Henrik Oscarsson

The Generational Effect in Turnout in the Swedish General Elections, 1960–2010

Recent analyses have reported a generational pattern in electoral participation both in national and the European Parliament elections which suggests that a lower voting propensity among the younger cohorts remains relatively stable over time. Based on the Swedish national election studies 1960–2010, this article examines the magnitude of generational differences in a high-turnout context. It contributes to earlier studies by using multilevel modeling to estimate the impacts of life cycle, generation and period on turnout and by aiming to account for the generational effect with institutional- and individual-level factors. The results show a fairly modest generational effect. When controlling for the proportion of party members in the electorate and the effective number of parties, the differences between generations in their propensities to vote are substantially reduced.

When and Why Are Voters Correct in Their Evaluations of Specific Government Performance

Democratic theories expect citizens to be able to accurately evaluate fulfilment of parties’ election pledges. We use specifically designed survey items from the Swedish National Election Study to compare citizens’ perceptions of the fulfilment of specific party pledges with actual fulfilment and assess circumstances that lead to correct evaluations. We find that political knowledge triumphs partisan attachments to incumbent parties when it comes to explaining why voters are correct. The results are interesting in light of common knowledge about the importance of partisan attachment in evaluations of general government performance: We argue that when specific election pledges are being evaluated, personal heuristics, such as attachments to incumbent parties, play a lesser role for judgements. Instead, the specificity embedded in the evaluation encourages citizens to engage in a more knowledge-based evaluation of whether pledges are fulfilled or not.

Consideration and Choice: Analyzing Party Choice in the Swedish European Election 2014

For a long time the question of to what extent party choice in the European Parliament (EP) elections is primarily dependent on voters’ orientations towards the European Union (EU) or just a mere reflection of orientations towards issues and actors in national politics has been debated. By combining insights from individual-level models of party choice in second-order elections with theories of sequential decision making this article investigates if, how and at what stages in the decision process attitudes to European integration matters for party choice. In line with previous work on first and second decision rule criteria in EP elections, this article develops and tests hypotheses about how voters’ orientations work at different stages of the voter decision process. The findings, based on Swedish data from a probability-based three-wave Internet campaign panel, indicate that many voters are in fact considering more than one party to vote for in the beginning of the election campaign. As expected, left-right orientations function as a main decision rule with respect to which parties voters even consider voting for, while proximity on the European integration dimension mainly matters as a second decision rule in the final stage of the decision process. Using a sequential model with consideration and choice stages, the article reveals a much larger complimentary effect of EU proximity on party choice than has generally been found in previous research. This serves as a distinct contribution to the emerging research field of individual party choice in second-order elections.

Sweden: From Mid-term County Council Elections to Concurrent Elections

Sweden has traditionally been characterized by a high degree of centralization, although the municipalities have a long tradition of self-government and are relatively large and independent by international standards, especially after the municipal mergers in the post-war period (Noren Bretzer, 2010). By comparison, the regional level in Sweden is sometimes referred to as a ‘regional mess’ (Stegman McCallion, 2008). This is because Sweden has a more complex regional political-administrative situation compared with most other European countries, with different regional organizations and reforms (Loughlin et al., 2011). The directly elected regional level is the county council (landsting), which is mainly responsible for health care.