Electoral Chairs’ Seminars – 16 March

Spatial versus valence models of voting

Dieter Stiers (KU Leuven)

Spatial and valence models are the workhorses of research on electoral behaviour. Yet, little is known about the factors that influence their relative strength. In this paper, I argue that the number of parties in a political system as well as their ideological dispersion affects the prevalence of spatial and valence considerations in voters’ minds. I investigate these expectations by combining all the available data of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) with information of the political system in which the elections took place. The results show that ideological considerations become more important for the vote when the party system is more polarised. The results regarding the number of parties are mixed.

Contact Semih Çakır if you would like to participate in the seminar.

This content has been updated on 15 March 2022 at 13 h 33 min.