Thomas Gschwend

Individualised Constituency Campaigns in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: Candidates in the 2005 German Elections

Constituency campaigns are important phenomena for students of political parties, voting behaviour as well as political communication. These research communities perceive constituency campaigns as parts of centralised high-tech campaigns aiming in strategic ways at the efficient mobilisation of voters. We propose in this paper an alternative understanding of constituency campaigns using the case of the German parliamentary elections in 2005 to empirically test this understanding. We perceive constituency campaigns as phenomena signalling a relative independence of individual candidates from the national party campaign. We label this phenomenon individualised campaigning. We argue that individualised campaigning is driven among others by electoral incentives. We test this hypothesis with regard to the German mixed-member electoral system and on the basis of a survey of all candidates standing for election in 2005.

Split-Ticket Patterns in Mixed-Member Proportional Election Systems : Estimates and Analyses of their Spatial Variation at the German Federal Election, 1998

Mixed-member proportional election systems give voters two choices – one for a party candidate in a first-past-the-post single-member constituency election and the other for a party list in a multi-member constituency. Some will vote a straight ticket (i.e. vote for the same party at each contest); others may vote a split-ticket. Although such an electoral system has been operating in Germany since 1953, very little work has been done on variations between constituencies in either the volume of split-ticket voting or the direction of the switching involved. Using an entropy-maximizing method, this article reports estimates of the pattern of straight-ticket and split-ticket voting in each of Germany’s 328 constituencies at the 1998 federal elections. Analyses of the variations show that the patterns are consistent with patterns of party strength at the constituency level: the stronger a party’s performance at the 1994 election, the better its ability to retain the support of straight-ticket voters in 1998, to limit the out-flows of split-ticket voters, and to attract split-ticket voters who supported another party in the list contest. The recent adoption of the mixed-member proportional (MMP) or additional member (AMS) electoral system in countries such as New Zealand, Scotland and Wales, as well as consideration of its use elsewhere (as in Portugal) have stimulated interest in the degree and nature of split-ticket voting which such a two-vote system permits. 1 However, relatively little research has been reported (in the English language) on certain aspects of split-ticket voting in the country that has used MMP for all of its federal elections since 1953 – Germany (the Federal Republic of (West) Germany until 1990; the reunited state thereafter). 2

Issues, Party and Character: The Moderating Role of Ideological Thinking on Candidate Evaluation

We examine ‘heuristic’ and ‘systematic’ candidate-appraisal strategies within a presidential election context. Controlling for political knowledge, we determine whether individual differences in the capacity for ideological thought condition voters’ reliance on the major determinants of candidate choice, increasing reliance on policy considerations and decreasing reliance on the heuristic cue of party identification and on perceptions of candidate character when ideological capacity is high, and exerting the opposite effect – decreasing the role of issues and increasing the role of party identification and candidate qualities – when such capacity is low. Using American National Election Studies data from the 1984–2000 period, we find that ideological thinking consistently heightens voters’ reliance on issues and decreases their reliance on candidate cues, but only among voters who report being concerned about the outcome of the election. In contrast, the effect of partisanship is stable across levels of ideological thinking and concern about the campaign. We discuss the cognitive processes by which ideological thinking regulates political choice, and assert its centrality in the political decision-making process.

Candidates in the 2005 Bundestag Election: Mode of Candidacy, Campaigning and Issues

Electoral campaigns are conducted by parties and candidates to convince the people to turn out to vote and to vote for them instead of voting for a competitor. In parliamentary democracies, and especially in those that apply electoral systems of proportional representation with closed party lists, parties and their top candidates for prime minister or for chancellor are considered to be the main actors in campaigns. Consequently, electoral campaigns are primarily party campaigns which are neither won nor lost by any ‘average’ candidate. Parties structure the electoral competition by collectively emphasising certain issues and by presenting a rather cohesive ideological perspective in a campaign. Further, candidates and elected MPs are first and foremost representatives of their parties with very limited personal room for political manoeuvre. While this assessment is not challenged in principle, we argue that it cuts too short. In addition to parties, candidates play important roles in electoral campaigns, and due to the modernisation of parties and campaigns, we expect a substantial degree of personalised campaigning which is likely to increase in the future. Given the particular mixed-member electoral system used to elect the German Bundestag, we are able to differentiate the campaign of pure constituency candidates, pure list candidates and the most frequent hybrids who ran for office both in a constituency and on a party list in 2005.

Divided We Stand – Unified We Govern? Cohabitation and Regime Voting in the 2002 French Elections

In this article the impact of voters’ regime preferences, i.e. their preferences for either divided or unified government, on their voting behaviour, is analysed. The theory expounded, combining behavioural as well as institutional approaches, predicts that voters weigh their regime against their partisan preferences to derive their vote choice. This theory and its implications are tested on the 2002 French legislative elections using a multinomial logit set-up. The results indicate that regime voting adds to the explanatory power of traditional vote-choice models. Statistical simulations provide further evidence that regime preferences play a decisive role in the voting booth, especially for voters who are not politically ‘anchored’.

Strategic Defection Across Elections, Parties, and Voters

This ehapter examines how the propensity to strategieally defect from ones preferred party depends on characteristies of voters, parties, and elections. Looking at the amount and sourees of strategie defection is important for at least two reasons. First, electoral outeomes are often interpreted as mandates (see Fowler and Smimov 2007), which implies that voters are expressing their sineere preferenees when they decide which party or eandidate to support. That interpretation has to be revisited if vote ehoice is substantially strategie. This is implied in studies of policy voting or Left-Right voting, for example, see Chapters 4, 5, and 7. Seeond, looking at strategie defection allows us to better understand how electoral rules do or do not affect voters behavior. Arguably, one of the best established laws in politieal science is Duvergers law, aeeording to whieh the plurality rule leads to a two-party system beeause supporters of weak parties desert them for more viable parties (Duverger 1954; Riker 1982). Hopefully, our study will eontribute to the debate about the merits and limits of Duvergers law (see Grofman, Blais, and Bowler 2009). We define a strategie voter as someone who deeides how to vote on the basis of preferenees and expectations about the outeome of the election (Blais et al. 2001). The strategie voter ean be contrasted with the sineere voter, who votes solely on the basis of her preferenees, and the momentum voter, who eonsiders solely the outeome of the election (the bandwagon voter goes with the momentum while the underdog voter goes against it). 1 We define a defector as someone who votes for a party other than the preferred one. We adopt a two-step approaeh. We first identify the set of voters who desert their preferred party. We then screen out among those deserters those who did so for nonstrategic reasons that is, they voted for a different party beeause they preferred the leader of another party. The remaining deserters are assumed to be strategieally motivated.

Chancellor Model Picks Merkel in 2013 German Election

In the German national election this fall, based on the forecast of the Chancellor Model, the governing coalition will score a resounding victory. Chancellor Angela Merkel enjoys a high approval rating, which puts her at a 2-1 advantage over the challenger, Peer Steinbruck. Although Germany is not a presidential system, where voters elect the chief policymaker, chancellor support has proved to be a strong predictor of vote choice in German national elections. Our forecast model also includes long-term partisanship, which provides a broad base for the governing parties in this election, and length of tenure, which exacts a modest penalty after two terms of office. Since its premiere in 2002, the model has predicted the winner in each election. In a case of perhaps beginners luck, the 2002 forecast scored a bulls-eye with 47.1%, the exact share of the governing parties; the forecast was posted three months before Election Day. No poll or other model, not even the Election-Day exit polls, came close to this performance; in fact, most people predicted a defeat for Schroders red-green coalition (Norpoth and Gschwend 2003).

Introduction: Designing Research in Political Science — A Dialogue between Theory and Data

Quick-and-dirty number-crunching ‘quantoids’ face them. Carefully describing and interpreting ‘smooshes’ face them (Hatch, 1985). No matter where they stand on ontological and epistemological grounds and how we stereotype the respective ‘other side’, all researchers face similar challenges posed to core issues of research design. How you deal with theses challenges defines the research design for your individual projects. A research design is a plan that specifies how you plan to carry out your research project and, particularly, how you expect to use your evidence to answer your research question.1

Stimmensplitting und Koalitionswahl

In this paper we are interested in explaining strategic ticket-splitting in the German mixed-electoral system across time. We propose that mainly two factors determine the level of strategic ticket-splitting across electoral districts and across time. The closer the district race is expected or the clearer the identifiability of viable coalitions are in the public the more strategic ticket splitting is expected. We content analyze political magazines (DER SPIEGEL) in order to get measures about the degree of pre-election identifiability of coalitions and merge it to a data set consisting of district-level election returns (1953-2002). Our results provide evidence for the two factors we proposed. Finally, counterfactual simulations of our results show that small parties benefit from making it clear to the public which coalition they want to form after the election.

Mit Rot-Grün ins Schwarze getroffen : Prognosemodell besteht Feuertaufe

Was amerikanischen Wahlern recht ist, kann den deutschen nur billig sein: ihre Entscheidungen am Wahltag von einem theoretisch begrundeten Modell vorhersagen zu lassen. Allzu lange ist die Wahlprognostik den Umfrageinstituten uberlassen geblieben. Die Medien futtern den unersattlichen Appetit der Wahlerschaft mit Umfrageergebnissen, die 2002 fast taglich den letzten Stand des Wettrennens der Parteien um die Wahlergunst lieferten. Wo bleibt da die sozialwissenschaftliche Wahlforschung? Hat sie keine Theorien, Modelle oder Hypothesen anzubieten, die zu Prognosen von Wahlen taugen?