scholarly journals Politicians Appear More Competent When Using Numerical Rhetoric

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasmus T. Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Positive Impact ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

AbstractPolitically relevant numbers often have very limited effects on the policy attitudes of ordinary citizens, which make the widespread use of numbers by politicians somewhat puzzling. This paper argues that politicians’ numerical rhetoric may function as a voter heuristic and that the use of numbers by politicians therefore has a positive impact on voters’ perceptions of these politicians. A survey experiment confirms that even when numbers do little to move voters’ policy positions, numbers do have the effect of making politicians appear more competent. As a consequence, numerical rhetoric can in some cases increase electoral support for a politician.

SINGLE-PARTY INCUMBENCY ADVANTAGE IN VIETNAM: A CONJOINT SURVEY ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC ELECTORAL SUPPORT

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund Malesky ◽  
Paul Schuler
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Survey Analysis ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Incumbent Party ◽  
Ruling Party

AbstractWhy do voters in single-party regimes express support for the ruling party in such large numbers? Scholars offer three sets of explanations: 1) Support is manipulated by regime leaders or falsified by frightened voters; 2) Support is due to genuine popularity or “performance legitimacy”; 3) The incumbent party holds an extreme incumbency advantage due to voters’ certainty about their candidates’ policy positions or access to state resources. Despite the impressive theoretical development in this literature, these arguments have not been subjected to a research design capable of examining the relative importance of each of these factors. We use a unique survey experiment on nearly 42,000 Vietnamese citizens over three years that reduces the threat of preference falsification and allows us to isolate voter's true preferences as much as possible. While we find some evidence for all three explanations, we find substantial support for incumbency bias. An important subset of Vietnamese voters—those inclined to vote for non-party candidates—sincerely favor the party under conditions of uncertainty about the candidates’ policy stances or experience in the legislature.

How government-controlled media shifts policy attitudes through framing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Jennifer Pan ◽  
Zijie Shao ◽  
Yiqing Xu
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Composite Measures ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Tv News

Abstract Research shows that government-controlled media is an effective tool for authoritarian regimes to shape public opinion. Does government-controlled media remain effective when it is required to support changes in positions that autocrats take on issues? Existing theories do not provide a clear answer to this question, but we often observe authoritarian governments using government media to frame policies in new ways when significant changes in policy positions are required. By conducting an experiment that exposes respondents to government-controlled media—in the form of TV news segments—on issues where the regime substantially changed its policy positions, we find that by framing the same issue differently, government-controlled media moves respondents to adopt policy positions closer to the ones espoused by the regime regardless of individual predisposition. This result holds for domestic and foreign policy issues, for direct and composite measures of attitudes, and persists up to 48 hours after exposure.

Electoral Manipulation and Regime Support

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ora John Reuter ◽  
David Szakonyi
Keyword(s):  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Electoral Fraud ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Regime Support ◽  
Core Base ◽  
Ruling Party

ABSTRACT Does electoral fraud stabilize authoritarian rule or undermine it? The answer to this question rests in part on how voters evaluate regime candidates who engage in fraud. Using a survey experiment conducted after the 2016 elections in Russia, the authors find that voters withdraw their support from ruling party candidates who commit electoral fraud. This effect is especially large among strong supporters of the regime. Core regime supporters are more likely to have ex ante beliefs that elections are free and fair. Revealing that fraud has occurred significantly reduces their propensity to support the regime. The authors’ findings illustrate that fraud is costly for autocrats not just because it may ignite protest, but also because it can undermine the regime’s core base of electoral support. Because many of its strongest supporters expect free and fair elections, the regime has strong incentives to conceal or otherwise limit its use of electoral fraud.

Rejecting Ethnic Pandering in Urban Africa: A Survey Experiment on Voter Preferences in Nairobi, Kenya

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110405
Author(s):  
Hye-Sung Kim ◽  
Jeremy Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Voter Preferences ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Urban Africa ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Vignette Experiment

Ethnic pandering, in which candidates promise to cater to the interests of coethnic voters, is presumed to be an effective strategy for increasing electoral support in Africa’s emerging multiethnic democracies. However, ethnic political mobilization may be disdained by citizens for its divisive and polarizing effects, particularly in urban areas. As a result, pandering may fall on deaf ears among Africa’s urban voters. This study examines how voters in Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, respond to ethnic pandering using data from a vignette experiment conducted in 2015 and a replication study implemented in 2016. Results show that respondents are more supportive of candidates who make ethnically inclusive rather than targeted appeals, regardless of whether the candidate is identified as a coethnic. We propose that the results are driven by a broad distaste among urban voters for parochial politics, rather than by strategic calculations related to candidate viability.

scholarly journals Follow the foreign leader? Why following foreign incumbents is an effective electoral strategy

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881988470
Author(s):  
Lawrence Ezrow ◽  
Tobias Böhmelt ◽  
Roni Lehrer ◽  
Hugh Ward
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
Model Specification ◽  
Stage Model ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Election Strategies

Previous research suggests that political parties respond to left–right policy positions of successful foreign political parties (“foreign leaders”). We evaluate whether this is an effective electoral strategy: specifically, do political parties gain votes in elections when they respond to successful foreign parties? We argue that parties that follow foreign leaders will arrive at policy positions closer to their own (domestic) median voter, which increases their electoral support. The analysis is based on a two-stage model specification of parties’ vote shares and suggests that following foreign leaders is a beneficial election strategy in national election because it allows them to better identify the position of their own median voter. These findings have important implications for our understanding of political representation, parties’ election strategies, and for policy diffusion.

scholarly journals The Lesser Evil? Corruption Voting and the Importance of Clean Alternatives

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattias Agerberg
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Public Office ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The World ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Choice Option

Surveys show that citizens in all parts of the world have a strong distaste for corruption. At the same time, and contrary to the predictions of democratic theory, politicians involved in the most glaring abuse of public office often continue to receive electoral support. Using an original survey experiment conducted in Spain, this article explores a previously understudied aspect of this apparent paradox: the importance of viable and clean political alternatives. The results suggest that voters do punish political corruption when a clean alternative exists, even when the corrupt candidate is very appealing in other respects. However, when only given corrupt alternatives, respondents become much more likely to tolerate a candidate accused of corruption—even when given a convenient “no-choice” option. I discuss how these results can help us understand corruption voting and why some societies seem to be stuck in a high-corruption equilibrium.

Partisanship and Policy Choice: Issue Preferences in the British Electorate, February 1974

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Alt ◽  
Bo Särlvik ◽  
Ivor Crewe
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Perceptions And Attitudes ◽  
Electoral Behaviour ◽  
Issue Knowledge ◽  
New Literature ◽  
Party Policy Positions

Inherent in many models of voting, as well as in defences of representative democracy, is the assumption that the voting public has knowledge of and opinions about public policy issues. In recent years in the United States a stream of scholarly articles has been devoted to assessing not just the extent to which issue knowledge and opinions exist but also the extent to which they influence electoral decisions. This new literature suggests that issue-related perceptions and attitudes are rather more important in the electoral process than earlier studies had suggested. This increased focus on issues appears to reflect both methodological changes in the analysis of them and also real changes in the importance of policy issues in American electoral politics. By contrast, students of British electoral behaviour have made few systematic attempts to assess the fit between popular attitudes and knowledge of party policy positions on issues. Instead, the conventional wisdom is repeated which holds that ‘a majority of people are either ignorant of, or disagree with, the specific policies of the party they support’. The implication of this seems to be that electors' familiarity with issues is so low, and the holding of policy attitudes by them so uncommon, that rigorous analysis of issues in the context of electoral politics is unnecessary.

Authoritarianism and Potential Support for the Radical Right in Ireland

2021 ◽  
pp. 145-166
Author(s):  
Erik R. Tillman
Keyword(s):  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Party Support ◽  
Mainstream Party ◽  
West European

Although the radical right is gaining support in many West European societies, there remain a few states such as Ireland without a successful radical right party. This absence raises the question of whether unique historical or cultural factors prevent the rise of the radical right in these countries or whether it is contingent. This chapter examines potential electoral support for a radical right party in Ireland. It presents the results of a novel survey experiment, in which voters read about the formation of a hypothetical new party and expressed their willingness to vote for it compared to existing parties. The results show that high authoritarians express greater willingness to vote for a hypothetical new radical right party compared to a hypothetical new mainstream party, while low authoritarians display the opposite pattern. In addition, high authoritarians express greater concern about declining social cohesion in Ireland. Because authoritarianism does not structure voting behaviour, a new radical right party could draw high authoritarians from all of the established parties. These results confirm that the same latent patterns of radical right party support exist in Ireland as in other West European societies and challenge arguments emphasizing cultural uniqueness.

Religious Symbols, Multiculturalism and Policy Attitudes

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietlind Stolle ◽  
Allison Harell ◽  
Stuart Soroka ◽  
Jessica Behnke
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Ethnic Origin ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Group Activities ◽  
Religious Symbols ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Multicultural Policy ◽  
Multicultural Policies

AbstractMulticultural policy is an increasingly salient, and contested, topic in both academic and public debate about how to manage increasing ethnic diversity. In spite of the longstanding commitment to multiculturalism policy in Canada, however, we have only a partial understanding of public attitudes on this issue. Current research tends to look at general attitudes regarding diversity and accommodation–rarely at attitudes towards specific multicultural policies. We seek to (partly) fill this gap. In particular, we focus on how support for multiculturalism policy varies across benefit types (for example, financial and other) and the ethnicity/religiosity of recipient groups. Using a unique survey experiment conducted within the 2011 Canadian Election Study (CES), we examine how ethnic origin (Portuguese vs. Turkish) and religious symbols (absence and presence of the hijab) influence support for funding of ethno-religious group activities and their access to public spaces. We also explore whether citizens’ general attitudes toward cultural diversity moderate this effect. Results provide important information about the state of Canadian public opinion on multiculturalism, and more general evidence about the nature, authenticity and limits of public support for this policy.

Policy Attitudes of Party Members in Canada: Evidence of Ideological Politics

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Cross ◽  
Lisa Young
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Mail Survey ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Party Members

This article considers the degree to which characteristics of the ideological model of political parties are evident in the Canadian party system. Four questions are considered: are members attracted to parties on the basis of their policy positions; is there a structure to party members' issue attitudes; is there significant attitudinal space between the parties; and is there cohesion within the parties on the identified attitudinal measures? Data collected through a national mail survey of members of the five federal parties are used to answer these questions. The article finds there is substantial evidence of the ideological model in the Canadian party system and concludes by considering the effect this may have on the brokerage traditions of Canadian parties.

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