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"Blais, André"
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The many faces of strategic voting : tactical behavior in electoral systems around the world
\"Strategic voting is classically defined as \"voting for one's second preferred option to prevent one's least preferred option from winning when one's first preference has no chance.\" Voters want their votes to be effective, and casting a ballot that will have no influence on an election is undesirable--therefore, some voters cast a strategic ballot when they decide it is useful. This edited volume includes case studies of strategic voting behavior in Israel, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, and the UK, and provides a conceptual framework for understanding strategic voting behavior in all types of electoral systems. The classic definition explicitly considers strategic voting in a single race with a single winner, which has at least three candidates. This situation is more common in electoral systems that have single member districts that employ plurality or majoritarian electoral rules and have multiparty systems. Indeed, much of the literature on strategic voting to date has considered systems like those in Canada and the United Kingdom. This book contributes to a more general understanding of strategic voting behavior by taking into account a wide variety of institutional contexts, such as single transferable vote rules, proportional representation, two round and mixed electoral systems\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Generational and Institutional Sources of the Global Decline in Voter Turnout
Why has voter turnout declined in democracies all over the world? This article draws on findings from microlevel studies and theorizes two explanations: generational change and a rise in the number of elective institutions. The empirical section tests these hypotheses along with other explanations proposed in the literature—shifts in party/candidate competition, voting-age reform, weakening group mobilization, income inequality, and economic globalization. The authors conduct two analyses. The first analysis employs an original data set covering all post-1945 democratic national elections. The second studies individual-level data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and British, Canadian, and US national election studies. The results strongly support the generational change and elective institutions hypotheses, which account for most of the decline in voter turnout. These findings have important implications for a better understanding of the current transformations of representative democracy and the challenges it faces.
Journal Article
Provincial battles, national prize? : elections in a federal state
\"In parliamentary systems like Canada, voters directly contribute to the election outcome only in their own riding. However, the focus of election campaigns is often national, emphasizing the leader rather than the local candidate, and national rather than regional polls. This suggests that elections are national contests, but election outcomes clearly demonstrate that support for parties varies strongly by province. Focusing on the 2015 Canadian election campaigns in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec, three large provinces with different subnational party systems, Provincial Battles, National Prize? evaluates whether we should understand elections in Canada as national wars or individual provincial clashes. The authors draw upon voter and candidate surveys, party campaign behaviour and media coverage of the election to document how political parties vary their messages and strategies across provinces, how the media communicate and frame those messages, and how voters ultimately respond. The study shows that provincial variations in party support reflect differences in voters' political preferences rather than differences in party messages or media coverage. A novel and comprehensive study, Provincial Battles, National Prize? is the first and only thorough treatment of the party, media, and voter aspects of a federal election campaign through a subnational lens.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Civic Duty and Voter Turnout
We argue that two different sets of considerations shape the decision to vote or abstain in an election–ethical and non-ethical. First the citizen may vote out of a sense of duty. Failing that, she may vote because she has strong preferences about the outcome of the election. Abstention occurs when neither duty nor a sufficiently strong preference is present. The implication is that while duty and preference each have strong positive effects on turnout, they also have a negative interaction effect, since the impact of preference is much weaker among those with a sense of duty. We present a wide array of empirical evidence that systematically supports our claim that the turnout decision is importantly shaped by this causal heterogeneity. Thus a turnout model misses something fundamental if it does not take into account the effect of civic duty.
Journal Article
Comment chercher ?
Je décris ma conception et ma pratique de la recherche dans mon domaine d’expertise, l’analyse des comportements politiques. Faire de la recherche est pour moi une œuvre collective qui se réalise en équipe. Cette recherche porte d’abord sur des questions descriptives fondamentales. Pour l’analyse des causes des relations de causalité, on a intérêt à utiliser, lorsque c’est possible, des devis expérimentaux ou quasi-expérimentaux. L’aspect le plus pénible mais aussi le plus crucial est la rédaction des manuscrits, qui est plus facilement supportable à petites doses et à tous les jours. La partie la plus réjouissante est la création de l’instrument de recherche, au moment où on peut encore caresser l’illusion que notre recherche sera « la meilleure au monde ».
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The Chicken and Egg Question: Satisfaction with Democracy and Voter Turnout
Political scientists, analysts and journalists alike have long believed that the degree of satisfaction with the functioning of democracy determines voter turnout. We use survey data from 24 panel studies to demonstrate that this causal relationship is actually reversed: voter turnout affects satisfaction with democracy. We also show that this reversed relationship is conditioned by election type, electoral system, and election outcomes. These findings are important because: (1) They question conventional wisdom and a large body of scientific literature; (2) They invite a more nuanced approach towards the study of the relationship between evaluations of regime performance and political participation; and (3) They emphasize the vital role of elections in shaping citizens’ perception of the democratic process.
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Conformity and Individuals’ Response to Information About Aggregate Turnout
How do voters react to information about aggregate turnout? Do high turnout levels mobilize or discourage citizens to vote? We argue that it depends on individuals’ degree of conformity. We argue that in addition to the classic calculus of voting, conformist voters have an added incentive to ‘follow the pack’and vote when turnout is high while abstain when turnout is low. We conduct two separate experiments, the first a survey experiment with a representative sample of the UK population and the second a lab experiment in Canada. Both studies confirm our hypothesis. These findings highlight the importance of taking individuals’ level of conformity into account when explaining their decision to vote or abstain.
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Do Women Get Fewer Votes? No
We study data on the gender of more than 21,000 unique candidates in all Canadian federal elections since 1921, when the first women ran for seats in Parliament. This large data set allows us to compute precise estimates of the difference in the electoral fortunes of men and women candidates. When accounting for party effects and time trends, we find that the difference between the vote shares of men and women is substantively negligible (±0.5 percentage point). This gender gap was larger in the 1920s (±2.5 percentage points), but it is now statistically indistinguishable from zero. Our results have important normative implications: political parties should recruit and promote more women candidates because they remain underrepresented in Canadian politics and because they do not suffer from a substantial electoral penalty. Nous analysons des données sur le genre de plus de 21 000 candidats à toutes les élections fédérales canadiennes depuis 1921, la première année où des femmes ont été candidates aux élections à la Chambre des Communes. Cette grande base de données nous permet d'estimer précisément la différence entre les résultats électoraux des candidates et des candidats. Si on tient compte des effets de partis et des tendances temporelles, on constate que la différence entre le vote pour les candidats masculins et féminins est substantivement négligeable (±0,5 point de pourcentage). Cet écart était plus important dans les années 1920 (± 2,5 points de pourcentage), mais il est aujourd'hui pratiquement nul. Nos résultats ont d’importantes implications sur le plan normatif : les partis politiques devraient recruter plus de candidates, puisque les femmes demeurent sous-représentées en politique canadienne et qu’elles ne souffrent pas d’une pénalité électorale.
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the language of political science: should it be english?
Whether we like it or not, English has become the lingua franca of political science. The symposium presents three thoughtful essays about the pros and cons of this domination and what can and should be done to mitigate the negative consequences.
Journal Article
Beyond rationalization: Voting out of duty or expressing duty after voting?
It is a standard practice to include a Duty term in explanatory models of turnout. Yet the relationship between duty and voting is not that clear. Does duty really trigger voting or is it the reverse? To address this question, we present cross-lagged panel estimations of the impact of duty on turnout and of turnout on duty with two different datasets: a two-wave panel Canadian survey conducted in 2008 and 2009 and a fourwave Spanish panel conducted between 2010 and 2012. We find evidence that sense of civic duty is a true motivation that affects people's propensity to vote, even though duty may be reinforced by the act of voting.
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