Strategic coalition voting: Evidence from Austria

Abstract

a b s t r a c tStrategic coalition voting assumes that voters cast their vote in a way that maximizes the probability that a preferred coalition will be formed after the election. We identify three decision contexts that provide incentives for strategic coalition voting: (1) a rental vote of a major party supporter in favor of a preferred junior coalition partner perceived as uncertain to pass a minimum vote threshold, (2) avoiding a wasted vote for the preferred small party that is not expected to pass the minimum vote threshold, and (3) explicit strategic coalition voting to influence the composition and/or portfolio of the next coalition government. The results based on a nationally representative survey conducted before the 2006 Austrian general election generally support these hypotheses.

Weighting Parties and Coalitions: How Coalition Signals Influence Voting Behavior

“…Evidence from recent Austrian, German, and Belgian elections is consistent with this type of voting behavior in multiparty systems (Gschwend and Hooghe 2008;Herrmann 2014;Linhart 2009;. In short, the recent literature indicates that coalition considerations matter above and beyond party considerations for electoral behavior in multiparty systems (e.g., Aldrich et al 2004;Bargsted and Kedar 2009;Blais et al 2006;Duch, May, and Armstrong 2010;Kedar 2011;Meffert and Gschwend 2010). What is less clear, however, is how to identify and estimate the effects of these different considerations.…”

“…Given that voters have already formed preexisting political attitudes about parties and (some) coalitions, it is likely that those attitudes affect the voting decision one way or another. This perspective reflects the current consensus in the literature on coalition voting (e.g., Aldrich et al 2004;Bargsted and Kedar 2009;Blais et al 2006;Duch et al 2010;Gschwend et al 2016;Kedar 2011;Meffert and Gschwend 2010). As long as party and coalition preferences are together on the right-hand side of any votechoice model, this implies that a voter-no matter how the respective systematic component of the model does parameterize her decision-making process-will employ both components simultaneously.…”

“…If other parties signal that they like to form the next government, this voter could defect from her preferred party and rather cast a vote for the most preferred party among the expected coalition parties in order to influence the composition and portfolio of the next government. There is evidence from recent Israeli and Austrian election that, in particular, small party supporters systematically apply this type of coalition voting strategy (Bargsted and Kedar 2009;Herrmann 2014;Meffert and Gschwend 2010).…”

“…However, in most democratic parliaments we do not find a single party that has a legislative majority of seats. Rather, coalition governments have to be formed after the election (Hobolt and Karp 2010;Kedar 2011;Meffert and Gschwend 2010). Does this necessarily imply that democratic accountability is seriously hampered?…”

Expressive and Strategic Behavior in Legislative Elections in Argentina

“…Germany's two tier system has been exploited byGschwend (2007) by considering that voters not only care who gets elected, but what coalition government results from the election Meffert and Gschwend (2010). conduct similar analyzes for Austria, andBowler et al (2010) for New Zealand.…”