Ballot initiatives and referendums are increasingly popular methods for addressing important political issues. Studies of voting in these events has found that people rely on party leader and ...candidate image heuristics when deciding how to cast their ballots. Some analysts have argued that these effects are heterogeneous, being larger for people with lower levels of political knowledge. However, research in experimental economics and political psychology suggests that the impact of heuristics may be greater among more knowledgeable individuals. This paper investigates these rival hypotheses using survey data on voting in a ballot initiative to repeal California’s climate change legislation. Analyses using methods appropriate for studying interaction effects in nonlinear multivariate models demonstrate that candidate heuristics are stronger among more knowledgeable people.
This paper investigates factors affecting voting behavior in Canada’s October 2008 federal election. The election was held in the context of a rapidly worsening financial crisis that threatened to ...become a global economic meltdown. National survey data gathered in the 2008 Political Support in Canada Study reveal that the deteriorating economy trumped the opposition Liberal Party’s Green Shift Program as the major campaign issue by a huge margin. Damage done to the governing Conservatives by the economic crisis was limited by perceptions of their leader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Analyses of a mixed logit model of electoral choice shows that although the Conservatives had a relatively small share of party identifiers and Harper was widely disliked, his image as “safe pair on hands” helped his party weather the political storm generated by the flood of bad economic news.
► Economic crisis was the most important issue in the 2008 Canadian federal election. ► Liberal “Green Shift” program was overshadowed by the economic crisis. ► Conservative and Liberal leaders were widely disliked. ► Perceptions of Prime Minister Harper's competence helped offset negative impact of deteriorating economy.
The purpose of this paper is to explain why voters made the choices that they did in Britain's Alternative Vote (AV) referendum on 5 May 2011. The paper utilises four alternative theoretical models ...to analyse individual voting behaviour. They are described as the cost-benefit, cognitive engagement, heuristics and mobilisation models. The explanatory power of these models is investigated using a large survey data set gathered in the AV referendum study conducted in conjunction with the British Election Study. Multivariate analyses show that all four models contribute to explaining why some people voted in favour of electoral reform, with the cost-benefit model exhibiting particularly strong effects. The conclusion discusses public reactions to the referendum and possible implications of the decisive rejection of electoral reform after a campaign characterised by disaffection and disengagement. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
The Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government has announced its intention to hold a referendum on the possible introduction of the Alternative Vote (AV) for future elections to the House of ...Commons. This paper uses survey data from the 2010 British Election Study to simulate what the effects on the seat distribution in the House of Commons would have been if AV had operated in May 2010. The results suggest an outcome for the three main parties of Conservatives 284, Labour 248 and Liberal Democrats 89. This outcome would have radically changed the arithmetic of post-election coalition building, with the Liberal Democrats being able to form a majority coalition with either Labour or the Conservatives.
The electoral success of populist movements in recent years has encouraged parties and politicians to incorporate populist themes increasingly into their discourse. While Canada has not been immune ...to these trends, populism has enjoyed relatively little electoral success in modern Canadian politics. A new People’s Party fielded candidates in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections but failed to win any seats in Parliament. Some populist themes such as nativism or authoritarianism have not rewarded their proponents in Canadian elections. Another dimension, distrust of elites, politicians and the media, is more present in Canadian public opinion today, and was a part of past populist movements such as Social Credit or Reform. In this paper, we examine the structure and correlates of populist attitudes held by Canadians, utilizing data from the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Election Studies. In conclusion, we consider the potential for a populist political party or leader to enjoy electoral success in the Canada of today.
Recent developments in the analysis of long-memoried processes provide important leverage for analysing time-series variables of interest to political scientists. This article provides an accessible ...exposition of these methods and illustrates their utility for addressing protracted controversies regarding the political economy of party support in Britain. Estimates of the fractionally differencing parameter, d, reveal that governing party support, prime ministerial approval and economic evaluations are long-memoried and non-stationary, and that governing party support and prime ministerial approval are fractionally cointegrated. Pace conventional wisdom that party leader images matter little, if at all, analyses of multivariate fractional error correction models show that prime ministerial approval has important short-run and long-run effects on party support. Prospective and retrospective personal economic evaluations are influential but, contrary to a longstanding claim, national economic evaluations are not significant. The article concludes by suggesting that individual-level heterogeneity is a likely source of the observed aggregate-level fractional integration in governing party support and its determinants. Specifying parsimonious models that incorporate theoretically meaningful heterogeneity is a challenging topic for future research.
This article employs data gathered in a 2006 national survey to study how the American electorate evaluates a trade-off between competitive elections and winning to implement preferred policies. The ...results show that voters do not share in the prevailing elite consensus about the overriding virtues of competition. A multilevel model indicates that ideological extremism, partisanship, social trust, and several other individual-level variables have predictable relationships with preferences for winning or competition. In addition, electoral margin in the 2006 congressional district election interacts with support for winning or losing candidates. Voters supporting candidates who are soundly defeated take refuge in competition, whereas those supporting candidates who win decisively view victory as a means of implementing policy preferences. Additional analyses show that preferences for winning and competition influence various forms of political participation. By emphasizing public involvement in policy making, voters expressing a preference to win echo "responsible party government" critiques of the democratic shortcomings of the American political system.
Similar to other recent Canadian elections, foreign policy did not feature prominently in the 2011 federal election campaign. In fact, many doubt Canadian public opinion on international affairs is ...linked to the actions taken by recent Governments. In this paper, we examine Canadian public opinion toward a range of foreign policy issues and argue that the survey questions measure two latent dimensions -militarism and internationalism. Our survey evidence indicates the existence of an "issue public" which is prepared to endorse military action and is skeptical of human rights and overseas aid programs, and this group is far more supportive of Prime Minister Harper and the Conservative Party than other Canadians. The absence of an elite discussion, either among politicians or between media elites, about the direction of Canadian foreign policy does not prevent the Canadian voter from thinking coherently about questions pertaining to this issue domain and employing these beliefs to support or oppose political parties and their leaders.
A polity on the edge Clarke, Harold D; Kornberg, Allan; Wearing, Peter
A polity on the edge,
c2000, 20000901, 2019, 2000, 1999, 2000-09-01
eBook
"Powerful! Using national surveys as well as surveys of the Quebec electorate,A Polity on the Edgeis a brilliant assessment of Canada's viability as a nation." - Richard Price, University of Windsor
This article:
Notes that public perceptions that governments are honest and trustworthy are surprisingly volatile over time, but they move together in a long-term equilibrium relationship with ...indicators of policy performance and perceptions of fairness of the decision-making process.
Argues that if individuals feel that policy delivery, particularly in relation to the economy, is working well then they will trust the government of the day even if they oppose a particular decision.
Maintains that if they feel that the process of governing is unfair then they are likely to view the government as being both dishonest and untrustworthy.
Indicates that evaluations of political leaders are powerful heuristics for allowing voters to judge the honesty and trustworthiness of a government.
Provides evidence that there is a long-term trend decline in perceptions of government honesty even after taking into account policy process and performance.
The aim of this article is to analyse trends in public perceptions of the honesty and trustworthiness of British governments over the period 2000 to 2013, years of great political and economic change in British society. These perceptions are surprisingly volatile over time, but they are stimulated by general elections and even more so by a change of government. Perceptions of government honesty can be understood to be the product of both policy delivery and public attitudes to the way democracy works in Britain. If individuals feel that economic policies and the delivery of public services are working well and also that democracy is effective, then they will trust the government of the day. In addition perceptions of government trustworthiness are strongly influenced by the public’s evaluations of the Prime Minister, since the voters use this as a heuristic to judge the honesty of a government.
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Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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