Candidates or Parties?

Abstract

A B S T R A C TUnder many electoral systems, voters can choose between candidates, and, under some systems, between candidates of the same party -a situation that makes it possible for candidates to seek a personal vote. Studies of some countries have shown how personal voting is apparent in the success of particular types of candidates, notably incumbents, but there is little systematic study of personal motives among the electors themselves. The single transferable vote system (STV) used in Ireland certainly allows electors to choose between candidates as well as parties and therefore is seen as providing a strong incentive for candidates to seek personal votes. While aggregate evidence from election results has pointed to the primary importance of party, survey data have suggested that close to a majority of voters are primarily candidate-centred. In this article, an extensive set of instruments contained in the 2002 Irish election study is used to explore the extent to which voters decide on candidate-centred factors as opposed to party-centred factors. It is shown that a substantial minority decide on the basis of candidate factors, and typical models of Irish electoral behaviour have not accommodated the heterogeneity that results from this mix of motives. However, direct questions about motives probably underestimate the extent of party-centred voting.KEY WORDS Ⅲ electoral behaviour Ⅲ electoral systems Ⅲ Ireland Ⅲ personal vote

Voter's gratification in using online news and the implications on political landscape in Malaysia

“…The construct of vote choice, which is the dependent variable, were adopted and adapted from the research of scholars Marsh (2007) and Wall et al (2012). The vote choice was measured under two dimensions, namely political candidate and political party.…”

“…The vote choice was measured under two dimensions, namely political candidate and political party. Items for the political candidate were adapted from Marsh (2007) and Wall et al (2012). Meanwhile, items for the political party were adapted from Wall et al (2012).…”

Electoral Systems and Geographic Representation

“…Evidence in this direction abounds from spatial ecological studies (Garand 1988; Gimpel et al 2008; Rice and Macht 1987), experimental studies (Campbell and Cowley 2014; Panagopoulos, Leighley, and Hamel 2017; Roy and Alcantara 2015), and voter-level survey data (Arzheimer and Evans 2012; Arzheimer and Evans 2014; Evans et al 2017; Johnson and Rosenblatt 2006). Evidence for voters’ preference for local representatives has been documented for decades, especially in research on the United States (Garand 1988; Gimpel et al 2008; Rice and Macht 1987) and Ireland (Gallagher 1980; Górecki and Marsh 2012; Marsh 2007). More recently, research in the UK shows that voters care far more about candidates' localness than about their biological sex (Campbell and Cowley 2014), class, religion, and race (Cowley 2013) 3 .…”

It’s not only about the leader: Oligarchized personalization and preference voting in Belgium

“…Party leaders may have grown in importance, but they do not fully dominate election processes. Several studies have shown that some voters simply do not care about the party brand or its leader (Marsh 2007; Van Holsteyn and Andeweg 2010, Mattes and Milazzo 2014). For those voters, the main driver behind electoral choice is the personality of local candidates.…”