A Theory of Protest Voting

Myatt, David P.

doi:10.1111/ecoj.12333

Cited by 47 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(91 reference statements)

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“…Collective emotions hence generate patterns of "emotional contagion" that lead to significantly different predictions with respect to other models of protest vote. For instance, differently from us, in Myatt (2017) individuals are less prone to cast a protest vote if other people's enthusiasm for the protest issue is higher.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…The emotional utility occurs in principle when protest voting results in unseating traditional politicians. In this sense, we are close to Kselman and Niou (2011) and Myatt (2017) in thinking of a protest vote as a targeted signal of dissatisfaction, although we focus here on emotional motives, rather than rational instrumental reasons. We also discuss the case of "warm glow", i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The latter can happen for two reasons. First, voters might receive noisy signals about the electoral situation, with partial coordination leading to the trailing contender receiving a positive share of votes in equilibrium (as in Myatt, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collective Emotions and Protest Vote

2019

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We leverage on important findings in social psychology to build a behavioral theory of protest vote. An individual develops a feeling of resentment if she loses income over time while richer people do not, or if she does not gain as others do, i.e. when her relative deprivation increases. In line with the Intergroup Emotions Theory, this feeling is amplified if the individual identifies with a community experiencing the same feeling. Such a negative collective emotion, which we define as aggrievement, fuels the desire to take revenge against traditional parties and the richer elite, a common trait of populist rhetoric. The theory predicts higher support for the protest party when individuals identify more strongly with their local community and when a higher share of community members are aggrieved. We test this theory using longitudinal data on British households and exploiting the emergence of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in Great Britain in the 2010 and 2015 national elections. Empirical findings robustly support theoretical predictions. The psychological mechanism postulated by our theory survives the controls for alternative non-behavioral mechanisms (e.g. information sharing or political activism in local communities). JEL-Codes: H100.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collective Emotions and Protest Vote

2019

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“…Finally, voters may choose to support the party to which they feel least ideologically close, an idea which is shared by the concept of the "protest vote" by which voters may want to punish, or control the power of their favorite party (see eg. Myatt 2017).…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Polling in a proportional representation system

Mavridis

Ortuño‐Ortín

2018

Soc Choice Welf

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We study the effects of opinion polls on election results in proportional representation systems. Moderate voters have preferences over the vote shares received by the parties so that an agent's optimal voting decision might depend on the other agents' behavior. A voter's information about other voters' behavior can be improved through a series of opinion polls. We show that the mass of undecided voters decreases monotonically with the number of polls, but may not necessarily disappear. Voters who remain undecided have centrist ideologies. On average a series of polls brings the society closer to complete information even though specific polls may push the election result away from the complete information case.

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“…Several scholars consider private value environments in which voters have divergent policy preferences (e.g., Castanheira, 2003b,a;Gül and Pesendorfer, 2009;Meirowitz and Shotts, 2009;Myatt, 2016). There, the main question is of full information equivalence: is the majority's decision the same with perfect and imperfect information?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wisdom of the Crowd? Information Aggregation and Electoral Incentives

Prato

Wolton

2017

SSRN Journal

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Elections have long been understood as a mean to encourage candidates to act in voters' interest as well as a way to aggregate dispersed information. This paper juxtaposes these two key features within a unified framework. As in models of electoral control, candidates compete for office by strategically proposing policy platforms. As in models of information aggregation, agents are not always informed about the policy which maximizes the electorate welfare. Candidates face a trade-off between acting in the electorate's best interest and maximizing their chance of being elected. We provide conditions under which electoral institutions encourage candidates' conformism-thereby stifling proper competition among ideas-and render information aggregation unfeasible in equilibrium. In extensions, we highlight that the new political failure we uncover cannot be fully resolved by liberalizing access to candidacy or reducing voter information. * We thank

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A Theory of Protest Voting

Cited by 47 publications

References 69 publications

Collective Emotions and Protest Vote

Collective Emotions and Protest Vote

Polling in a proportional representation system

Wisdom of the Crowd? Information Aggregation and Electoral Incentives

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