Suchergebnisse

In the context of the ongoing deinstitutionalisation of the Italian party system, Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) emerged as the most voted-for party in the 2022 general election. Although previous studies categorised FdI as a populist radical right (PRR) party, no research has so far been conducted on its voters. We examine whether the traditional explanations for the rise of PRR parties also apply to FdI. We develop a theoretical argument suggesting that in the context of over-crowded competition amongst populist parties, as seen in Italy, leadership evaluation trumps policy and ideological consideration in predicting vote switching. Our results reveal that positive evaluations of Giorgia Meloni emerge as the most significant predictor of voters switching to FdI in the 2022 election. This research sheds light on individual-level mainstreaming of PRR attitudes and preferences, in particular during an electorally expansive phase, emphasising the role of leadership evaluations in voting behaviour in a context characterised by intense populist competition.

What are the electoral impacts of perceptions of unemployment under different partisan persuasions of the government? Neither the literature on retrospective economic voting nor partisan voting has provided a compelling answer to this question. This paper addresses this puzzle by analyzing panel surveys and leveraging differences in government partisanship in two consecutive elections. I argue that negative evaluations of the employment situation induce voter transition to support a left-wing party under a right-wing government, but that such voter perceptions do not affect vote choice under a left-wing government. An analysis of a voter transition, using British Election Panel Study 1992–1997 and 1997–2001, reveals findings that support my argument. My argument suggests conditional partisan voting effects. Essentially, the effect of economic issues on vote choice is conditional on issue salience and which party "owns" the issue, namely, the varying levels of issue salience related to government partisanship.

Following Hirschman, voters who are discontent with the party they voted for have two options: exit the party and vote for another or stay loyal. The inclination to exit or stay loyal is rooted in the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality. We test our argument in two panel studies in Denmark and the United Kingdom. We find that citizens open to experience are more likely to switch parties since they are more likely to think about alternatives and take risks. Extroverts identify and commit themselves to organizations and stay loyal in Denmark, but we do not confirm this pattern in the United Kingdom. Our findings demonstrate that electoral volatility is, at least partly, rooted in personality.

In many countries across the globe, the number of vote switchers is quite high. An under-researched dimension of this phenomenon is the impact of ambivalent political attitudes. Ambivalence describes the situation in which a person simultaneously has positive attitudes toward more than one political party or more than one political leader. Whilst the effects of party and leader ambivalence on vote switching have been investigated in the American political system, their application to multi-party systems is rare. This article aims to fill this gap. Before doing so, however, the article focuses on the development of party and leader ambivalent attitudes and system features of multi-party systems influencing ambivalence. For this research purpose, the article uses data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems covering 195 elections in 52 multi-party systems between 1996 and 2020. The results, among others, demonstrate that ambivalence increases voters' probability to switch parties between elections.

Abstract
Does political ambivalence increase vote switching? While the effects of ambivalence on vote switching have been investigated in the American political system, its application to multi-party systems has not been explored. To address this gap, this article investigates the effects of ambivalence on vote intention switching and vote switching in Germany's multi-party system, which has recently experienced electoral instability. Using the German Longitudinal Election Study (gles), the article teases out the mechanics of party ambivalence, leader ambivalence, and party-leader ambivalence. The results suggest that ambivalence increases the probability of voters switching parties during the pre-election campaigning period and between two consecutive elections. Ambivalence therefore has important implications for vote switching and for understanding the underlying determinants of electoral volatility in twenty-first-century politics.

The German federal election of 2017 saw significant losses for the two German mainstream parties (Volksparteien) and governing coalition partners, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD). The major beneficiary was the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-populist party, which almost tripled its amount of votes received from the 2013 federal election. Making use of data from a Voting Advice Application, this article seeks to explore the AfD's extraordinary electoral success with particular attention to the party's capacity to attract voters from the two mainstream and traditionally powerful parties. Drawing on the literature on radical right-wing parties in Europe and tracking the route of AfD from a single-issue Eurosceptic party to a radical party with broader programmatic appeal, this work tests hypotheses regarding demographic, political and attitudinal determinants of voting for AfD, in general, and switching one's vote to AfD from CDU/CSU or SPD more specifically. In line with previous literature, individual-level analyses show that voting for the AfD seems to be more tangentially related to demographic variables, such as sex, age and education and more strongly connected to political concerns, e.g. "conservative" self-placement and attitudes toward specific policies, immigration and Euroscepticism in particular.

The German federal election of 2017 saw significant losses for the two German mainstream parties (Volksparteien) and governing coalition partners, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD). The major beneficiary was the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-populist party, which almost tripled its amount of votes received from the 2013 federal election. Making use of data from a Voting Advice Application, this article seeks to explore the AfD's extraordinary electoral success with particular attention to the party's capacity to attract voters from the two mainstream and traditionally powerful parties. Drawing on the literature on radical right-wing parties in Europe and tracking the route of AfD from a single-issue Eurosceptic party to a radical party with broader programmatic appeal, this work tests hypotheses regarding demographic, political and attitudinal determinants of voting for AfD, in general, and switching one's vote to AfD from CDU/CSU or SPD more specifically. In line with previous literature, individual-level analyses show that voting for the AfD seems to be more tangentially related to demographic variables, such as sex, age and education and more strongly connected to political concerns, e.g. "conservative" self-placement and attitudes toward specific policies, immigration and Euroscepticism in particular.

How do electoral rules affect the occurrence of legislative party switching? Existing research addressing this question is limited and does not reach a consistent conclusion. This article argues that electoral systems that encourage politicians to cultivate a personal vote dampen parties' ability to retain members. The greater incentives to cultivate a personal vote in candidate-centred electoral systems result in politicians relying more on local supporters and less on party label for their re-election. In such systems, compared to party-centred systems, I expect that only parties that suffer electoral setbacks to be more likely to witness switching, as their candidates are less concerned with party labels, and local supporters might follow them to the new party, thus reducing switching costs. Drawing on data from 17 European democracies over the period 1990–2013, I find support for my hypothesis. While there is no direct effect of electoral rules on switching, the results suggest that this effect hinges upon parties' ability to deliver seats: losing parties are more likely to witness switching in candidate-centred systems than in party-centred systems. Further findings also demonstrate how this effect is especially significant when district magnitude is large and the next election is approaching.