Suchergebnisse

Does a politician's appearance, visual representation, during a televised debate influence voters' evaluations of her performance? Does the listening context of the debate impact a voter's capacity to identify a clear winner? Are political sophistication & partisanship strong barriers to the potential effects of politicians' images on voters' evaluations of their performance? Adding a Canadian perspective to the ongoing theoretical debate on the actual impact of leaders' visual representation in televised debates on voter preferences, launched in 1960 by preliminary assesments of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, this article presents data collected during an experiment conducted with a sample of Quebec voters during the broadcast of the French language leaders' debate of the 2000 Canadian federal election. The study shows that the leaders' visual representation during the debate & the listening context of the event bring voters to evaluate politicians participating in the broadcast differently & play on voters' capacity to easily identify a clear winner of the televised confrontation. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that partisanship is a strong barrier to the effect of visual representation in voters' evaluations of the leaders but that political sophistication, contrary to theoretical expectations, is not. Like verbal arguments brought forward by the politicians in a televised debate, their visual representation also carries information cues that help define voters' evaluations of the leaders participating in the broadcast. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper establishes the methodological foundations for a systematic analysis of the direct impact of the media on the vote. We propose to combine two different approaches: the 'linkage' approach, which relates media coverage to voting intentions; & the 'attentiveness' approach, which compares the vote choice of those who pay the most & least attention to the news. We apply these two methods to the 1997 Canadian election. We find support for the hypothesis that, during the election campaign, voting intentions for a party increased (decreased) when media coverage of that party was systematically positive (or negative), among those who followed the news & decided how to vote during the campaign, but we find no evidence that, on election day, those more attentive to the news voted differently from those less attentive. We conclude that the media temporarily moved voting intentions during the course of the 1997 Canadian election but that they appear to have had no direct impact on the final vote. 2 Tables, 2 Figures, 1 Appendix, 36 References. Adapted from the source document.

National economic conditions regularly influence outcomes in US presidential elections. However, beyond this simple finding, much remains unclear. How large are national economic effects? Which macroeconomic indicators? Subjective or objective measures? Retrospective or prospective? What is the role of institutions? In our analysis of the American National Election Studies, 1956-1996, we employ a National Business Index (NBI), an aggregate measure that amalgamates individual voter perceptions of the collective economy. The assumption of strong retrospective economic voting is tested under different institutional hypotheses. Contrary to expectations, it is not found to be influenced by divided government, but it is heavily influenced by incumbency, meaning in practice whether a popularly elected president is running. Moreover, this incumbency variable highly conditions the time horizon of national economic voting. When a popularly elected president is not running, such voting is almost entirely prospective. These conditional effects go a long way toward explaining certain enduring controversies in the literature. 5 Tables, 44 References. Adapted from the source document.

How do people make decisions when they have to choose between unknown futures? Do they simply rely on anticipated costs and benefits or do they use some other criteria to assess their options? And what determines the criteria they use to make such decisions? This article explores the way voters take sides when they are faced with a fundamental political choice. Using data from a survey of voting intentions conducted prior to the 1995 referendum on sovereignty in Quebec, we find that attitude towards risk-taking influences political choice indirectly, as it affects the relative weights given to different decision criteria. Individuals who usually accept risk more readily tend to choose entirely on the basis of anticipated costs and benefits, but individuals who are more reluctant to take risks give almost as much weight to the perceived possibility of a 'worst outcome'. Our analysis suggests that attitude towards risk-taking had a modest but significant impact on individual choice, and thus was a contributing factor in the outcome of the Quebec referendum.

How do people make decisions when they have to choose between unknown futures? Do they simply rely on anticipated costs and benefits or do they use some other criteria to assess their options? And what determines the criteria they use to make such decisions? This article explores the way voters take sides when they are faced with a fundamental political choice. Using data from a survey of voting intentions conducted prior to the 1995 referendum on sovereignty in Quebec, we find that attitude towards risk-taking influences political choice indirectly, as it affects the relative weights give to different decision criteria. Individuals who usually accept risk more readily tend to choose entirely on the basis of anticipated costs and benefits, but individuals who are more reluctant to take risks give almost as much weight to the perceived possibility of a 'worst outcome'. Our analysis suggests that attitude towards risk-taking had a modest but significant impact on individual choice, and thus was a contributing factor in the outcome of the Quebec referendum. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)

AbstractWhy are Quebeckers favourably disposed or opposed to sovereignty? This choice partly depends upon the prospective evaluation of the costs and benefits of sovereignty and federalism. What are the relative contributions of economic and linguistic expectations in this choice? Does the impact of these expectations vary according to the time horizon in which they are set? The authors approach these questions from the perspective of the economic theory of voting and with the help of original measures of the determinants of support for sovereignty. They compare expectations of what would occur to the economy and to the French language were Quebec to become a sovereign country with expectations of what would occur if Quebec remained a province of Canada. These measures are taken from a survey of university students. Our logistic regression analysis shows that the implicit calculation of costs and benefits plays a significant role in the choice between sovereignty and federalism, and that economic expectations influence the formation of opinion to a somewhat greater degree than do linguistic expectations. Moreover, medium-term expectations are more important than short-term economic expectations and more important than long-term expectations about the situation of the French language in Quebec.