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It is well known that individuals who voted for the winning party in an election tend to be more satisfied with democracy than those who did not. However, many winners deviate from their first choice when voting. It is argued in this article that the mechanisms that engender satisfaction operate less forcefully among such winners, thereby lessening the impact of victory on satisfaction. Results show that the gap in satisfaction over electoral losers among these ‘non‐optimal winners’ is, in fact, much smaller than that of ‘optimal winners’, who voted in line with their expressed preferences. A win matters more for those who have a bigger stake in victory. The article further explores how the effect of optimal victory on satisfaction varies across electoral systems.

This paper disentangles the relationship between election outcomes and satisfaction with democracy. As the first comparative study to employ a measure of satisfaction immediately before and after elections, we can be unusually confident that any changes we observe are attributable to election outcomes. Following previous work, we affirm that voting for parties that win more votes, more legislative seats, and more cabinet seats boosts satisfaction with democracy. In addition, we demonstrate for the first time that voters are sensitive to deficits in representation; satisfaction with democracy decreases when one’s party’s seat share falls short of its vote share.

A BSTRACT This article argues that individuals in countries with a more diverse political discourse express high levels of social tolerance relative to those in low-discourse countries. Political systems with more parties facilitate the consideration of a broader range of issues, including those relevant to the interests of marginalized groups, and greater exposure to these issues increases individually-held levels of social tolerance. Using data from the World Values Survey and other sources, we demonstrate that the number of parties in the legislature is positively related to social tolerance. Our results are robust across several model specifications.

In a recent contribution to Political Behavior (30:455-467), Panagopoulos, using aggregate turnout data, shows that individuals living under compulsory voting rules are most likely to go to the polls when penalties for abstaining are both strict and routinely enforced. In this project, I expand on the work of Panagopoulos by simultaneously examining both election-level and individual-level factors. I use a broad sample of 36 countries, some with compulsory voting and some with voluntary rules, which provides a more detailed understanding of the correlates of turnout. Results indicate that the presence and severity of compulsory rules do indeed affect turnout, while personally held characteristics, including age, education, income, and political efficacy remain critical to an individual's turnout decision calculus.

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Objectives. This study examines the impact of competitiveness, winning, and ideological congruence on evaluations of democratic principles, institutions, and performance. We posit that winning matters most. Individuals will hold favorable views toward democracy when it produces the outcomes they desire, independent of other contextual factors associated with elections. Methods. We use cross-sectional multiple regression models to analyze survey data from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Results. We find that the psychological effect of being an election winner at the national level greatly boosts evaluations of democracy, as measured with a host of different indicators, while competitiveness and congruence do not systematically affect these evaluations. Conclusions. This study sheds light on what factors boost regime support among the populace by sorting out the relative impact of being in a competitive district, winning (at the local and national level), and having a representative with a similar ideological outlook.There is an extant literature showing that electoral outcomes affect citizens' support for the regime and its institutions and authorities. Simply put, those who win their elections feel more positive than losers (

Invalid ballots are relatively common in countries with compulsory voting, yet there is no cross-national evidence as to who is more likely to cast a blank or spoiled ballot where voting is forced. I argue that increased rates of blank and spoiled balloting where voting is obligatory result from the behavior of the politically unknowledgeable, uninterested, untrusting, and disaffected, who are incentivized to turn out to the polls where they can be sanctioned for abstention. To test this, I conduct an individual-level examination of the influence of compulsory voting on invalid balloting across countries. I find support for my expectations with analyses of survey data from several American democracies, many of which compel electoral participation.