Research into electoral participation has produced two traditions, focusing on individual- or aggregate-level explanations. By combining these two research approaches, it is possible not only to explain individual electoral participation more thoroughly, but also to gain additional insight into the influence of aggregate-level characteristics on individual behavior. Eight National Election Studies in the Netherlands, 1971-1994, are combined to study variations on the individual & contextual (aggregate) levels, including interactions between these two levels. Findings show that the addition of contextual characteristics significantly improves an individual-level model predicting electoral participation. Findings also confirm the expectation that the influence of individual characteristics, eg, education or political interest, is dependent on contextual characteristics describing, eg, the salience of the election. 2 Tables, 1 Figure, 37 References. Adapted from the source document.
In: Acta politica: AP ; international journal of political science ; official journal of the Dutch Political Science Association (Nederlandse Kring voor Wetenschap der Politiek), Volume 42, Issue 1, p. 1-22
As a dependent variable, party choice did not lend itself to analysis by means of powerful multivariate methods until the coming of discrete-choice models, most notably conditional logit & multinomial logit. These methods involve estimating effects on party preferences (utilities) that are post hoc derived from the data, but such estimates are plagued by a number of difficulties. These difficulties do not apply if advanced statistical procedures are used to analyze utilities directly measured with survey data. Such variables have been employed for a number of years & have been extensively validated in past research. Analysis of party choice on the basis of measured utilities is less hampered by restrictions & (often implausible) assumptions than discrete-choice modeling is. Particularly problematic is the inability of discrete-choice models to analyze small-party voting. The resulting elimination of voters of small parties results in strong biases of the coefficients of explanatory variables. No such need for eliminating cases arises when analyzing empirically observed utilities, so parameter estimates from these analyses do not contain this bias. Finally, observed utilities provide opportunities to answer research questions that cannot be answered with discrete-choice models, particularly in comparative research. We therefore urge that direct measures of electoral utilities should be included in all election studies. Tables, Figures, References. [Copyright 2005 Elsevier Ltd.]
This book offers a novel perspective on British elections, focusing on the importance of increasing electoral volatility in British elections, and the role of electoral shocks in the context of increasing volatility. It demonstrates how shocks have contributed to the level of electoral volatility, and also which parties have benefited from the ensuing volatility. It follows in the tradition of British Election Study books, providing a comprehensive account of specific election outcomes—the General Elections of 2015 and 2017—and a more general approach to understanding electoral change.We examine five electoral shocks that affected the elections of 2015 and 2017: the rise in EU immigration after 2004, particularly from Eastern Europe; the Global Financial Crisis prior to 2010; the coalition government of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015; the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014; and the European Union Referendum in 2016.Our focus on electoral shocks offers an overarching explanation for the volatility in British elections, alongside the long-term trends that have led us to this point. It offers a way to understand the rise and fall of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Labour's disappointing 2015 performance and its later unexpected gains, the collapse in support for the Liberal Democrats, the dramatic gains of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2015, and the continuing period of tumultuous politics that has followed the EU Referendum and the General Election of 2017. It provides a new way of understanding electoral choice in Britain, and beyond, and a better understanding of the outcomes of recent elections.
Increasing politicization in EU member states about European issues can be expected to strengthen the impact of attitudes towards Europe on vote choice in European Parliament (EP) elections. At the same time this impact is likely to vary between voters and contexts as a function of political information. This study explores the role of political information in explaining individual and contextual heterogeneity in the degree of EU issue voting. Using a two-step hierarchical estimation procedure to explore both individual and contextual variation, we show that while EU issue voting in the 2009 EP elections is only slightly more pronounced among the politically sophisticated, it is clearly more extensive in contexts that provide higher levels of political information on European matters. EU issue voting in EP elections is a wide-spread phenomenon by 2009. We find evidence of individual and contextual variation in EU issue voting in the 2009 EP elections. EU issue voting is only slightly more pronounced among the politically sophisticated. EU issue voting is more extensive in contexts providing high levels of EU-related information. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]
Increasing politicization in EU member states about European issues can be expected to strengthen the impact of attitudes towards Europe on vote choice in European Parliament (EP) elections. At the same time this impact is likely to vary between voters and contexts as a function of political information. This study explores the role of political information in explaining individual and contextual heterogeneity in the degree of EU issue voting. Using a two-step hierarchical estimation procedure to explore both individual and contextual variation, we show that while EU issue voting in the 2009 EP elections is only slightly more pronounced among the politically sophisticated, it is clearly more extensive in contexts that provide higher levels of political information on European matters. EU issue voting in EP elections is a wide-spread phenomenon by 2009. We find evidence of individual and contextual variation in EU issue voting in the 2009 EP elections. EU issue voting is only slightly more pronounced among the politically sophisticated. EU issue voting is more extensive in contexts providing high levels of EU-related information. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]
The module was administered as a post-election interview. The resulting data are provided along with voting, demographic, district and macro variables in a single dataset.
CSES Variable List The list of variables is being provided on the CSES Website to help in understanding what content is available from CSES, and to compare the content available in each module.
Themes:
MICRO-LEVEL DATA:
Identification and study administration variables: weighting factors; election type; date of election 1st and 2nd round; study timing (post-election study, pre-election and post-election study, between rounds of majoritarian election); mode of interview; gender of interviewer; date questionnaire administered; primary electoral district of respondent; number of days the interview was conducted after the election; language of questionnaire.
Demography: year and month of birth; gender; education; marital status; union membership; union membership of others in household; business association membership, farmers´ association membership; professional association membership; current employment status; main occupation; socio economic status; employment type - public or private; industrial sector; current employment status, occupation, socio economic status, employment type - public or private, and industrial sector of spouse; household income; number of persons in household; number of children in household under the age of 18; number of children in household under the age of 6; attendance at religious services; religiosity; religious denomination; language usually spoken at home; region of residence; race; ethnicity; rural or urban residence; primary electoral district; country of birth; year arrived in current country.
Survey variables: perception of public expenditure on health, education, unemployment benefits, defense, old-age pensions, business and industry, police and law enforcement, welfare benefits; perception of improving individual standard of living, state of economy, government's action on income inequality; respondent cast a ballot at the current and the previous election; vote choice (presidential, lower house and upper house elections) at the current and the previous election; respondent cast candidate preference vote at the current and the previous election; difference who is in power and who people vote for; sympathy scale for selected parties and political leaders; assessment of parties on the left-right-scale and/or an alternative scale; self-assessment on a left-right-scale and an optional scale; satisfaction with democracy; party identification; intensity of party identification, institutional and personal contact in the electoral campaigning, in person, by mail, phone, text message, email or social networks, institutional contact by whom; political information questions; expected development of household income in the next twelve month; ownership of residence, business or property or farm or livestock, stocks or bonds, savings; likelihood to find another job within the next twelve month; spouse likelihood to find another job within the next twelve month.
DISTRICT-LEVEL DATA: number of seats contested in electoral district; number of candidates; number of party lists; percent vote of different parties; official voter turnout in electoral district.
MACRO-LEVEL DATA: election outcomes by parties in current (lower house/upper house) legislative election; percent of seats in lower house received by parties in current lower house/upper house election; percent of seats in upper house received by parties in current lower house/upper house election; percent of votes received by presidential candidate of parties in current elections; electoral turnout; party of the president and the prime minister before and after the election; number of portfolios held by each party in cabinet, prior to and after the most recent election; size of the cabinet after the most recent election; number of parties participating in election; ideological families of parties; left-right position of parties assigned by experts and alternative dimensions; most salient factors in the election; fairness of the election; formal complaints against national level results; election irregularities reported; scheduled and held date of election; irregularities of election date; extent of election violence and post-election violence; geographic concentration of violence; post-election protest; electoral alliances permitted during the election campaign; existing electoral alliances; requirements for joint party lists; possibility of apparentement and types of apparentement agreements; multi-party endorsements on ballot; votes cast; voting procedure; voting rounds; party lists close, open, or flexible; transferable votes; cumulated votes if more than one can be cast; compulsory voting; party threshold; unit for the threshold; freedom house rating; democracy-autocracy polity IV rating; age of the current regime; regime: type of executive; number of months since last lower house and last presidential election; electoral formula for presidential elections; electoral formula in all electoral tiers (majoritarian, proportional or mixed); for lower and upper houses was coded: number of electoral segments; linked electoral segments; dependent formulae in mixed systems; subtypes of mixed electoral systems; district magnitude (number of members elected from each district); number of secondary and tertiary electoral districts; fused vote; size of the lower house; GDP growth (annual percent); GDP per capita; inflation, GDP Deflator (annual percent); Human development index; total population; total unemployment; TI corruption perception index; international migrant stock and net migration rate; general government final consumption expenditure; public spending on education; health expenditure; military expenditure; central government debt; Gini index; internet users per 100 inhabitants; mobile phone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants; fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants; daily newspapers; constitutional federal structure; number of legislative chambers; electoral results data available; effective number of electoral and parliamentary parties.
