Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-60).

Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2008.

This work presents an analysis of federal election voting choices in an industrial community. The voting choices were reported by a sample of gainfully employed residents of the community. A segment of the sample, those in unionized jobs in the industrial enterprises of the major employer, is submitted to quantitative analysis. A discussion of the significance of interest group formation and operation provides us with a theoretical basis. As industrial workers are less economically secure, are clustered into a relatively undifferentiated range of jobs, and are more isolated from the broad middle class, they will be more prone to form economic and political interest groups. One aspect of such formation is a high level of support for a worker-oriented and socialistic political party. The member of parliament for the constituency was the candidate of a party that appears to be both socialistic and worker oriented, the New Democratic Party (or NDP). Voting choices in favor of this candidate are understood in terms of our theory. They are studied by dividing our respondents by social characteristics. These social characteristics are of three kinds: general vital characteristics, (age, length of community residence, and place of birth), off-work characteristics (religious group membership and participation), and work-defined characteristics, (type of enterprise, union, and skill level). The general social characteristics are assumed to indicate access to community worker political culture. Off-work characteristics are important because they might supply individuals with social identities which override such a culture. At-work characteristics may provide issues that are quickly transformed into social identities influencing voting, given rationality, local worker culture, and the lack of overriding identities. When general and work-defined characteristics are used to study voting choices, a well-defined pattern is found. High rates of NDP support are associated with general vital characteristics that indicate higher access to community and regional political culture, and work-related characteristics that indicate "typical industrial workers" of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When the characteristics are studied in combination, complex patterns are found. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

[No Abstract Submitted] / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to assess whether advertising influences South Africans’ voting behaviour. The research compared two advertising appeals, fear and rational, to assess which is most preferred by voters. A secondary purpose was also to review whether having knowledge of voters’ influencers and using that knowledge, coupled with an advertising appeal, would influence voters’ behaviour. The study also briefly reviewed whether demographics such as race, gender and education level could have an impact on voting behaviour. The study also reviewed the relationship between the influencers and voting behaviour. The research was done using an online and hard-copy questionnaire. Sampling was both random and by referral. Three hundred and nineteen valid questionnaires were returned. Various frequency analyses were conducted to establish the varying relationships amongst the variables. The main findings of the study were the following: firstly, race is a very significant issue influencing South African voting behaviour. The second finding is that trust in the leader of the political party and that political party’s previous government performance are significant issues that voters consider when engaging in voting. The third finding from the study was that the advertising appeal most preferred by voters between rational and fear is rational appeal. The final finding is that voters can be influenced by advertising to change their voting behaviour, however the change is not brought by advertising in isolation other factors need to be considered.

I examine the relationship between social structural factors and political behavior by applying the concept of social cleavage in American society. Lipset and Rokkan (1967) developed the concept of social cleavage to explain the influence of social structure on political behavior in the 1960s. They suggest that social cleavage emerged in Western Europe in the 1920s and persisted until the 1960s. Some scholars claim that the influence of social group membership is not as influential in predicting voting behavior in elections as it was in the 1960s, while other scholars argue that social cleavages are still important in explaining individuals’ choices in elections. Additionally, many scholars believe that issue-based factors reduce the influence of social structure on voting behavior. I first analyze the voting trend of classes, religious groups, and regions, and their magnitude of cleavage since 1980. Second, I examine the influence of economic and cultural factors on Presidential voting. Third, I estimate the relative size of the effects of economic and cultural factors on Presidential voting. Fourth, I demonstrate the influence of economic and economic factors on social cleavages. The findings show that social group membership and geographical residence are significant factors in Presidential elections between 1980 and 2008. Political cleavage based on religious group membership is the greatest. Voters also have more distinctive political preferences based on micro-regional residence compared to macro-regional residence. The binary logistic regression analysis showed that economic and cultural factors are significantly associated with Presidential elections between 1984 and 2008, and that the magnitude of social cleavage changed when economic and cultural variables were included.

Note:

The primary purpose of this paper is to analyze the research field of cost of voting and review the relevant literature on voter participation. After reviewing the literature, a development of a theoretical framework to categorize multiple variables associated with the cost of voting will be completed. The goal is to create clear, concise, and simple categories that define the cost of voting. This should add conceptual clarity to the field by linking variables into a common foundation. The research also connects the sociological and psychological category of intrapersonal to concepts of social group needs, sense of achieving a greater good, and “us vs. Them" theory. This link to human psychology and sociology will set up future research in the field of election studies to be on a more individual level basis, to better understand voter perception and feelings towards the potential cost to voting.

Economic explanations vs. cultural concerns. These two branches of research have been established as the two major approaches in understanding the electoral success of radical populist parties. As for economic hardship, the feeling of neglect by established parties and political discontent are considered as mechanisms translating into the preference of anti-establishment parties with a people-centrist rhetoric. From a cultural perspective, radical populist voting has been linked to people holding on to more conservative viewpoints and rejecting the perceived predominance of trends such as multiculturalism and postmaterialism they assume established parties to focus on. While there is evidence suggesting that an unfavorable socioeconomic status does foster voting in favor of populist parties, multiple previous studies agree that cultural or political concerns surpass the explanatory power of economic insecurity in that regard (e.g. Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018; Oesch, 2008, Ramiro & Gomez, 2017). Nonetheless, economic approaches of populist voting should not be discarded. Instead, the inconsistency across previous studies in terms of evidence hints at the possibly crucial impact of the research design on the results to be obtained. In this respect, the predominant use of aggregate data in the field does not allow for conclusions on individual voting behavior whereas even the analysis of individual-level data often comes along with a static perspective on single-election years which makes the results context-dependent and limits their generalizability. Next to the substantial investigation on which aspects of socioeconomic hardship increase support for populism, it is another objective of this thesis to contribute to the state of research by illustrating the methodological impact on the evidence yielded. In order to achieve that, this thesis consists of four substudies, each approaching the research question from another perspective to provide a comprehensive overview on socioeconomic drivers of populist voting. Relying on survey data from the Belgian Election Study 2014, for a start it is analyzed if socioeconomic deprivation shapes populist attitudes. For that, both the individual and the contextual situation are considered. Another deepening of knowledge pursued in the first empirical chapter is the disentanglement of three attitude dimensions which are part of the rhetoric used by populist parties but have been cumulated in previous studies (i.e. anti-immigration views, people-centrism, and anti-elitism). The evidence suggests that populist views are stronger among persons with a lower level of education and a stronger sense of relative deprivation. The effect of relative deprivation on people-centrist views is furthermore stronger when the local surroundings are characterized by higher financial wealth. In the second empirical study, the outcome to be explained is the actual voting behavior in favor of a populist party, using the example of Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang). Again, the analysis is taking place on a small-scale contextual level. The longitudinal perspective on Flemish municipalities covering the period from 2006 to 2018 is an additional contribution. Through the estimation of fixed effects panel regression models, possible sources of biased findings may be partially eliminated. This advantageous statistical method is not only exploited for substantial purposes but also to point out its benefits when contrasting it to other longitudinal strategies, such as separate year-specific and pooled models. Unexpectedly, the local unemployment rate is negatively related to the aggregate success of Vlaams Belang. Nonetheless, the comparison across analytical approaches underlines the relevance of advantageous statistical methods that reduce the risk of an omitted variable biasand allow to consider time trends. The third chapter also relies on a longitudinal design and illustrates the analytical benefits of panel data but gives attention to the individual level, using information from the Dutch LISS panel survey. Like in the previous sub-study, there is evidence illustrating the analytical potential of panel data. In substantial terms, however, multiple characteristics of individual deprivation do not significantly influence the support for radical populist parties. The fourth and final empirical chapter broadens the perspective in several regards as it gives up the previous focus on single countries in favor of a cross-country analysis on the election for the European Parliament 2019. What is more, another form of voting behavior is considered that is theoretically similar to populist voting, namely abstaining. With that alternative outcome being part of the study, additional analyses are conducted to identify attitudinal mechanisms which explain the preference for either populist voting or abstaining. Both prove to be more likely than mainstream party voting among person with a low educational level and frequent educational difficulties. An unfavorable position on the labor market, however, comes along only with an increased tendency of abstention. If socioeconomic vulnerability translates into anti-immigration views, however, radical populist voting is more likely than mainstream party voting or abstaining whereas an emerging political disinterest and feeling of powerlessness explain why socioeconomically vulnerable persons rather choose not to vote at all. The tendency of mainstream party voting is reduced if unemployment or financial troubles translate into the disapproval of politics but neither radical populist party voting nor abstaining are boosted more than the other.

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