Title
Government alternation and proximity voting: how policy change opportunities shape electoral behaviour
Francesco Zucchini
Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan
Abstract
A landmark finding in recent research on electoral behaviour is that voters anticipate the postelection bargaining process among potential members of the governing coalition, and that these anticipated policy agreements inform their vote choice. In this article, this finding is qualified by arguing, and then showing empirically, that when the expected policy change after the elections is marginal or non-existent, ceteris paribus, ‘simple’ proximity voting should prevail. The argument is tested by using two different but complementary research strategies applied to an individual-level data set constructed from electoral surveys in 28 countries over a 20-year period, and two recent national surveys in which respondents were directly asked to predict the potential coalition government after the elections. Both strategies provide support for the hypothesis and have important implications for the understanding of the consequences of government alternation on voting behaviour and political representation more broadly.
Keywords
Government alternationproximity votingcompromiseproportional systemsveto players theory
Object type
Language
English [eng]
Persistent identifier
Appeared in
Title
West European Politics
ISSN
0140-2382
Issued
2021
From page
1
To page
25
Publication
Informa UK Limited
Version type
Date issued
2021
Access rights
Rights statement
© 2021 The Author(s)
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