Retrospective Voting and Electoral Volatility: A Nordic Perspective

Abstract

This article examines why people vote for the same party, switch parties or move from voting to non‐voting at consecutive elections. By using post‐election survey data from Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden in the beginning of the 2000s, the main aim is to model the impact of retrospective evaluations of party performance while controlling for theoretically relevant variables. The results of the multinomial regression analyses confirm that dissatisfaction with the performance of a party correlates strongly with party defection, and that the relationship is not weakened with the inclusion of variables for general dissatisfaction with the political system and its actors, standard background factors and political variables. This suggests that many voters are concerned with valence issues and value the overall competence of politicians and parties when they are making a decision whom to vote for.

Why Do Voters Change Their Mind during an Election Campaign? An Analysis of the Determinants of Campaign Volatility at the 2014 Belgian Federal Elections

“…According to Soderlund, this finding seems to indicate that shifts in voting behaviour should be interpreted as the products of rational judgments about past performances instead of being seen as symptoms of political frustration. This also means that disappointment about a particular party does not necessarily translate into general dissatisfaction with the political system, which contradicts Zelle's frustrated floating voter hypothesis (Soderlund, 2008). In their analysis of the determinants of party switching in 36 elections held in 22 advanced democracies, Dassonneville, Blais and Dejaeghere (2015) came to the same conclusion as that drawn by Soderlund.…”

“…He demonstrated that the probability of vote switching was strongly influenced by retrospective evaluations of performances of the party the respondent had voted for in the previous elections. Citizens tended to remain loyal to the party they had previously voted for if they thought that it had done a good job during the inter-election period, and conversely, voters were inclined to change parties if they considered that their previously endorsed party had performed poorly (Soderlund, 2008). Remarkably, the relationship between perceived party performances and vote switching remained robust even after controlling for the variables associated with general dissatisfaction with politics.…”

“…In most studies, this variable has been found to have no significant effect on volatility (e.g. Dassonneville, 2012;Kuhn, 2009;Soderlund, 2008;Tiberj, 2015;Walgrave et al, 2010). Nevertheless, gender sometimes affects the stability of party preferences; in some cases, women proved to be more volatile than men (e.g.…”

“…A large number of studies demonstrate that young voters are more likely than their elders to switch from one party to another both between two successive elections and during the campaign (e.g. Converse, 1969;Dassonneville, 2012;Kuhn, 2009;Muxel, 2009;Soderlund, 2008; but see Van Der Meer et al, 2015).…”

“…The third explanatory factor, political satisfaction, also encompasses many distinct dimensions and, as a result, it can be operationalized by means of a large number of indicators (Soderlund, 2008;Zelle, 1995). Our model incorporates four independent variables designed to assess respondent's level of political satisfaction: political trust, affect towards the preferred party, satisfaction with democracy and external political efficacy.…”