Voter Preferences Research Articles

Religion, secularization, and far-right support in the Netherlands, Hungary, and Italy

Academic evaluations of the relationship between religion, secularization, and far-right collective actors have grown increasingly complicated. New religious immigrants, seen as invaders importing contradictory values imposed on the populous by EU elites, may threaten Christian and irreligious Europeans. Europe has been secularizing for decades, concurrent with a resurgence in far-right collective action, but this far-right resurgence has also accompanied an increase in religious discourse in politics. In this study, I investigate the relationship between religion, secularization, and far-right collective action utilizing three case studies. I find, with some caveats, that in Hungary, Fidesz motivates Christian voters with religious nationalist appeals, while assertive secularization motivates irreligious voters in the Netherlands. Italy is more complex, where far-right collective actors are less able to monopolize social issues. These findings speak to the critical role religious values and institutions play in shaping voter preferences and present competing options for secularist politics moving forward.

The Impact of Transactional Politics on Papuan Ethnic Identity Politics in the Dynamics of the 2024 General Election in Manokwari Regency

The objective of this study is to investigate the perspectives of the Papuan ethnic group regarding the dynamics of identity politics in general elections, which frequently encompass aspirations related to identity politics. The term "Papuan ethnicity" refers to an identity within Papuan nationalism, symbolizing the mobilization and unification of Papuans. In the context of elections, the notion of Papuan ethnicity becomes a significant issue for electoral candidates, particularly for those who lack support from their fellow Papuans. Utilizing qualitative research methods and ethnographic approaches, this study explores the impact of transactional politics on the ethnic perspectives and political participation of Papuans during elections. It examines various factors, including the influence of political funding on voter preferences, the mobilization of ethnic groups for political backing, and the dynamics of inter-ethnic interactions within political disputes. The findings of this research aim to provide an in-depth understanding of the patterns of political aspirations in Papua and their implications for the consolidation of democracy in Indonesia.Keywords: identity politics, political aspirations, Papuan ethnicity, general elections

Ideology, financial circumstances, and attitudes toward public and private foreign aid

Does ideology influence voter preferences for foreign aid in the same way it does for domestic redistribution? Economically vulnerable left-leaning citizens, who are normatively strong proponents of government aid, may not be as committed to increasing actual spending. Such citizens may see themselves as competing with the foreign poor for domestic resources. Similarly, while affluent right-leaning citizens may oppose increasing foreign aid due to skepticism about government spending, this might not extend to private donations. Instead, they may view non-governmental organizations and charities as alternatives that leverage private expertise to assist poor countries. Using four years of public opinion data from 15 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development donor countries, I find support for the conditional effect of ideology and economic self-interest on both public and private aid attitudes. By focusing on three different measures—the morality of aid, public aid spending, and private donations—I further explore variations in aid attitudes.

MAGA Trumps the Incumbency Advantage in a Dueling Incumbent Primary

Redistricting is the causal agent responsible for two incumbents facing off in U.S. House elections and hence, despite the rarity of these matchups, they occur periodically due to district boundary changes. In this article, we examine who wins a recent and highly competitive incumbent duel: the 2024 GOP primary in Alabama’s congressional district (CD) 1. Our assessment of this race marks the first academic study to marshal large-N survey data for the purpose of gauging voter preferences in a dueling incumbent primary. This approach gives us a clearer understanding of what accounts for the outcome of a highly contentious and extremely close election. Our findings suggest the incumbency advantage was overridden by voter alignment with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, which produced a narrow victory for the more MAGA/Trump-positioned candidate in this race.

Field Investigation on the Thermal Environment and Comfort of People Exercising in a Fitness Center

A favorable thermal environment in fitness centers is important to attract more members and is beneficial to the health of exercising people. The purpose of this study was to research the actual thermal environment of a typical fitness center in different seasons and the thermal requirement of exercising people. A field investigation covering winter, spring, and summer was conducted. The environmental parameters were measured. Subjective questionnaires involving individual information, clothing insulation, thermal sensation, etc., were collected. Participants’ heart rates were tested to estimate their metabolic rate (MR). A total of 740 valid questionnaires were collected. The results showed that a scissors gap existed between the predictive mean vote (PMV) and the thermal sensation vote (TSV) for the exercising people. For the higher MR group, there was a separation between the TSV and thermal preference vote, e.g., most participants would not prefer to cooler or warmer thermal environment when they felt hot or cold. The CO2 concentration changed greatly among seasons and the distribution in the fitness center was not uniform. With mechanical ventilation, the CO2 concentration in summer was the lowest. In other seasons it became much higher due to limited natural ventilation. However, subjective response to indoor air quality showed no significant difference among seasons. The participants felt more satisfied to the overall thermal environment in the transition season. The results can be referenced in the thermal environment management in fitness centers during seasonal changes.

Different Perspectives on Democracy as an Explanation for the “Populist Radical Right Gender Gap”?

The “radical right gender gap” is an established finding in contemporary research, indicating that women support populist radical right parties (PRRPs) in significantly lower numbers than men. Despite substantial literature dedicated to uncovering the reasons behind this gap, significant questions remain unanswered. This article examines the nature of the radical right gender gap in greater detail, focusing on Switzerland—a country with one of the most established PRRPs in Western Europe, the SVP/SPP (Schweizer Volkspartei/Swiss People’s Party), making it a representative case. A defining feature of PRRPs that sets them apart from other parties is their clear distinction between in-groups and out-groups in society, coupled with the propagation of nativist and anti-pluralist values. While PRRPs emphasize caring for the in-group, they often advocate excluding the out-group from rights and privileges. This article argues that the preferences of PRRPs and female voters are in stark contrast regarding these issues. Building on empirical evidence that women place more importance on certain features of a democratic system than men do, we propose that this discrepancy may help explain the gender gap in support for these parties. Utilizing data from the European Social Survey 2020, which includes detailed questions on various understandings of democracy, we find robust support for our hypotheses within the Swiss context. Compared to men, women consider protecting the rights of minorities and safeguarding all citizens from poverty as especially important for a functioning democracy. These preferences emerge as influential factors contributing to women’s reluctance to support PRRPs.

Pola Preferensi Politik Pemilih Pemula Di Kota Makassar

First-time voters are a fairly large segment of voters. This shows that First-Time voters are a large resource in politics in Indonesia. Indonesia as a democratic country certainly expects every element of society to be actively involved in every democratic process, including the first-time voter segment. First-time voters as an important segment then have quite good political awareness. Through this political awareness, a pattern of political preference formation will then be formed. First-time voters as a large political resource are of course highly expected to be able to participate, at least voting in elections. So far, existing research regarding First-time voters only places as mere objects. However, this research then examines in more depth the patterns of political preference formation that will influence the political behavior of first-time voters. This research is qualitative research with primary data obtained through in-depth interviews with high school students as research informants. Based on the research conducted, it appears that First-time voters in Makassar City have quite good political awareness, which is an implication of their better political knowledge. So, when making choices in an election, First-time voters have a tendency to make their own choices based on their political preferences. The pattern of forming political preferences of first-time voters is sociology, rationality and psychology. Keywords: Firs-time voters, Political Preferences, Political Awareness

The Rise of Progressive Prosecutors in the United States: Politics, Prospects, and Perils

Throughout much of the United States, progressive chief prosecutors (PCPs) have campaigned for office by pledging to end mass incarceration and reduce disparities therein. In this review, we summarize the progressive prosecution movement and the evidence base concerning PCPs. We attribute the rising number of PCPs to a disjuncture between the criminal justice policy preferences of state-level policymakers and voters. Although voters, especially in urban areas, prefer reforms aimed at reducing excessive punitiveness and increasing fairness, state-level policymakers have been reluctant to enact such reforms. PCPs bridge this gap by using their authority to implement local reforms without altering state laws. We detail the number of PCPs leading prosecution in urban counties, examine their characteristics, discuss the controversies surrounding PCPs, and critically review the emerging body of evidence concerning the influence of PCPs on sanctioning and public safety.

Poslovno pravo i pravo održivog razvoja – između profitabilnosti i etičnosti

As for applying the knowledge from EU law, the author points out two tendencies affecting company law in the context of sustainability. The first one is the legal duty of the companies to incorporate the statement of purpose, which is no longer limited to profit. The second one is the corporate duty of care in line with ESG standards as well as the corporate purpose. It is an integral part of a company’s business and culture. Having in mind French, German or Dutch law, directors are expected to promote long-term business success, to take care of the open list of stakeholders’ interests and to apply corporate due diligence standards. Thought leaders, however, generally describe ESG as a business strategy that creates long-term stakeholder value by addressing social, economic, and environmental opportunities and risks that are material to a company. Preservation as well as environmental protection is one of the biggest challenges that modern generations will have to face. The term green transition has been coined as an expression of the efforts to ensure the transition to a sustainable business model in order to preserve the ecosystem and the planet as such. Non-financial reporting plays a very important role in the green transition process. Integral part of the EU agenda remains the discussion about corporate directors’ duties in the context of human rights as well as environmental risks. There is no doubt that the key word of the new corporate governance paradigm is risk.

Speech targeting and constituency representation in open-list electoral systems

This study investigates the localistic behavior of legislators elected under open-list proportional representation (OLPR), focusing on the impacts of district magnitude, intra-party competition, electorate size, and the presence of a national tier. We examine the Ecuadorian case, where institutional reformers implemented a national tier to offset the parochial tendencies of lower-tier provincial legislators yet retained OLPR for both tiers. Our study, which analyzes a 12-year dataset of congressional speeches, challenges the expectation that national-tier members are less localistic than their provincial counterparts and shows that electoral incentives drive legislators’ geographical focus. Contrary to conventional expectations, we find no evidence that increased intra-party competition is associated with more localistic behavior. However, there is consistent support for the hypothesis that smaller electoral constituencies amplify localistic behavior.

Beyond the party push: Gender differences in voters’ persuasion

Despite ongoing efforts to bridge gender disparities, women continue to be underrepresented in political spheres. This paper proposes a novel explanation for the female disadvantage in electoral success, focusing on politicians’ capacity to broaden their electoral base and appeal to voters from opposing parties. Drawing on Swiss elections, this paper leverages various aspects of the electoral system. In Switzerland, the electoral process is characterized by open lists, allowing voters to select candidates within their preferred party, and cross-voting, enabling them to choose candidates from other party lists. Additionally, electoral registers provide data on the number of preference votes garnered by each candidate, categorized by the voter’s preferred party. The analysis reveals that individual preference votes play a pivotal role in driving gender disparities in candidates’ electoral achievements. While the gender gap in preferences expressed by supporters of a particular party is less robust, male politicians outperform their female counterparts significantly in collecting preference votes through cross-voting. This implies that male politicians are more skilled at persuading voters from rival parties. These findings, motivated by various underlying mechanisms, carry considerable policy implications concerning the approach to addressing gender inequalities in politics.

Parties and the power of capital intensive under open-list proportional representation system: The case of Indonesia

Since the Indonesian election adopted the Open-List Proportional Representation (OLPR) system in 2009 until the present, most political parties have altered their campaign strategies in the parliamentary election. The ownership of capital intensive is seemingly a certainty for political parties if they wish to succeed in the electoral match. Therefore, this article is aimed to demonstrate that capital intensive has a powerful impact in regard to the party triumph in the electoral arena under an OLPR system. It can be seen with the successful experience of four political parties in Indonesia, namely the Gerindra Party (Great Indonesia Movement), PKB (National Awakening Party), the Nasdem Party (National Democrat), and PKS (Prosperous Justice Party) in two elections, 2014 and 2019. Methodologically, it is qualitative research by utilizing in-depth interviews and online news gathering as the data collection technique. With the usage of four marketing-mix indicators (product, price, place, promotion), the article findings revealed that most political parties generally had uniformity in those four indicators despite different ideologies, programs, and strategies. Each party respectively required financial costs, an ideological platform, past achievements, popular candidate profile, physiological costs, local networks, direct campaign strategies to voters, elite approaches, and tactical promotions through mass media. Thus, this study concludes that these costs, which are referred to as “capital intensive,” determine the party’s victory in achieving electoral success.

The economic roots of cross‐national similarity in voter preferences

AbstractWe argue that economic and political integration leads voters' political preferences toward cross‐national convergence. Analyzing data on voter preferences across 30 European democracies from 1976 to 2022, we measure the similarity of preference distributions across state dyads over time, documenting an average increase in similarity over this period. We then model these associations statistically and find that greater similarity and complementarity in economic production and co‐participation in the European Union and the Eurozone are associated with increasingly similar voter preferences. The argument and analyses broaden our understanding of the political implications of globalization and also provide a theoretical and empirical foundation for two growing literatures: one on the cross‐national diffusion of parties' strategies and one on the political implications of macroeconomic stimuli such as trade shocks or banking crises.

The prediction of thermal sensation in building using support vector machine and extreme gradient boosting

The building has great potential for energy savings as one of the locations that humans often occupy. In addition to energy efficiency, humans must consider environmental sustainability and the comfort of the building's occupants. Conditioning of indoor air quality, including those related to thermal comfort, continues to be pursued to be more economical, one of which is to utilize the prediction of occupants' thermal sensations. The prediction results can be utilized to adjust room air conditions more economically. This paper proposes using extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and support vector machine (SVM) to predict the thermal sensation in the building. The built environment parameters are preprocessed, and the thermal sensation is predicted by intelligent systems. The ten variables that most influence the level of accuracy of this thermal sensation prediction system are thermal preference vote, indoor operative temperature, Griffith's neutral temperature, indoor globe temperature, mean radiant temperature, Indoor air temperature, predicted mean vote, and outdoor mean temperature. SVM with four features, XGBoost and XGBoost with hyperparameter tuning, achieve an accuracy of 99.45%, 97.81%, and 98.08%, respectively. Regarding computational complexity, training an SVM system with the same number of features requires a shorter time than XGBoost training. The same thing also happened with the test of the SVM system, which required a shorter time compared to the time for the examination of the XGBoost system.

How institutions do (not) contain personalized politics: centralized personalization in a decentralized electoral system

ABSTRACT The Danish general election in 2022 appeared to foster a paradox: the campaign was remarkably personalized, while voters were less likely to vote for an individual candidate compared to the last five elections. Personalization in the campaign did not seem to spill over to voting behaviour. The study argues and shows using register and survey data that institutional barriers limited the direct expression of personalized electoral behaviour, but voters strongly motivated by political leaders compensated by casting party list votes. The true paradox of the Danish election was that decreasing preferential votes actually reflected increasing personalization, concentrating personal votes in the hands of party leaders. This finding speaks to a general concern about how different arenas of political personalization interact. It suggests that political institutions can only partly contain the personalization of politics because political actors – elites as well as ordinary voters – navigate within the given institutions to maximize their personalized political preferences, finding opportunities to compensate for the institutional barriers. Democracies must, therefore, consider institutional designs as well as political cultures when meeting the possible challenges posed by increased personalization of politics.

The European Union, immigration and the Left–Right divide: Explaining voting preferences for Western European radical right parties

In the past two decades, radical right parties gained ground, becoming relevant political actors in several European countries. This article presents an intriguing study on their voting preferences in Western Europe. It analyses whether and to what extent the effect of the distance between individual and party positions on the European Union, immigration and the Left–Right positioning has changed over time (between 2009 and 2019). This is examined by combining data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey and the European Election Studies. The results suggest that the distance between Left–Right self-positioning and party position has become more important in explaining voting for radical right parties over time.

Sentiment Analysis of Twitter towards the 2024 Indonesian Presidential Candidates Using the Naïve Bayes Algorithms

The increasing use of social media (Twitter) has made it a platform for the public to express their views on the Indonesian presidential candidate in the 2024 elections. The sentiment expressed through comments on Twitter provides important insights into the public perception of the candidates. However, given the volume and speed at which information is disseminated on social media, manual analysis of this sentiment becomes impractical. Therefore, the use of the Naïve Bayes algorithm for automatic sentiment analysis is considered essential to understanding voter support and preferences. The study aims to analyze Twitter users' sentiments towards three Indonesian presidential candidates in 2024, Anies, Ganjar, and Prabowo, using the Naïve Bayes algorithm. We categorize the results of this analysis into three sentiment categories: positive, negative, and neutral. The methods used in the study involved collecting Twitter comment data related to the three candidates, pre-processing data, labeling data, applying the Naïve Bayes algorithm for the classification of sentiment, and evaluation of the performance of the algorithm performed by calculating the level of accuracy. The results of the research showed that the Naïve Bayes algorithm was able to classify sentiments with fairly high precision, namely 75.54% for Anies, 82.74% for Ganjar, and 75.24% for Prabowo. The conclusion of this study is that sentimental analysis using the Naïve Bayes algorithm can provide significant insights into voter preferences and support. The sentimental data generated can serve as a strong foundation for decision-makers to design campaign strategies that are more effective and responsive to public perception. This research also opens up opportunities for further development in the use of sentimental analysis techniques in politics and campaigns.

Analisis Perilaku Memilih Pada Pemilih Pemula Menjelang Pemilu 2024 Melalui Penerapan Konsep Voting Advice Application

The 2024 election moment is an opportunity for voting advice applications (VAA) to help them making wise political choices since it will be filled with many first-time voters. However, the development of VAA in Indonesia requires an understanding of voting behavior in order to be able to provide appropriate advice to users. For this reason, this research aims to determine the voting behavior of first-time voters so that VAA developers will gain a good understanding of the needs of first-time voters in making political choices by distributing national survey and focus group discussion to first-time voters. This research finds that VAA succeeds in presenting willingness to vote, discuss, and act on their first-time voter users, who also have more dominant rational voting behavior despite their low level of knowledge, liking, and urge to vote towards political parties. Corruption eradication, gender,and education issues are the main concerns of first-time voters. Hopefully, the more appropriate VAA works to the issue preferences of first-time voters, the more it will encourage the creation of well-informed choice voters in Indonesia.

Political Parties and Public Policies. A Review of the Spanish Evidence

Abstract To what extent does the incumbent party’s identity shape public policies? We investigate this question by examining national and regional policies in Spain. First, we analyze the evolution of voter preferences, and ofthe platforms of the two mainstream parties (Partido Socialista Obrero Español [PSOE] and Partido Popular [PP]), and the newer challenger parties that emerged post-financial crisis (Ciudadanos, Podemos, and Vox). We focus on three key national-level issue dimensions: economic, social, and centralization. As expected, the right-wing PP adopts a more conservative stance on all dimensions compared to the left-wing PSOE. However, the policy gap between these two parties remains relatively stable until the mid-2000s, with party platforms tracking the evolution of citizen preferences. After this period, platforms start to diverge, especially in the case of new parties, which display radical stances on these dimensions. We also provide descriptive evidence suggesting that these platform differences have translated into enacted policies. Second, to offer causal evidence on the effect of party identity on policy decisions, we examine partisan disparities in regional fiscal policies. Our findings reveal significant differences in tax policy following the granting of tax autonomy to the regions, somewhat moderated by tax competition and fiscal limits.

Why Voters Prefer Politicians With Particular Personal Attributes: The Role of Voter Demand for Populists

Recent studies in democratic countries suggest that voters generally prefer candidates with specific personal attributes, such as being female and young. However, some of these patterns cannot necessarily be explained by voters’ expectations of candidates’ competence. Building on a growing body of literature that addresses populist attitudes as an important factor influencing voters’ political preferences, this study hypothesizes that candidates’ personal attributes shape voters’ perceptions of their populist attitudes and that such perceptions mediate the relationship between personal attributes and voter preferences. A conjoint experiment conducted in Japan showed that several personal attributes substantially influenced candidates’ perceived anti-elitism and people-centrism. An additional experiment to disentangle causal mechanisms suggested that, albeit inconclusive, young candidates were more likely to be preferred because of voters’ expectations of their populist tendencies. Methodologically, this study illustrates advancements in the conjoint experiment design to elucidate causal mechanisms, with a careful discussion of necessary assumptions.