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Opinion Polls, Coalition Signals and Strategic Voting. : Evidence from a survey experiment

Fredén, Annika LU (2017) In Scandinavian Political Studies 40(3). p.247-264
Abstract
Recent studies find that defection from one's most preferred party to some other party is as common under proportional representation (PR) as it is in plurality systems. It is less elaborated how election-specific contextual factors affect strategic vote choice under PR. This study looks at the impact of two potentially important contextual factors: parties’ coalition signals about cooperation with other parties (referred to as ‘pre-electoral coalitions’) and polling information, which vary from one election to the next. The focus is strategic voting for smaller parties at risk of falling below an electoral threshold. The hypothesis is that parties that are included in well-defined coalitions will benefit from strategic ‘insurance’ votes... (More)
Recent studies find that defection from one's most preferred party to some other party is as common under proportional representation (PR) as it is in plurality systems. It is less elaborated how election-specific contextual factors affect strategic vote choice under PR. This study looks at the impact of two potentially important contextual factors: parties’ coalition signals about cooperation with other parties (referred to as ‘pre-electoral coalitions’) and polling information, which vary from one election to the next. The focus is strategic voting for smaller parties at risk of falling below an electoral threshold. The hypothesis is that parties that are included in well-defined coalitions will benefit from strategic ‘insurance’ votes if the polls show that they have support slightly below the threshold. However, smaller parties that do not belong to a coalition would be less likely to benefit from insurance votes. Extensive survey experiments with randomized coalition signals and polls give support to the idea that a voter's tendency to cast an insurance vote depends on whether the polls show support below or above the threshold and whether the party is included in a coalition or not. (Less)
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author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Scandinavian Political Studies
volume
40
issue
3
pages
18 pages
publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
external identifiers
  • scopus:85006094516
ISSN
1467-9477
DOI
10.1111/1467-9477.12087
language
Swedish
LU publication?
yes
id
72ccc6a6-0775-4dbe-98e9-e47872dd80c8
date added to LUP
2017-08-14 15:40:10
date last changed
2022-04-25 01:54:47
@article{72ccc6a6-0775-4dbe-98e9-e47872dd80c8,
  abstract     = {{Recent studies find that defection from one's most preferred party to some other party is as common under proportional representation (PR) as it is in plurality systems. It is less elaborated how election-specific contextual factors affect strategic vote choice under PR. This study looks at the impact of two potentially important contextual factors: parties’ coalition signals about cooperation with other parties (referred to as ‘pre-electoral coalitions’) and polling information, which vary from one election to the next. The focus is strategic voting for smaller parties at risk of falling below an electoral threshold. The hypothesis is that parties that are included in well-defined coalitions will benefit from strategic ‘insurance’ votes if the polls show that they have support slightly below the threshold. However, smaller parties that do not belong to a coalition would be less likely to benefit from insurance votes. Extensive survey experiments with randomized coalition signals and polls give support to the idea that a voter's tendency to cast an insurance vote depends on whether the polls show support below or above the threshold and whether the party is included in a coalition or not.}},
  author       = {{Fredén, Annika}},
  issn         = {{1467-9477}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  month        = {{09}},
  number       = {{3}},
  pages        = {{247--264}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
  series       = {{Scandinavian Political Studies}},
  title        = {{Opinion Polls, Coalition Signals and Strategic Voting. : Evidence from a survey experiment}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12087}},
  doi          = {{10.1111/1467-9477.12087}},
  volume       = {{40}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}