Zealand Election Study Research Articles

Why do majoritarian systems benefit the right? Income groups and vote choice across different electoral systems

Abstract This research note investigates how the voting behavior of middle-income citizens explains why right-wing parties tend to govern under majoritarian electoral rule. The growing literature that investigates the ideological effects of electoral systems has mostly focused on institutional explanations. However, whether the electoral rules overrepresent parties with some specific ideologies is also a matter of behavior. Building on Iversen and Soskice (2006), we test two arguments. First, middle-income groups are more likely to vote for the right under majoritarian rules because they fear the redistributive consequences of a victory of the left in these contexts. Second, middle-income earners particularly concerned with tax rates are particularly prone to vote differently across electoral systems. Combining survey evidence from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the New Zealand Election Study, we show that the voting behavior of middle-income citizens is indeed responsible for the predominance of the right under majoritarian systems.

How important are family issues politically? Public opinion in the context of economic and cultural political cleavages

ABSTRACT How politically important are family issues to voters overall and in the context of economic and cultural political opinion cleavages? We use data from the 2014 New Zealand Election Study to answer these questions. More than 60% of respondents claim that family issues – generally defined – were ‘somewhat’ or ‘very important’ when deciding whom to vote for in the 2014 elections, suggesting that family issues are viewed as politically significant. Many respondents have clear political issues in mind when it comes to family and there is a strong connection between believing family issues are important and holding more economic left-wing attitudes and cultural authoritarian attitudes. Qualitatively, there is strong agreement on the main family issues of importance among those who argue that their vote was influenced by family issues, with education and healthcare defined as the most important. However, crucial differences in the most commonly listed family issues occur between citizens depending on their positions on the economic and cultural left-right dimensions. Arguably, the relative importance of family issues opens a unique cross-cutting view into the socioeconomics of vote choice.

Democracy, impartiality and the online political activity of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public sector employees: similarities and differences with other Westminster countries

ABSTRACT While some hail social media as improving political participation, some governments have received social media with a touch of trepidation; concerned that public servants’ online political activity might threaten the public service’s reputed impartiality. Recent research from some Westminster countries where government messaging about social media have been especially cautious have found a negative relationship between public sector employment and online political activity. But what about public sector employees in Aotearoa New Zealand, where, comparative research suggests, the tone and substance of social media guidelines are less risk-averse than other Westminster countries? Using data from the 2014, 2017 and 2020 New Zealand Election Study, this article examines the relationship between public sector employment and online activity with several multivariate regression models. The results lead to two conclusions. First, consistent with research from other countries, a negative relationship has emerged over time between public sector employment and online political activity in Aotearoa New Zealand. Second, although public sector employees are less politically active online relative to other citizens, the substantive size of this gap is not as great as that found in other Westminster countries. The implications of these findings for the state of democracy and impartiality in Aotearoa New Zealand are discussed.

Disentangling the relationships between conservative economic and social attitudes and support for environmental action

ABSTRACT Scholars have debated why people on the right of politics are consistently found to be less likely to support environmental action than those on the left. Some authors argue that this relationship is primarily driven by conservative economic attitudes, while several studies have demonstrated a negative link between conservative social attitudes and environmental attitudes. However, as few studies include both conservative economic and social attitudes, it remains unclear whether both sets of attitudes relate to environmental attitudes independently, or whether one confounds the other. This study uses Bayesian regression analyses of data from the 2017 New Zealand election study, finding that both conservative economic attitudes (free market support, opposition to welfare) and conservative social attitudes (exclusionary attitudes, right-wing authoritarianism) have independent negative relationships with environmental attitudes. These results imply that the link between conservative ideology and environmental attitudes is as much about social attitudes and worldview as about economics.

How low can we go? Declining survey response rates to new zealand electoral roll mail surveys over three decades

ABSTRACT Quality survey research relies on the willingness of the public to participate, but survey response rates are decreasing over time. This research note explores response rate data from several national probability sample mail surveys drawn from a consistent sampling frame (the New Zealand electoral roll) over the past 30 years. The aim of this work is to document the scale of the response rate decline problem in mail survey studies, predict future response rates, and track nonresponse bias through comparing self-reported voter turnout in surveys to official turnout. We use data from the New Zealand Election Study, the International Social Survey Programme, the New Zealand edition of the World Values Survey, and the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study. Our findings demonstrate that there has been a consistent downward trend in response rates and an increase in nonresponse bias for self-reported voter turnout. Response rates in the early 1990s were as high as 72%, before dropping to the 60% range around the year 2000, with response rates effectively halving from their early 1990s rates by 2015. We comment on the implications for future surveys, voter enrolment, local government turnout, and political polling. Ultimately, these results leave us with the question of how long traditional mail survey research will be able to continue.

Public Support for Increasing Women and Minority MPs

AbstractMost democracies fail to provide equal representation and tend to have an overrepresentation of men from the upper class and the majority racial or ethnic group. We investigate public support for increasing the number of women and indigenous Māori members of parliament (MPs) in the New Zealand Parliament, both in general and through specific mechanisms such as quotas and reserved seats. We offer three explanations: descriptive (group identity), substantive (issue alignment), and symbolic (socioeconomic and political equity concerns). Using data from the 2014 New Zealand Election Study, we found that shared identity (descriptive) matters for all measures of increased representation, but especially for Māori respondent support of increased Māori MPs. Support for increasing the proportion of Māori MPs is also strongly driven by substantive concerns, as measured by support for keeping the Treaty of Waitangi in law. Support for increasing the number of women MPs is driven most strongly by symbolic concerns (measured as increased government social spending and efforts to reduce income differences). Overall, respondents favor retaining the current number of reserved seats for Māori MP representation, whereas informal efforts (rather than quotas) are strongly preferred for increasing the number of women MPs.

Electoral reform and the behavioural personalisation of voters: the impact of system change on the importance of party leader and party evaluations in New Zealand elections

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the effect of a change in electoral system on the relative importance of party leader versus party evaluations in the case of New Zealand national elections, in which an electoral reform from a majoritarian to a mixed system was instituted in 1996. Prior literature on the personalisation of politics suggests that differences in electoral system can affect the importance of party leader and party evaluations in voting choice whereby majoritarian systems exhibit stronger leader effects and mixed systems weaker effects. At the same time, more proportional systems are theorised to enhance party leader visibility and their consequent importance in voting choice. Drawing data from the New Zealand Election Study, the results provide partial support for the moderating effect of system change on the increasing importance of leader evaluations and decreasing importance of party evaluations. The introduction of MMP visibly reduces the importance of party evaluations, but the increasing importance of leader evaluations is to some extent independent of reform.

Religious voters and the religious-secular cleavage since 1990

ABSTRACTMost studies of electoral behaviour in New Zealand do not pay much attention to the religious-secular cleavage. While a few studies noted a religious-secular cleavage prior to the adoption of proportional representation, most have assumed that such a divide since 1996 has been confined to the margins of electoral politics, with religious voters supporting smaller third parties over National. This article re-evaluates this conclusion using data from the New Zealand Election Study since 1990. The analyses show that, rather than supporting small third parties more clearly representing issues of concern to them, religious voters have voted largely for National in most elections as part of a religious-secular cleavage between National and Labour. Fluctuation in support for National among religious voters is tied to National’s electoral fortunes: religious voters have been more likely to support National when the party has been likely to form the next government, but more likely to cast votes for third parties when National’s prospects have been poor.

Workfare: conditioning the attitudes of benefit recipients towards social security?

Have increasing levels of conditionality fundamentally changed the attitudes of the unemployed towards social security, work obligations and welfare dependency? Both neopaternalist and governmentalist theorising suggests that workfare policies should have shifted this group's conceptions of self-interest over time yet previous evidence has been rather mixed. This article makes a fresh contribution to the literature by drawing upon New Zealand Election Study data (1990–2014) and New Zealand qualitative data (2007–2008; 2014) to analyse the attitudes of “undeserving” unemployed benefit recipients who are subject to work obligations over 21 yearsandby comparing their attitudes to those of “deserving” benefit recipients not subject to work obligations (the retired and students) and wage/salary earners. It finds a notable hardening of unemployed people's attitudes towards some welfare dependency propositions over time and evidence of “self-governing rationalities” being adopted by some unemployed individuals but, overall, attitudes amongst this group remain nuanced and ambivalent.

Using the Internet in New Zealand elections and support for e-voting

The use of the Internet for voting and other related purposes is a key area of discussion worldwide, although only touched on in a few New Zealand publications. It is seen by many as something of a panacea – a ‘technical fix’ – that might repair the falling rates of participation in democratic elections, while others are horrified that it might subvert important aspects of democracy. In order to ascertain interest in e-voting in particular and also the broad pattern of the use of the Internet around elections, this article analyses portions of the data collected by the 2014 and earlier rounds of the New Zealand Election Study, together with data from other studies. As well as a considerable battery of questions relating to e-voting in the last two rounds, the New Zealand Election Study has had a measure of Internet access embedded within a question of Internet use in relation to the preceding election. This goes back to the 1999 survey round and so long-term trends can be documented.

Turnout and voting choices at general elections of Pacific peoples in New Zealand

This article examines turnout and voting choices at general elections among Pacific peoples in New Zealand between 1996 and 2011 and investigates this further through a secondary analysis of data from the New Zealand Election Study. It finds that turnout is lower among Pacific peoples compared to other electors, but that this is mainly accounted for by political-psychological and socio-demographic factors. It finds strong support for the Labour Party among Pacific peoples, who were twice as likely as other electors to vote Labour. Reasons for the strong attachment to Labour are explored, and the implications of lower turnout among Pacific peoples are discussed.

Public opinion and electoral system preference in New Zealand: a longitudinal study

This study highlights the role of ordinary voters in facilitating electoral reform, particularly in the context of electoral system referendums. We investigate six factors that may shape voters’ preferences: partisanship, ideology, political efficacy, system support, government performance, and value orientations. Analysis of longitudinal data from the New Zealand Election Study reveals that small party support, left-leaning ideology, and satisfaction with democracy are the most consistent and substantive predictors of preference for proportional over plurality rules, while authoritarian values and low efficacy often exert the opposite effect. Results are discussed with reference to both the 2011 referendum in New Zealand and applicability to debates over electoral reform in other countries.

Changing policy, changing attitudes? Public opinion on employment relations in New Zealand, 1990–2008

Did significant policy shifts in employment relations in the 1990s lead to equally large changes in the attitudes of New Zealanders towards employment relations? Have policy modifications made since 1999 further shaped public perceptions? This paper explores the role of policy feedback in influencing public opinion towards employers and unions and towards government responsibility for jobs and wages. Using data from New Zealand public opinion surveys, most notably the New Zealand Election Study (1990–2008), the paper finds some evidence that policy feedback has occurred in the employment relations arena, but the impact is not as strong or consistent as we might expect. As such, New Zealanders do not completely endorse the ‘there is no alternative’ arguments of neoliberalism, but they do not have an overwhelming desire to return to Keynesian demand-management employment policies.

Strategic coalition voting: Evidence from New Zealand

Whereas the classic literature on strategic voting has focused on the dilemma faced by voters who prefer a candidate for whom they expect has little chance of winning a seat, we consider the dilemma faced by voters in PR systems who do not expect their preferred party to be in government. We develop hypotheses relating to strategic voting over multi-party governments that we test using the New Zealand Election Study (NZES) campaign study of 2002. We find evidence that expectations play a role in structuring vote choice. While there is clear evidence of wishful thinking there is also evidence that voters respond to expectations about government formation. These expectations may mobilize voters and lead them to defect from their first preference.

Union Membership Decline in New Zealand, 1990—2002

This article uses individual-level data from the New Zealand Election Study surveys to analyse trade union membership decline between 1990 and 2002. The abrupt decline in union density during the first two-and-a-half years of the Employment Contracts Act 1991 was concentrated almost entirely in the private and mixed/non-profit sectors, and was sharpest among workers in the secondary labour market. Across 1990—2002, compositional change (i.e. change in the structure of the economy and workforce) and attitudinal change, as captured in our analysis, had little impact on union density decline. Most of the decline in density explained in this analysis can be attributed to within-group behavioural change. A number of explanations are discussed. The findings are consistent with the thesis that the sharp decline in union membership under the Employment Contracts Act 1991 was largely due to receding union reach, resulting in the current unfulfilled demand for union membership reported elsewhere.

Proportional representation and attitudes about politics: results from New Zealand

PR systems often are credited with producing more equitable outcomes between political parties and encouraging wider social group representation than majoritarian systems. Theory suggests that this should instill greater trust, efficacy, and faith in the political system. We assume that citizens disadvantaged by majoritarian rules (political minorities) will have a relatively greater shift toward positive attitudes about democracy following a transition from a majoritarian system to proportional representation. We employ panel data from the 1993–1996 New Zealand Election Study (NZES) to test hypotheses about the effects of electoral system change on attitudes about governmental responsiveness, trust in government, and political efficacy. We find that there is a general shift in mass opinion toward more positive attitudes on some measures of efficacy and responsiveness. Political minorities display a greater shift toward feelings of efficacy than other voters.