Contesting war memories: Parties and voters in contemporary Southeast Europe

Over the past four decades, there has been a proliferation of interest in the causes, consequences, and dynamics of contestation over collective memories across a variety of fields. Unfortunately, collective memories—particularly those of traumatic experiences of violence such as wars and revolutions—have been largely absent from party politics research. Using data collected in an expert survey on the policy positions and ideological orientations of all relevant political parties, as well as an extensive survey of more than ten thousand voters in the six post-conflict countries of Southeast Europe, we demonstrate that collective memories of war are not only subjects of historiographical contestation but are also significant sources of ideological and policy differentiation among political parties, as well as one of the strongest determinants of voter choice. Our analysis shows that collective memories are politically contested and that party politics research would benefit from taking them seriously.

Campaign Advertising and the Cultivation of Crime Worry: Testing Relationships With Two Large Datasets From the 2016 U.S. Election Cycle

Previous research has documented that political information in the mass media can shape attitudes and behaviors beyond voter choice and election turnout. The current study extends this body of work to examine associations between televised political campaign advertising (one of the most common forms of political communication people encounter) and worry about crime and violence in the context of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We merge two large datasets—Kantar/CMAG data on televised campaign advertisement airings ( n = 3,767,477) and Simmons National Consumer Survey (NCS) data on television viewing patterns and public attitudes ( n = 26,703 respondents in the United States)—to test associations between estimated exposure to campaign ads about crime and crime worry, controlling for demographics, local crime rates, and political factors. Results from multivariate models show that estimated cumulative exposure to campaign ads about crime is associated with higher levels of crime worry. Exposure to campaign ads about crime increased crime worry among Republicans, but not Democrats.

Sexual Predators in Contest for Public Office: How the American Electorate Responds to News of Allegations of Candidates Committing Sexual Assault and Harassment

Candidate characteristics have an important impact on voter choice, and scandals are found to negatively impact a political campaign. Yet the literature, with its focus on scandals such as financial and (consensual) affairs, has failed to look into how allegations of sexual assault and harassment may impact electability. This study analyzes the effect that allegations of sexual assault or harassment have on the electoral success of American politicians. Using an original survey experiment, we find that, on average, American citizens are less likely to support a candidate accused of sexual assault or sexual harassment. However, not all voters do so to the same magnitude. We find that Democrats are significantly less likely to support a candidate that faces such allegations. Republicans do not strongly penalize candidates facing allegations of sexual assault or harassment, especially if the candidate is identified as a Republican. We analyze open-ended survey responses to offer an explanation for such variation: a propensity to disbelieve women who speak out about sexual assault and harassment explains variations in why some voters may not change their opinion of a candidate based on an allegation.

Voters and Foreign Policy: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment in Pakistan

How much weight do voters place on foreign policy when deciding between electoral candidates? In traditional surveys in Pakistan, the vast majority of respondents identify India as an enemy and threat to Pakistan. What these studies do not assess is whether these beliefs affect voter preferences. Using a conjoint survey experiment conducted among 1,990 respondents in Pakistan, we find that respondents punish hypothetical politicians who advocate a friendly policy toward India, but only modestly. Candidate attitudes toward India were the least meaningful characteristic for voter choice among five characteristics tested, suggesting that attitudinal measurements of salience poorly predict candidate preference. Subgroup results are also instructive: younger and more educated respondents and those from Pakistan's largest province of Punjab were less likely to punish dovish politicians. We discuss implications of these findings and outline avenues for future research.

Spatial Modeling of Voter Choice: The Survey of Theoretical and Empirical Approach

As for today, political elections are the key form of people’s participation in the formation of the state in all democratic countries, which is why theoretical works in the field of spatial modeling of voter choice appeared relatively long ago and played a major role in the development of both further theoretical and empirical research in this area. In this survey we firstly give a brief overview of the history of the formation of spatial modeling in relation to election results and political preferences of individuals from the point of view of research methodology, based on the classical theoretical ‘proximity model’ and ‘directional model’, where rational individuals determine their political positions and compare them with the positions of candidates. Secondly, we explain the appearance of the studies of the mutual influence of voters living in neighboring territories on each other as one of the factors that determine the voters’ political positions and, accordingly, the final choice of a candidate. We also point out the authors’ different explanations of the reasons for the appearance of such mutual influence of voters and other factors affecting voters living in neighboring territories (also called as ‘contextual effects’) and emphasize the importance of taking them into account in the studies of electoral preferences. A separate chapter in this paper presents the systematization and description of the main empirical approaches to spatial modeling of electoral choice: at the beginning, we present the basic econometric spatial models (used by the authors regardless of the subject of the study), and then we describe the empirical work in the field of voter choice, depending on the hypotheses, focusing on the research methodology and the data used. In conclusion, we define the main directions for the research development and the vector of further practical work in this area. This paper will help researchers understand existing fundamental works, evaluate current approaches to the modeling of electoral choice, and improve theoretical or empirical spatial analysis

Deterministic Republic

This story is an extension of the paper "Mathematics and Voter Choice" published in this same issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. It explores what elections and politics might look like from the voter perspective if some of the ideas from the paper were implemented. The story is also an attempt to highlight how mathematics and data science are done, much the way a colleague of mine refers to shows like CSI as recruiting tools that use "dramatic pipetting" in the labs to show day-to-day science in action. The story is, as you will no doubt see, heavily influenced by watching far too many episodes of the Twilight Zone

A gun gap in voter choice

Chapter 2 presents a framework to examine the vote choices of gun owners. Using data from the General Social Survey and American National Election Studies, two important empirical regularities emerge. First, compared to those who do not own a guns, people who do own guns reliably vote Republican. In addition, the divide between the vote choices of gun owners and nonowners is growing. Since 2004, the “gun gap” has nearly doubled. Second, the more guns an individual owns, the more likely he or she is to vote Republican. In this respect, purchasing a gun or guns is an act of some political consequence.

The Gun Gap

To understand public opinion and political behavior, researchers typically sort people by self-identified groupings such as party identification, race, gender, education, and income. This book advances gun owners as a new classification. It demonstrates a “gun gap,” which captures the differences between gun owners and nonowners, and shows how this gap improves conventional models of political behavior. The gun gap in fact represents an important explanation for voter choice, voter turnout, perceptions of personal and public safety, preferences for gun control policies, and support for the death penalty. Moreover, the gun gap is growing. During the 1970s and 1980s, it was small. However, legislative battles over guns in the early 1990s marked a significant growth in the gun gap that continues to this day. The 2016 presidential election witnessed the largest recorded gun gap in history. The gun gap in voter choice was nearly three times larger in 2016 than the gender gap, and it exceeded age and education gaps by notable margins. This book also focuses on variation among gun owners. Gun owners are not a monolith but exhibit attitudinal and behavioral differences that can be as large as the gap between gun owners and nonowners. The gun gap thus affords a new and compelling vantage point to evaluate modern mass politics.

Introduction

The introduction to this book defines the gun gap, which refers to differences in political behavior and attitudes between gun owners and nonowners. In addition, the introduction establishes why the gun gap is important for understanding modern mass politics. Election analysts and scholars typically overlook the gun gap, but it is an essential explanation for an impressive range of political behaviors and attitudes, including voter choice and turnout, perceptions of personal and public safety, preferences for gun control policies, and support for the death penalty and other punitive measures. Finally, the introduction outlines the book chapters, discussing key theories and findings.

Zuma versus Ramaphosa: Factors Influencing Party Choice of South Africans in the Run-up to the 2019 Elections

The outcome of the 2016 local government elections in which the ANC lost substantial support, fuelled early speculation on not only the outcome of the 2019 general elections, but also on the factors which were likely to determine party support. Added to this was the deteriorating political and socio-economic situation in South Africa. Against this background, two national surveys were undertaken in October/November 2017 and October/ November 2018 to establish the factors at these particular times that were likely to influence the vote choice of South Africans. From both surveys it was found that South African voters increasingly base their choice of a party on rational considerations. Trust in the president was a particularly important predictor of voter choice. In the first survey, loss of trust in the president (Zuma) resulted in a loss of faith in the ANC and in support of the party; while in the second survey, the converse was true: an increase in trust in the president (Ramaphosa) reflected an increased trust in and support for the party. Other predictors of vote choice in both surveys include a desire for socio-economic well-being and hope for a better future; the fear of losing a social grant; age; and racialised party images.