applications in self-reflection on party choice and political identity

Purpose: This article analyses what characterises first time voters' self-reflections on party choice as they use voter advice applications. Method: This study is based on interviews of 28 Norwegian students (age 18-20)preparing themselves for their first election. Findings: Finding a party to vote for is primarily characterized by a process of matching a party to students' political self, which we see as steps toward a political identity. Practical implications: Teaching politics should allow for students' reflections on self and their political preferences.

Right radicalism: A luxury good for globalization losers in equal societies?

Electoral support of radical right parties (RRPs) varies significantly between European countries. In Denmark and the Netherlands, these parties enjoy electoral popularity, while similar support is absent in Portugal and Estonia. We investigate whether economic inequality affects the support of RRPs, and whether the effect is most pronounced among losers of economic globalization. Finally, we test if the association strengthened after the onset of the economic crisis in 2008. Using multilevel cross-sectional data from 16 European countries in 2006 and 2010, we show that economic inequality decreases support for RRPs, especially among losers of globalization. We argue that inequality increases the impact of voters’ economic interests on their party choice and decreases the importance of social cultural issues. Therefore fewer people will vote for RRPs who primarily mobilize voters on social cultural issues.

Beyond the distinction between incumbency and opposition: Retrospective voting at the level of political parties

Retrospective voting is one of the most frequently investigated theories of voting behaviour. It postulates that voters punish or reward incumbent parties according to their performance. This approach, however, cannot explain why voters cast a stable opposition vote, or switch between incumbent parties or opposition parties, respectively. This study fills this gap by showing that this traditional view should be complemented with the approach of retrospective voting to work at the level of political parties – irrespective of their incumbency status. Using the data of the second module of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, it provides the first large-scale test of this new perspective on electoral accountability. The results show that satisfaction with the previously endorsed party is an important determinant of the current party choice, and that it is so for voters for all parties alike. These results provide a theoretical foundation for party switches that could not be explained by the traditional model.

One size doesn't fit all: Voter decision criteria heterogeneity and vote choice

Although classic voting studies noted that voters may reach their voting decision on the basis of different criteria most contemporary voting studies assume that one voting model fits all. Building on the limited, but developing literature on the topic, this paper develops and tests models incorporating voter decision criteria heterogeneity. Paying particular attention to the role of voter sophistication, we investigate which voters mainly decide on the basis of ideology, position and valence issues, or party leaders, and how these differences influence their party choices. Analyses using mixed logit and a specially-designed survey instrument embedded in a high-quality, nationally representative survey of Danish voters show that decision criteria heterogeneity has substantial influence on the vote. The conclusion discusses the normative implications, in particular the question of whether voters’ reliance on party leaders constitutes a democratic problem.

Breaking a habit: The impact of health on turnout and party choice

Turnout and party choice are widely held to be habitual, but little attention has been paid to factors that disrupt the pattern. Good health is an important determinant of political behaviour and a key component in the quality of life. Based on the developmental theory of turnout, we hypothesize that declining health lowers voting propensity over the life course. We employ issue ownership theory to assume that declining health increases the likelihood of voting for leftist parties. Using the British Household Panel Survey data, we show how deteriorating health significantly lowers the propensity to vote, but if a person in poor health votes, she is more likely to support Labour than the Conservatives. As expected by the developmental theory, major life events, such as declining health, affect voting propensity. Results also support issue ownership theory: declining health increases Labour voting which implies that British voters turn to the party that owns the health issue when the issue becomes salient.

Choice of Law Contractual & Non Contractual Perspective

In every jurisdiction, the substantive laws provide and govern the rights and obligations of the parties. Mostly, these substantive laws have their own boundaries and territories within which they are applied. Generally, each jurisdiction differs on basis of these substantial laws. When a legal dispute arises involving parties, property or events located in the same jurisdiction, then the problem of deciding the proper law does not arises. However, in case of a legal dispute involving the parties, property or events places occurred in more than one jurisdiction, then the issue of choice of proper law arises. This choice of law increases the complications in the litigation process and therefore, must be chosen properly. Choosing the governing law by the parties themselves as per their benefit in transactions & future disputes would help in restoring the predictability to the conflicts of law problem. Alternatively, it can hinder the legitimate state efforts to regulate conduct. Thus, the authors propose allowing a party choice except when legislatures itself limits the enforcement of choice of law via statutes.

Different Rationales of Coalition Formation and Incentives for Strategic Voting

Research on strategic voting has mainly focused on electoral system effects but largely neglected the impact of different rationales of coalition formation. Based on a formal model of rational party choice and a simulation study, we systematically investigate this impact and explore the implications. We show that the logic of the underlying coalition formation procedure clearly affects the degree to which the electorate is exposed to strategic incentives regarding the vote choice. The key implications are that sincere voting is more often in the voter’s best interest if parties are policy-seeking and if there is increased uncertainty during the stage of coalition formation. Furthermore, we explore how different types of coalition formation affect strategic incentives across the policy space.