Vote Choice Research Articles

Peran Badan Kesatuan Bangsa Dan Politik Dalam Meningkatkan Partisipasi Politik Pemilih Perempuan Melalui Pendidikan Politik Di Kabupaten Sukoharjo

This research aims to analyze the role of Bakesbangpol in increasing the political participation of female voters and determine the factors that influence the political participation of female voters in Sukoharjo Regency. This research uses a qualitative approach. Data sources in the research include informants, namely heads of departments and staff members of domestic politics and community organizations as well as female voters participating in political education programs, events implementing political education programs at the Graha Satya Praja pavilion, as well as the Sukoharjo Regency Bakesbangpol strategic plan document for 2021-2026. The sampling technique used was purposive sampling. The data collection techniques used were observation, direct in-depth interviews, and document analysis. The validity test technique uses triangulation of sources and methods. The data analysis technique used is an interactive analysis model which consists of four components including data collection, data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. The research results are as follows. 1) Bakesbangpol Sukoharjo Regency has carried out its role as a facilitator by providing facilities and infrastructure, providing political education assistance, and having a focus on discussions related to political participation. Political education is carried out in the form of political socialization. 2) factors that influence the political participation of female voters in Sukoharjo Regency, namely a) political knowledge, female voters who have political knowledge will have the awareness to participate in political activities. b) family, family members, especially the husband, are factors that can influence a wife's choice. c) political stimulation, political education organized by Bakesbangpol is able to increase the knowledge of female voters and social media is able to influence the choices of female voters. d) work that is formed because of similarities is able to encourage individuals to adapt to behavior in the group.

Geographic Distribution of Voter Turnout, Ethnic Turnout and Vote Choices in Johor State Election

Geographic Distribution of Voter Turnout, Ethnic Turnout and Vote Choices in Johor State Election

Public mass shootings cause large surges in Americans' engagement with gun policy.

As public mass shootings continue to plague the United States, a growing scholarly literature seeks to understand the political effects of these tragic events. This literature, however, focuses on public opinion or turnout and vote choice, leaving open to question whether or not public mass shootings affect a range of other important actions citizens may take to engage with gun policy. Leveraging the as-good-as random timing of high-publicity public mass shootings over the past decade and an immense array of publicly available and proprietary data, we demonstrate that these events consistently cause surges in public engagement with gun policy-including internet searches, streaming documentaries, discussion on social media, signing petitions, and donating to political action committees. Importantly, we document the behaviors where shootings induce polarizing upswings in engagement and those where upswings skew toward gun control. Finally, we demonstrate that low-publicity shootings largely exert little-to-no effect on our outcomes.

Electoral Messiah or Party Label? Quantifying and Investigating Leader-Party Relationships in German Federal Elections 1998–2021

While the personalization of politics thesis has received support when exploring the supply side of politics and the media's coverage of elections and campaigns, the unmediated impact of leaders on vote choice (demand-side behavioral personalization) is debated. Most scholars agree that leaders can and do influence the vote, but the extent, circumstances, and pathways for this to occur, notably distinct from voter assessments of the party, remains contested. Using data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), we explore demand-side behavioral personalization in German Federal elections between 1998–2021, with a particular focus on the 2021 contest, where leadership was arguably an especially salient feature of the campaign. We offer a quantification of the phenomenon – first in the form of a vote-leader/party favorite alignment index and second by separating the impact of leader and party popularity on the vote in the 2021 contest, including provision for temporal and reciprocal dynamics. In doing so, we comprehensively examine leader-inclined voting while testing whether the 2021 contest represented a “Crossroads” contest on this dimension. Our results show leaders directly influenced vote choice in 2021, support for leader-inclined voting. Nevertheless, we find little evidence that 2021 marked a “Crossroads,” with few voters aligning their vote solely with their favorite leader, a pattern detected in all German elections between 1998 and 2021. Conspicuously, substantially more voters report aligning their vote with their favorite party. Further, our analysis illustrates that the association between leader popularity and the vote mostly trails the impact of party popularity’s connection with the vote. These results align more with the leaders minimalist school of demand-side behavioral personalization.

Domestic terrorism, incumbency, and legislative vote shares

A small number of studies have examined the effect terrorism has on political ideology and vote choice cross-nationally. However, scholars yet to understand how terrorist attack type influences vote choice based on the political ideology of incumbent governments. Thus, we examine the effect domestic and transnational terrorist attacks have on vote choice in legislative elections while accounting for the ideology of the incumbent government. In examining 56 democracies from 1975 – 2014 from various regions and levels of development, we find that domestic attacks, and not transnational, significantly effect both right and left party votes shares when the incumbent party in government is of a similar ideology. We attribute these results to the perception of instability that accompanies domestic attacks and the effects it has on voters’ evaluations of political parties. These findings have important implications for understanding how terrorism influences electoral behavior.

The Democratic Majority and the 2016 American Presidential Election: Feminist Political Behavior Across Multiple Axes of Identity

Scholarship on women voters using an intersectional lens has shown feminists and women of color within the Democratic Party to be a powerful force in electoral politics—specifically, Black and Latina women—are the most reliable voters. Combined, they represent the majority of women voters in the Democratic Party, and they have shown themselves to be a sizeable voting bloc in the last two American presidential election cycles. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Studies (ANES), we demonstrate important differences in support for the Democratic candidate (Hillary Clinton) between feminists and women of color—Black and Latina—underscoring the need to study gender, race, and ethnicity simultaneously (versus independently) when they are co-constitutive identity categories. By examining women and the groups the Clinton campaign appealed most to—feminists, Black, and Latina women—we add to the scholarship in political science that followed this unique election and demonstrate the importance of feminist identity for vote choice and various modes of political behavior for women voters. Knowing and understanding how women respond through affect and how this affect can result in political behaviors will help determine what it takes for future historic first candidates to emerge successful.

Los nadies y las nadies: The Effect of Peacebuilding on Political Behavior in Colombia

ABSTRACT How do peacebuilding institutions affect political behavior? This article studies the historic victory of the Colombian left in the 2022 presidential elections in light of the implementation of local peacebuilding programs through the 2016 Peace Accords. Using a quasi-experimental design, we show that the Development Plans with a Territorial Focus (PDET), a central component of the 2016 Peace Accords between the government and the FARC, increased the vote share for the leftist coalition, Pacto Histórico, in the 2022 elections by increasing voter turnout in PDET regions. In a departure from existing literature, we find that the explanatory effect of violence on vote share is significantly reduced when we include an indicator for PDET implementation and additional covariates. While there is a substantial body of work examining the effects of conflict violence and the presence of armed actors on elections, there has been relatively little focus on how the peacebuilding has affected vote choice and political behavior. We see our project as a bridge to fill this gap in the literature.

Presidential Debates and Electoral Preferences in Weakly Institutionalised Democracies: Evidence From 32 Latin American Elections

Previous research has shown that presidential debates have “minimal effects” on aggregate electoral preferences because they mainly reinforce people's pre-existing political preferences. However, most of what we know about the behavioural effects of debates comes from research conducted in the United States and other institutionalised democracies. We re-evaluate the effects of debates on electoral preferences by focusing on Latin American elections. Given higher levels of electoral volatility, weaker partisan brands, lower partisanship, and more personalised voter linkages, we expect that debates play a significant role in shaping vote choice in Latin America. We test these expectations by conducting an analysis of presidential debates on aggregated vote preferences in thirty-two elections across fourteen Latin American countries from 2002 to 2019. Our results show that presidential debates shape electoral preferences in countries with weakly institutionalised party systems.

To vote or not to vote in the homeland elections? Insights into voting abstention in Italy's constituency abroad

AbstractSince its introduction in the early 2000s, legislation relating to the voting rights of Italians abroad has enabled millions of residents of voting age outside of Italy to engage in homeland elections and elect their own MPs. The inclusion of Italian citizens abroad in the Italian polity has nevertheless translated into a patchy electoral engagement. This article does not intend to provide an analysis of the voting choices in Italy's overseas constituency. Instead, it delves into external vote dynamics to provide insights into overseas Italians’ abstention in parliamentary elections and referenda. After summarising the history of the introduction of Italy's peculiar model of external voting, drawing on the results of an online survey of Italians abroad, the article examines the factors influencing turnout, with specific attention to the eligible voters’ personal characteristics. It also focuses on the attitude of Italians abroad towards possible reforms aiming at increasing electoral participation. It concludes that country of birth and Italian language skills are among the most relevant variables not only to assess what fosters or inhibits external voting, but also to gauge the opinion of voters residing outside Italy about proposals to reform the procedures regulating the exercise of suffrage from abroad.

A compromising mindset? How citizens evaluate the trade‐offs in coalition politics

AbstractCoalition building depends on citizens having a ‘compromising mindset’: they must accept that parties need to compromise in order to gain influence and that this entails deviating from the original policy positions. In this study, we show that European citizens understand that compromise is essential for democratic governance and that they, holding everything else constant, prefer political parties that express a willingness to compromise. This finding appears to be independent from specific forms of coalition politics and to be widespread across different levels of political interest, formal education and even ideological extremity. Our analysis compares observational data from the Austrian National Election Survey (AUTNES) 2020 and an original survey from Denmark in 2021. We also present results from a conjoint experiment fielded in Denmark, which evaluates the effect of willingness to compromise on vote choice. Our finding is good news for European democracies where coalition politics and thus compromise is a necessity for governance. Yet, for vote‐seeking politics, the situation is complex as citizens might sometimes punish parties for compromising, but sometimes also punish them for not compromising.

Keeping Up With the Joneses? Neighbourhood Effects on the Vote

Voters are affected by cues from their immediate social environment. One of these cues consists of the political opinions available and accepted in people’s neighbourhoods, which are theoretically expected to affect vote choices through direct or indirect forms of communication. We test this assertion by employing a longitudinal design combining fine-grained geo-coded panel data with election results on a uniquely local level in the Netherlands. We assess the effect of the level of support for parties in a neighbourhood (consisting of just 624 households on average) on the vote choices of individuals 5 years later, while controlling for their previous vote choice. We find that the political preferences of neighbours indeed affect respondents’ subsequent vote choice, but only for those voters who feel strongly embedded in the local community. We conclude that, even in the highly fragmented Dutch context, the political choices of citizens can be influenced by neighbourhood effects.

ARE CATHOLICS UNIQUELY CROSS-PRESSURED? POLICY BELIEFS AND VOTING BEHAVIOR BY RELIGIOUS TRADITION IN RECENT U.S. ELECTIONS

The Catholic Church’s pro-life, pro-social justice policy agenda takes the sides of both major US political parties. This potentially cross-pressures Catholic voters’ choice between those parties, but could alternatively legitimate a Catholic voter’s personal partisan preference. This paper examines whether Catholic voters who share the Church’s core policy positions are more or less likely than comparably cross-pressured non-Catholic voters to exhibit political behaviors associated with cross-pressures: avoiding identification with a major party, avoiding voting or a major-party vote choice, defecting from one’s party in voting, and selectively misperceiving candidate issue positions. Analyzing data from the 2016-2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies and the 1992-2016 American National Election Studies, I find little evidence that Catholics are uniquely, strongly cross-pressured. If anything, cross-pressured (and other) Catholics are more likely than comparable non-Catholics–even those in faith traditions that are more clearly aligned with a single party–to embrace partisan politics. In some cases, partisan differences between Catholics in their responsiveness to cross-pressures exceed differences between Catholics and non-Catholics.

Generational change in party support in Germany: The decline of the Volksparteien, the rise of the Greens, and the transformation of the education divide

Motivated by the eroding support for the old “Volksparteien” CDU/CSU and SPD, especially among younger voters, this study conducts an age-period-cohort analysis of vote choices in all 20 German federal elections, from 1949 to 2021. I study both generational differences in levels of party support and the changing effect of education on voting. The results, first, point to the importance of generational replacement in understanding party's shifting fortunes, with the CDU/CSU and the SPD being weaker in more recent cohorts and the Greens stronger. Second, while high education divides voters of the old right (CDU/CSU and especially FDP) and left (SPD) in earlier cohorts, it divides voters of the new-left Greens and the radical-right AfD in more recent cohorts. This study enhances our understanding of the changing patterns of party support in the German electorate and, as a broader lesson, shows how electoral realignment is driven by generational replacement.

Toeing the Party Line: The Asymmetric Influence of Feminism on Partisans' Participation

Abstract What is the relationship between feminism and political participation? How does partisanship moderate this relationship? Prior research shows that gender attitudes, particularly sexism, rather than gender identity per se, increasingly shape vote choice and participation in US elections. However, the role played by feminism in voter behaviour remains scarcely understood. As feminist identification crosses partisanship, we argue that its impact on engagement with campaigns and turnout depends on party ID. Therefore, we expect feminist identity and how it intersects with either aligned or conflicting partisan identity to impact partisans' participation asymmetrically. Using data from the 2016 and 2020 American National Election Studies, our results support these expectations. Holding the mutually reinforcing identities of Democrat and feminist has a significant mobilizing impact, while holding the cross-cutting identities of Republican and feminist tends to lead to a decline in political participation.

The Elderly and Hoaxes within the Sphere of Indonesian Democracy in the Digital Age

The presence of social media has become an essential part of daily life, including for elderly people. However, the spread of hoaxes and fake news on social media can have serious consequences, particularly for the elderly who may be more vulnerable to misinformation. The article highlights the dangers of hoaxes, particularly in the context of political campaigns, and their potential impact on the elderly's voting choices. The article also discusses the importance of media literacy for the elderly, particularly in the era of digital media where it can be challenging to distinguish between fact and fiction. Through literature studies, the article highlights the reallife implications of hoaxes for the elderly and underscores the need for media literacy to combat hoaxes in the digital era.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Emotions towards Party Leaders on Voting: Evidence from the 2018 Andalusian Regional Election

Party leaders are increasingly relevant to voters’ choices in parliamentary systems. However, most studies addressing the electoral impact of leaders have largely ignored voters’ emotional responses to party leaders. Additionally, little is known about the effect of party leaders in subnational or regional elections. Using data from a specific election survey, this article examines the effect of emotions towards party leaders on regional voting. It assesses whether emotional responses to party leaders not only have direct effects, but whether they also have indirect effects through partisanship on voting. We found evidence that emotions towards party leaders have both direct and indirect effects through partisanship on vote choice.

Precarious work and challenger parties: how precarity influenced vote choice in the 2018 Italian election

AbstractAcross Western European democracies, the last 20 years have seen a growth of precarious employment and the rise of challenger parties. Both trends are especially marked in Italy, where occupational insecurity has become the norm and over half of the electorate has turned to a challenger party. In this article, I investigate the relationship between these two phenomena, addressing the question of whether and how precarity in the labor market influenced vote choice in the 2018 general election. First, I provide descriptive evidence that the Italian labor market shifted from dualism to generalized precarization. Second, I empirically investigate the relationship between precarity and voting in this context. The results show that the perception of precarity, not formal employment status, influenced voting behavior: it fostered participation, increased support for the Five Star Movement, and decreased support for the Democratic Party. These findings challenge core assumptions in the literature, first and foremost about precarious workers' low turnout rate, difficult mobilization, and consequent political irrelevance. They indicate that the electoral weight of precarious workers has increased, and their representation can be electorally beneficial.

Voter's gratification in using online news and the implications on political landscape in Malaysia

AbstractIn recent years, democratic societies have relied heavily on online news to enlighten the public on current issues in politics. This study investigates voters' gratification in using online news and its implication on the political landscape. This study examined how information seeking, social utility, guidance/judgment, and personal fulfillment drawn from the Uses and Gratification theory, change Malaysians' voting decisions. The survey included a sample of 700 registered voters from the Malaysian Klang Valley. The data were gathered using convenience and purposive sampling using nonprobability sampling technique. Analysis from Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling using SmartPLS 3.0 demonstrated that information seeking, social utility, guidance, and personal fulfillment could positively determine the people's vote choice. Using online news for guidance is the strongest predictor of the people's vote choice. This study provides important implications where the government can capitalize on the effectiveness of online media to reach the public and rationalize major policy decisions. Future research may utilize a longitudinal approach.

The Elderly and Hoaxes within the Sphere of Indonesian Democracy in the Digital Age

The presence of social media has become an essential part of daily life, including for elderly people. However, the spread of hoaxes and fake news on social media can have serious consequences, particularly for the elderly who may be more vulnerable to misinformation. The article highlights the dangers of hoaxes, particularly in the context of political campaigns, and their potential impact on the elderly's voting choices. The article also discusses the importance of media literacy for the elderly, particularly in the era of digital media where it can be challenging to distinguish between fact and fiction. Through literature studies, the article highlights the real-life implications of hoaxes for the elderly and underscores the need for media literacy to combat hoaxes in the digital era

The Power of Political Discussion: Uncovering the Influence of Networks on Vote Choice and its Mechanisms

This paper explores the influence of political discussion networks on vote choice. We ask two questions: What type of discussion networks influence vote choice? And, what are the mechanisms through which discussion networks influence voting behavior? We argue that discussing politics with others affects electoral decisions when citizens are surrounded by discussants whose political views are homogeneous and that this influence can operate through two mechanisms: information and social pressure. Using data from a two-wave panel study conducted in Bogotá before and after the 2011 local elections, we find evidence of the effects of social networks on voter behavior. The homogeneity of discussion networks is correlated with a change in vote choice, and this link appears to be driven both by information and social pressure.