Decentralization and Electoral Accountability

10.1068/c0981 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Lago-Peñas ◽  
Santiago Lago-Peñas
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Economic Voting ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Clarity Of Responsibility ◽  
Regional Elections

On the basis of aggregated and individual-level survey data of national and regional elections in Spain, this paper analyzes how economic voting is impacted by vertical and horizontal dimensions of clarity of responsibility. Our findings suggest that economic voting is enhanced when mechanisms of accountability are simple.

Gesplitst stemmen bij de parlementsverkiezingen van 21 mei 1995 : een analyse op basis van surveydata

Res Publica ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-450
Author(s):  
Bart Maddens
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Party System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Lower Chamber ◽  
Regional Elections ◽  
Simultaneous Election

The 1995 simultaneous election of three legislative assemblies (Senate, lower Chamber and regional councils) offered the Belgian voters an opportunity to split their ballot between three different parties. An analysis of Flemish individual level survey data shows that 76.1% cast a straight ticket vote, white 20.9 % split their tickets between two and 3 % between three different parties. Ticketsplitting occurs most frequently amongst voters who mention the personality of individual politicians or the issues as a reason to support a party. In addition, the likehood of ticket-splitting increases amongst the higher educated and the non-partisans. No support was found for the hypothesis that ticket-splitters in a multi-party system tend to lean towards one party on some issues and towards the other party on others. Instead, ticket-splitters generally take a position in between two parties. No evidence was found of a differential issue impact across elections, in this sense that regional issues are more critical to regional elections and federal issues to federal elections.

scholarly journals The Contexts of Electoral Accountability: Electoral Integrity Performance Voting in 23 Democracies

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Fumarola
Keyword(s):  
Economic Voting ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Clarity Of Responsibility ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
The Media ◽  
Contextual Characteristics

AbstractElectoral accountability is typically identified with retrospective economic voting even though it is widely recognized that explaining electors’ assignment of responsibility also implies considering issues other than the economy. Recently, scholars have also stressed the role of election quality in contributing to democratic legitimacy of elected authorities. In this perspective, electoral integrity as a valence issue would influence voters’ behaviour, structuring attitudes about accountability in substantial ways. This effect would also be moderated by individual- and country-level factors. I test these assumptions in 23 countries worldwide using a multilevel analysis of data from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey. Results indicate that the strength of the link between perceptions of electoral integrity and vote for the incumbent seems to be affected by individual characteristics such as partisanship, while it is also moderated by specific contextual characteristics such as government clarity of responsibility and pluralism of the media.

Economic Judgments, Party Choice, and Voter Abstention in Cross-National Perspective

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (9) ◽  
pp. 1290-1309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik R. Tillman
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Economic Voting ◽  
Party Choice ◽  
Clarity Of Responsibility ◽  
National Perspective ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Central Claim ◽  
Refined Version ◽  
Cross National

This article proposes and applies a unified model of economic voting. The central claim of this article is that economic judgments affect the decision of whether to vote as well as how to vote. An analysis of cross-national survey data supports this claim, demonstrating that previous studies of economic voting have failed to identify the full relationship by omitting abstention. In addition, the analyses support a refined version of the clarity of responsibility hypothesis, showing that institutional clarity moderates the strength and nature of economic voting, with little evidence of vote-switching among parties in low-clarity settings. These findings suggest that students of voting behavior should give greater attention to the relationship between the decisions of whether and how to vote.

When Marriage Gets Hard: Intra-Coalition Conflict and Electoral Accountability

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110243
Author(s):  
Carolina Plescia ◽  
Sylvia Kritzinger
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Economic Evaluations ◽  
Responsibility Attribution ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Level Data ◽  
European Election ◽  
Election Studies

Combining individual-level with event-level data across 25 European countries and three sets of European Election Studies, this study examines the effect of conflict between parties in coalition government on electoral accountability and responsibility attribution. We find that conflict increases punishment for poor economic performance precisely because it helps clarify to voters parties’ actions and responsibilities while in office. The results indicate that under conditions of conflict, the punishment is equal for all coalition partners when they share responsibility for poor economic performance. When there is no conflict within a government, the effect of poor economic evaluations on vote choice is rather low, with slightly more punishment targeted to the prime minister’s party. These findings have important implications for our understanding of electoral accountability and political representation in coalition governments.

scholarly journals Inequality and Electoral Accountability: Class-Biased Economic Voting in Comparative Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 1076-1093 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Hicks ◽  
Alan M. Jacobs ◽  
J. Scott Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Economic Voting ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Electoral Accountability

‘The personal touch’: Campaign personalisation in Britain

2021 ◽  
pp. 136914812110446
Author(s):  
Joshua Townsley ◽  
Siim Trumm ◽  
Caitlin Milazzo
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
National Party ◽  
Individual Level

Parliamentary candidates face choices about the extent to which they personalise their election campaigns. They must strike a balance between promoting their party’s message and their own personal appeal, and they must decide how much effort to invest in developing personalised campaign activities. These decisions determine the nature of the campaigns that candidates run, and therefore, voters’ experience during elections. In this article, we use individual-level survey data from the British Representation Study to explore the extent to which candidates personalise their election campaigns in terms of messaging focus and activities. We find that candidates who live in the area they seek to represent, and those who are more positive about their electoral chances, run more personalised campaigns, in terms of focus and activities. Incumbents’ campaigns, meanwhile, are more personalised in their focus only, while candidates who have held national party office tend to use a greater range of personalised campaign activities.

scholarly journals Do Unto Others? Individual-Level Mechanisms of Political Altruism

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-443
Author(s):  
Marco Giugni ◽  
Maria T. Grasso
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Altruistic Behavior ◽  
Unemployed People ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

Starting from a definition of altruism as situations in which a given actor sustains harm while another actor gains benefits, we compare the behaviors of respondents in relation to the members of three main groups of beneficiaries—refugees and asylum seekers, unemployed people, and people with disabilities—through the analysis of original survey data collected in eight European countries ( N ~ 16,000) in the TransSOL project. We investigate in particular the reasons why people act on behalf of each of these three groups without being a member of any of them or having close ties with any individuals in these groups. These respondents are compared with respondents who are members of these groups and/or have close ties with people within them so as to isolate the factors underlying individual-level altruistic behavior. Our results show that political altruism emerges out of a complex combination of factors and is not simply reducible to social structural positions, subjective feelings of attachment or resources, but is the result of the interaction of these influences and that these vary when looking at support for different social groups.

scholarly journals Referenda as commitment devices – an experimental approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 205316802094341
Author(s):  
Florian Justwan ◽  
Sarah K. Fisher ◽  
Ashley Kerr ◽  
Jeffrey D. Berejikian
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Majority Vote ◽  
Territorial Dispute ◽  
Political Event ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Research Perspective ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
International Court ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Commitment Devices

This research note evaluates the claim that referenda can serve as useful commitment devices in international negotiations. More specifically, we relied on individual-level survey data to test the claim that governments can successfully “tie their hands” to policy choices by calling referenda on political issues. Our empirical analysis relied on original survey data collected in April 2019 in Belize. In so doing, we took advantage of an unusual political event. On 8 May (shortly after our survey), Belizean citizens participated in a countrywide plebiscite. During this vote, they decided to send their country’s territorial dispute with Guatemala for adjudication to the International Court of Justice. From a research perspective, this event allowed us to assess the effect of disregarded referendum results in a highly salient political environment. Our experimental analysis suggested that individuals do reprimand their governments for failing to implement a majority vote (a) even if this choice precipitates a person’s favored substantive outcome, and (b) irrespective of an individual’s preferred party.

Incumbent Tenure Crowds Out Economic Voting

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Martin Vinæs Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Voting ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Growing Stock ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Economic Vote ◽  
The Government

AbstractDoes the importance of the economy change during a government's time in office? Governments arguably become more responsible for current economic conditions as their tenure progresses. This might lead voters to hold experienced governments more accountable for economic conditions. However, voters also accumulate information about governments' competence over time. If voters are Bayesian learners, then this growing stock of information should crowd out the importance of current economic conditions. This article explores these divergent predictions about the relationship between tenure and the economic vote using three datasets. First, using country-level data from a diverse set of elections, the study finds that support for more experienced governments is less dependent on economic growth. Secondly, using individual-level data from sixty election surveys covering ten countries, the article shows that voters' perceptions of the economy have a greater impact on government support when the government is inexperienced. Finally, the article examines a municipal reform in Denmark that assigned some voters to new local incumbents and finds that these voters responded more strongly to the local economy. In conclusion, all three studies point in the same direction: economic voting decreases with time in office.

Strategic Voting in India: Its Extent and Determinants in the 2004 General Election

Asian Survey ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jungug Choi
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Nationwide Survey ◽  
Strategic Voting ◽  
General Election ◽  
Individual Level

This study explores the issue of "strategic voting" in India by using individual-level, nationwide survey data from the 2004 general election. It finds that Indian voters are more "strategic" than "expressive" if their preferred party is unlikely to win a given parliamentary seat. Furthermore, the variables of being Muslim and education are found not to be statistically significant determinants of strategic voting.

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