Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe origins and implications of partisan identification are well-studied, but negative partisan attitudes—dislike for a particular party—have escaped such scrutiny, even as the politics of negativity enjoys sustained popularity, especially come election time. In this paper we build upon the comparatively modest negative partisanship literature to consider the effects of negative partisan attitudes on a range of political behaviours. There are reasons to suspect that negative and positive partisanship may have different effects; thus, accounting for the unique influence of negative attitudes is important for understanding the full effect of partisanship on political behaviour. Our results, based upon Canadian Election Study data from 2008 and 2011, reveal that, in addition to vote choice, negative partisanship influences voter turnout and a range of political activities, both related and unrelated to parties. These findings provide evidence of the power of the "dark side" of partisanship.

Abstract.This paper examines the usefulness of Canadian political party labels as information shortcuts. We supplement survey data analysis with the results of an experiment that tested whether knowing a party's position on an issue influenced opinion expression. We find that, contrary to findings in other countries, among our subject pool, Canadian political parties are not consistently useful as information cues. The Liberal party cue is hardly useful, and while the Conservative party cue can be effective, it appears to push partisans toward a more liberal stance on selected opinions. Only the NDP cue appears to influence opinions in the expected direction. These mixed findings run counter to foundational works on party labels as information shortcuts (mostly focused on US politics) and, instead, are consistent with previous scholarship on Canadian politics.Résumé.Cet article examine l'utilité des étiquettes politiques des partis canadiens comme sources d'information sommaire. Nous analysons des données d'enquête ainsi que les résultats d'un sondage visant à déterminer si le fait de connaître la position d'un parti sur une question donnée influençait l'expression des opinions. Contrairement aux résultats obtenus dans d'autres pays, nous constatons chez les sujets observés que les étiquettes des partis politiques canadiens ne sont pas uniformément utiles comme sources d'information sommaire. L'étiquette du Parti libéral s'avère à peine utile, tandis que l'étiquette du Parti conservateur, peut-être plus efficace, semble inciter les partisans à une position plus libérale. Seule l'étiquette du NPD semble influencer les avis dans la direction prévue. Ces conclusions mixtes contredisent des travaux fondamentaux sur le même sujet (portant pour la plupart sur la politique aux États-Unis) et confirment plutôt les études antérieures sur la politique canadienne.

Political scientists are increasingly using experiments to study important topics, in large part because this methodology allows the researcher more control in specifying relationships & testing causation. The application of experimental methods to questions of political opinions & behavior is still somewhat limited outside the realm of U.S. politics, & in particular within the realm of Mexican politics. In this note, we first present an overview of the strengths, & weaknesses, of experimental research for the study of political behavior. We then present an experimental study conducted in the summer of 2004, using college students as research subjects, to illustrate the benefits of the method for investigating one particular research topic within Mexican politics: the utility of party labels as heuristic aids for opinion formation & expression. We find evidence that party labels, in particular the PRI, influence individuals' policy preferences and, further, that these effects are more pronounced for more difficult issues. We find only limited evidence that party identification conditions the usefulness of the cues. We hope that our study & discussion convincingly demonstrate that experimental methods are appropriate & useful for the study of Mexican political behavior. Adapted from the source document.

Are parties "high discipline, low cohesion" in Westminster legislatures? This study applies network analysis to voting behavior among members of parliament (MPs), a novel approach that measures not deviation from party-line voting, but rather whether MPs with similar voting patterns are co-partisans. We study the Canadian Parliament from 2006 to 2015, during which time the governing party under Prime Minister Stephen Harper maintained tight central control and discipline, a likely source of elevated cohesion. We find that "low cohesion" generally holds, and parties do not always conform to commonsense expectations about how cohesively they "should" behave in various parliamentary situations, though they show themselves capable of learning over time. Moreover, we find that party cohesion stems less from shared voting behaviors and more from simple partisan identity. Further research should consider to what extent parliamentary behavior is based mainly on party alignment.

AbstractEven though a record number of women ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, Clinton's loss in 2016 led pundits, party elites, and voters to worry about whether the country would be willing to support a woman for president, and polling organizations regularly asked questions that tapped into such concerns. While the vast majority expressed willingness to vote for a woman for president in polls, people were more skeptical about how their neighbors felt. Our research question cuts to the heart of this issue: How does polling information about comfort with the idea of a woman president affect perceptions of the electability of actual women running for their party's nomination, and in turn voting decisions? We expect that exposure to signals of low comfort with a woman president will reduce perceptions of electability, and in turn dampen support for women at the nomination stage, but there are competing hypotheses for how signals of high comfort will be received. We further expect that Democratic women will be most affected by such information. We test these expectations with an experiment fielded on the 2019 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). Our findings have important implications for media coverage of polls related to women running for executive office.

Past work has shown that economic conditions influence electoral outcomes at multiple levels of government in Canada and in democratic states around the world. However, there is significant variation in the jurisdictional ability of different governments to influence economic conditions; in particular, municipal governments may be least able to influence the economy. As a result, voters may be less likely to hold municipal incumbents accountable for economic conditions than either provincial or federal politicians. Building on this discussion, this article explores several questions. First, do citizens differentiate between the impacts of different orders of government on economic conditions? Second, does the economy affect incumbent support in local elections? Finally, does knowledge of the jurisdictional responsibilities of the three levels of government condition economic effects at the municipal level in Canada? We consider these questions using individual-level data collected during the 2014 Toronto municipal election.

ObjectiveWe investigate the phenomenon of municipal‐level strategic voting in a high‐profile mayoral election with a nonpartisan ballot. The rate of strategic voting is calculated, and we investigate whether different types of anti‐candidate attitudes (based on policy or personality) affect strategic behavior.MethodsWe use survey data from the 2014 Toronto Election Study.ResultsThe estimated rate of strategic voting was 1.3 percent. Among those who did cast a strategic ballot, we find that anti‐candidate attitudes did not affect the likelihood of voting strategically—until the source of the dislike is considered, at which point electors who dislike a candidate on the basis of personality are shown to be more likely to cast their ballots strategically.ConclusionsStrategic voting was minimal, and did not affect the election outcome. The type of dislike toward a candidate (either on the basis of policy or personality) affects strategic behavior.

Researchers studying electoral participation often rely on post-election surveys. However, the reported turnout rate is usually much higher in survey samples than in reality. Survey methodology research has shown that offering abstainers the opportunity to use face-saving response options succeeds at reducing overreporting by a range of 4 to 8 percentage points. This finding rests on survey experiments conducted in the United States after national elections. We offer a test of the efficacy of the face-saving response items through a series of wording experiments embedded in 19 post-election surveys in Europe and Canada, at four different levels of government. With greater variation in contexts, our analyses reveal a distribution of effect sizes ranging from null to minus 18 percentage points.

Researchers studying electoral participation often rely on post-election surveys. However, the reported turnout rate is usually much higher in survey samples than in reality. Survey methodology research has shown that offering abstainers the opportunity to use face-saving response options succeeds at reducing overreporting by a range of 4–8 percentage points. This finding rests on survey experiments conducted in the United States after national elections. We offer a test of the efficacy of the face-saving response items through a series of wording experiments embedded in 19 post-election surveys in Europe and Canada, at four different levels of government. With greater variation in contexts, our analyses reveal a distribution of effect sizes ranging from null to minus 18 percentage points.

This paper examines if, when, and to what extent U.S. minor party labels influence individual opinions over a range of political issues. Based on data from an experimental study, we reach three general conclusions. First, as cues, party labels are more likely to influence opinions over complex issues. Second, familiarity with and trust in a party condition cue acceptance. Third, as a whole, minor party labels act as effective cues less consistently than major parties. This finding, we suggest, indicates that there exists some threshold level of familiarity and trust that minor parties must reach in the mass public in order to be effective cues. This research is valuable because it extends current work on party labels as heuristic devices and more general work on cues; our findings are additionally important given recent trends in public opinion data, which indicate that the U.S. public is becoming more accepting of minor parties as permanent features of the political system.

AbstractDo women vote for women and men for men? Do visible minorities vote for minority candidates, and white voters for white candidates? And what happens when a minority woman appears on the ballot? This study tests for the presence of gender and ethnic affinity voting in the Toronto mayoral election of 2014, where Olivia Chow was the only woman and only visible minority candidate among the three major contenders. Our analysis, which draws on a survey of eligible Toronto voters, is the first to examine the interactive effects of sex and ethnicity on vote choice in Canada in the context of a non-partisan election and in a non-experimental manner. We find strong evidence of ethnic affinity voting and show that Chow received stronger support from ethnic Chinese voters than from other minority groups. Our results also reveal that gender was related to vote choice but only when connected with race.