the tipping point between stability and decline: trends in voter turnout, 1950–1980–2012

Hooghe, Marc; Kern, Anna

doi:10.1057/s41304-016-0021-7

Cited by 41 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…Furthermore, there is a broad consensus in the literature that turnout is on the decline in the post-World War II era, in particular since the 1980s (e.g., Blais and Rubenson, 2013;Hooghe and Kern, 2016). While the reasons for this decline are less clear, we try to draw on the overall empirical pattern and employ a linear trend variable that allows us to capture a linear (and likely decreasing) decline in turnout in our sample of elections.…”

Section: Identifying Potential Predictorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forecasting National Turnout at British General Elections: Combining Polls and Structural Models

Murr¹,

Munzert²

2018

Preprint

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National election forecasting has become most developed for vote and seat shares as well as winners of elections. These election outcomes are usually forecasted by voter intention polls, structural models, or a combination of the two. For voter turnout, election forecasts come almost exclusively from likelihood-to-vote polls. We develop a structural model of turnout for the British case, and then combine it with likelihood-to-vote polls. We compare poll, structural, and combined forecasts in out-of-sample tests of 18 British general elections from 1951 to 2017. Compared to the polls, the structural model forecasts more accurately, and combining the polls with the structural model increases accuracy even further.

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Section: Identifying Potential Predictorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forecasting National Turnout at British General Elections: Combining Polls and Structural Models

Murr¹,

Munzert²

2018

Preprint

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“…In recent years, most modern democracies have witnessed a massive decrease in voters' turnout (Cox, ; Leighley & Nagler, ), signals of political disengagement (Flinders, ), and a pervasive feeling of generalized disillusion and alienation toward politics (Putnam, ). For example, Hooghe and Kern () analyzed trends in electoral turnout for 20 stable democracies over a 62‐year period—between 1950 and 2012—covering 349 elections and showed that voters' turnout remained stable until 1980 and, after that time, declined.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age‐related differences when measuring political hypocrisy

Prete

Guido

Pichierri

et al. 2018

Journal of Public Affairs

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This article aims to develop a scale for measuring political hypocrisy (conceptualized as the inconsistency between values publicly expressed by politicians and the behavior they actually demonstrate) and to explore the role of age in voters' perceptions of politicians' hypocrisy, analyzing if citizens belonging to different age groups may identify politicians' hypocrisy with a different detail. Results show that the 19-item scale of political hypocrisy-composed of three dimensions, called "ambiguity," "slyness," and "deceit"-has good psychometric properties, and that age-related differences when measuring political hypocrisy do exist (young voters show a greater awareness of the hypocritical behavior held by politicians). Furthermore, results suggest that the perception of political hypocrisy may vary according both to voters' political orientation and voting intention.

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“…First, the aforementioned four kinds of electoral behavior are the main kinds of political behavior across Western European countries, which have experienced a lot of change since the late 1970s. Political scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to an increasingly delayed time of voting decision Irwin & Van Holsteyn, 2008;Schmitt-Beck & Partheymuller, 2012), decreasing turnout (Cox, 2015;Dalton, 2008;Hooghe, 2014;Hooghe & Kern, 2016;Mair, 2014;Wattenberg, 2008), higher volatility and vote switching (Bischoff, 2013;Drummond, 2006;Gallagher et al, 2011;Mair, 2002Mair, , 2008Dassonneville & Hooghe, 2015) and an inconsistently increasing level of issue voting (Aardal and Van Wijnen, 2005). This dissertation therefore attempts to contribute to this body of work by examining whether or not issue cross-pressures influence the importance of issues in citizens' voting choice, citizens' motivation to go out to vote, vote switching across elections, and the time of voting decision.…”

Section: Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent decades, the close observation of electoral behavior has indicated tremendous shifts in almost all characteristics of voting (Wessels et al, 2014;Schmitt-Beck & Partheymuller, 2012;Hooghe, 2014;Hooghe & Kern, 2016;Dassonneville & Hooghe, 2015;Franklin et al, 2009). Bartels (2010) even concludes that "contemporary voting research has become increasingly eclectic and opportunistic" (p. 251-252).…”

Section: Contribution Of the Dissertationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent decades, close observation of electoral behavior has revealed tremendous shifts in almost all characteristics of voting. Recent developments include an increasingly delayed time of voting decision Irwin & Van Holsteyn, 2008;Schmitt-Beck & Partheymuller, 2012), decreasing turnout (Cox, 2015;Dalton, 2008;Hooghe, 2014;Hooghe & Kern, 2016;Mair, 2014;Wattenberg, 2008), greater volatility and vote switching (Bischoff, 2013;Dassonneville & Hooghe, 2015;Drummond, 2006;Gallagher et al, 2011;Mair, 2002Mair, , 2008 and less cleavage voting (Franklin et al, 2009;Oskarson, 2005). These kinds of instabilities and changes in electoral behavior have led scholars of democracy to question whether the quality of representative democracy is experiencing an ongoing erosion.…”

Section: Pressuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Issue cross-pressures and electoral behavior in Western Europe

He¹

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When citizens' positions on some issues lead them to support one party while their policy preferences on other issues push them toward another party, how will these kinds of voters behave in elections? Since their issue positions lead them to inconsistent parties, compared to citizens whose positions on most issues generally point to the same party, will they rely less on individual issues and more on other cues such as political performance in order to make a decision? Will they have less motivation to go out to vote? Will they switch their voting choices more often between different elections? And will they even delay their voting decisions until the very last polling day? These are the central questions of this research. Elections have long been considered by political scientists as a key element of representative democracy, through which political power is justified by competition for the people's vote. Consequently, without insight into how citizens arrive at their decisions in elections, we cannot fully understand the functioning of democracies. The 'funnel of causality' model developed by the Michigan school is the cornerstone in studying how people vote. It describes a chain of variables that contributes to the vote of a particular political candidate or party , such as long-term factors including socioeconomic backgrounds, historical patterns, and groups' loyalties; and short-term factors such as issues, candidates, political and economic situations, government performance and campaign events. At the entrance of the funnel are the citizens' sociological characteristics that influence the subsequent element: party identification. Party identification, in turn, determines citizens' evaluation of candidates, issue proposals, government performance, etc. The output of this funnel represents citizens' eventual voting choices. As we can see, long-term factors, especially partisanship, are expected to affect the short-term variables and therefore moderate the effects of the short-term variables on voters' decision making. Thus the 'funnel of causality' model clearly puts the importance of longterm factors ahead of short-term factors which affect electoral behavior. Party identification, a psychological attachment to a particular party, in the United States and social cleavages, as politically dividing lines in a society, in most Western 1-Introduction political science. In this dissertation I will answer the following main research question: Do issue cross-pressures influence citizens' different kinds of electoral behavior, and, if so, how? 1.1 Issue cross-pressures: A by-product of the rise of issue orientation To answer the question about the influence of issue cross-pressures on electoral behavior, we should first explore the background of the emergence of issue cross-pressures. The occurrence of issue cross-pressures stems from the decline of partisan politics and the rise of importance of citizens' orientation on specific issues in arriving at their vote choices. Party identification and social cleavage ha...

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the tipping point between stability and decline: trends in voter turnout, 1950–1980–2012

Cited by 41 publications

References 48 publications

Forecasting National Turnout at British General Elections: Combining Polls and Structural Models

Forecasting National Turnout at British General Elections: Combining Polls and Structural Models

Age‐related differences when measuring political hypocrisy

Issue cross-pressures and electoral behavior in Western Europe

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