Suchergebnisse

The left-right political dimension represents a powerful and parsimonious way to describe political ideology. The right is usually seen as standing for tradition and acceptance of inequality, whereas the left advocates progress and economic redistribution. This study reports an analysis of the left-right scale in the minds of Icelandic voters, using data from the Icelandic National Election Studies from 1987-2009. Findings indicate that the vast majority of respondents are willing to place themselves on the left-right scale, and that they have become increasingly willing to do so since 1987. The average political orientation of Icelanders has consistently been just right of centre, with a moderate dip in 2009. The possibility of political polarization and sorting is considered, and ultimately rejected, based on analyses of the distribution of left-right scores for the entire sample and for subgroups defined by political party affiliation and demographics. Lastly, the contextual nature of the left-right dimension is examined by looking at the relationship over time between attitudes towards six political issues and left-right self-placement. The overarching picture that emerges from this study is that of a stable, well-defined left-right political landscape in the minds of Icelandic voters.

We advance and empirically test the idea that people on both the far right and far left will be more likely than political moderates to perceive the system as fair, as long as it serves their heightened needs for security. We argue that political extremists may be especially drawn to systems that offer certainty and security. As long as ideological extremists are not alienated from the political system in general, they will, therefore, be especially motivated to see the system as fair, in particular, if extremism is coupled with a heightened need for security. We test this notion using data from Iceland, a country with a wide left–right spread in terms of the political opinions of both parties and people and which was, at the time of the study, still reeling from an economic crisis that strongly affected political trust and threatened people's sense of security. We analyzed nationally representative data from the European Social Survey in 2012 (N = 752). The results showed a significant three-way interaction between political extremism, the need for security, and political trust in predicting perceived system fairness. The people most likely to perceive the system as fair were political extremists, with relatively high political trust and need for security. The results are discussed in light of context effects and how people on the left and right might have higher needs for security with different threats in mind. ; Ritrýnt tímarit ; Peer reviewed

We advance and empirically test the idea that people on both the far right and far left will be more likely than political moderates to perceive the system as fair, as long as it serves their heightened needs for security. We argue that political extremists may be especially drawn to systems that offer certainty and security. As long as ideological extremists are not alienated from the political system in general, they will, therefore, be especially motivated to see the system as fair, in particular, if extremism is coupled with a heightened need for security. We test this notion using data from Iceland, a country with a wide left–right spread in terms of the political opinions of both parties and people and which was, at the time of the study, still reeling from an economic crisis that strongly affected political trust and threatened people's sense of security. We analyzed nationally representative data from the European Social Survey in 2012 (N = 752). The results showed a significant three-way interaction between political extremism, the need for security, and political trust in predicting perceived system fairness. The people most likely to perceive the system as fair were political extremists, with relatively high political trust and need for security. The results are discussed in light of context effects and how people on the left and right might have higher needs for security with different threats in mind.

Theories of economic voting and electoral accountability suggest that voters punish incumbent governments for poor economic conditions. Incumbents are thus expected to suffer substantially during significant economic crisis but their successor in office will face the difficult task of reviving the economy. The economic crisis may, therefore, negatively affect government parties in subsequent elections even though the economic conditions may, to a large degree, have been inherited from the previous government. It is argued in this article that economic conditions play an important role in such circumstances as they place specific issues on the agenda, which structure the strategies available to the parties. Therefore, the article studies the 2013 Icelandic parliamentary election in which the incumbent government parties suffered a big loss despite having steered the country through an economic recovery. While perceptions of competence and past performance influenced party support, three specific issues thrust on the agenda by the economic crisis – mortgage relief, Icesave and European Union accession/negotiations – help explain why the centre‐right parties were successful in returning to the cabinet.

We present an analysis of the 2021 Althingi election in Iceland based on several key indicators obtained from the post-election voter survey of the Icelandic National Election Study (ICENES). The overall question we seek to address concerns the degree to which Icelandic politics have continued to move towards either recovery or transformation after the political and economic upheavals of 2008. The 2021 campaign and election were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the government enjoyed high support across the political spectrum for its handling of the outbreak and its economic consequences. The election resulted in the coalition parties increasing their vote share by 1.5 percentage points. Based on the ICENES data, we find that 45% of voters switched parties in 2021, compared with 2017, which is slightly lower than in previous elections. On the issue dimensions of state–market and integration–isolation, we observe a sharp return towards more pro-market and pro-integration attitudes, respectively. Trust in politicians and satisfaction with how democracy works continued to increase from an all-time low in 2009. We also observe that the youngest age groups continued to be least likely to vote, spent less time following the campaign and were more inclined to follow news on social media. We conclude that Icelandic politics seem to have reached a balance after the crisis, albeit a new balance that is characterised by a more fragmented party system than before.