Cognitive Heterogeneity and Economic Voting: A Comparative Analysis of Four Democratic Electorates

Gomez, Brad T.; Wilson, J. Matthew

doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00174.x

Cited by 120 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Cutler's evidence suggests that they simply refocused on other, simpler, issues (34-5). The implication of this, that attributions of responsibility are clear and influential for a subset of the electorate, is in line with evidence presented by Gomez and Wilson (2006) that economic voting in Canada is largely the province of the more politically sophisticated.…”

Section: Attributions Of Responsibilitysupporting

confidence: 77%

Credit Where it’s Due? Valence Politics, Attributions of Responsibility, and Multi-Level Elections

Johns

2010

Polit Behav

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When considering elections in multi-level contexts, scholars have typically assumed-in line with second-order election theory-that the way voters approach an election depends on their attributions of responsibility, that is, on what they see as being at stake in that election. This assumption is questionable. The formal position is not always clear, and is further blurred by parties and the media. Moreover, many voters pay little attention to politics and have little incentive to trace constitutional responsibilities. In this paper I use data from election studies in two multi-level contexts, Ontario and Scotland, to explore the nature and impact of voters' attributions of responsibility. The evidence suggests that, when called upon in surveys to do so, many voters can confidently and fairly accurately assign issues to different levels of government. Yet they do not seem to consider these attributions much at elections. There is very little indication that issues weighed heavier in the decision-making of those who regarded them as the responsibility of that electoral arena. A plausible explanation is that most voters sidestep the cognitive demands imposed by multi-level elections.

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Section: Attributions Of Responsibilitysupporting

confidence: 77%

Credit Where it’s Due? Valence Politics, Attributions of Responsibility, and Multi-Level Elections

Johns

2010

Polit Behav

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“…Third, in theorizing about the effects of ideological congruence on citizen satisfaction we aim to add to existing work that, by giving serious consideration to citizen heterogeneity, eschews the idea that citizens are all cut from the same cloth (De Vries and Giger 2014; Gomez and Wilson 2006;Hakhverdian and Mayne 2012). In addition to examining the direct relationship between our five measures of congruence and citizen satisfaction, using a set of…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Mayne

Hakhverdian

2016

Comparative Political Studies

112

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Ideological congruence is an important and popular measure of the quality of political representation. The closer the match between the preferences of the public and those of elected elites, the better representative democracy is thought to function. Relatively little attention has been paid however to the effects of ideological congruence on political judgement. We address this gap by examining whether citizens use egocentric or sociotropic judgments of congruence to evaluate democratic performance. Using a variety of congruence measures, we find that citizens are unmoved by sociotropic congruence; however, our analyses provide clear evidence that egocentric congruence boosts citizen satisfaction, especially among political sophisticates. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the study of ideological congruence and political representation.1 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at annual conferences of the Midwest Political Science Association and the Dutch Political Science Association as well as a workshop at the University of Gothenburg. We thank the discussants and panel participants at these meetings for their feedback. We also thank Wouter Schakel for data assistance. We are grateful for the thoughtful comments of our reviewers as well as 2Over the years ideological congruence has become an important and popular concept in the study of political representation (Huber and Powell 1994;Powell 2000 Powell , 2009McDonald et al. 2004;Klingemann et al. 2006;Griffin and Newman 2008;Golder and Stramski 2010). Third, in addition to testing for the direct effects of various measures of ideological congruence on citizen satisfaction we investigate whether the effects of congruence are contingent upon a person's political sophistication. While a positive relationship between representative congruence and citizen satisfaction seems plausible in the abstract, it is also possible that, given its potential complexity and concomitant inscrutability as a feature of the political environment, congruence -whether egocentric or sociotropic -may in reality only affect those capable of ascertaining its presence and degree.In the end our analyses provide no evidence that variations in sociotropic congruence are related to how citizens think about the general working of their political system. None of the 4 sociotropic measures is found to impact citizen satisfaction, even among political sophisticates. In contrast, we find clear evidence that egocentric congruence matters for citizen satisfaction. In addition, political sophistication moderates the relationship between egocentric congruence and citizen satisfaction. Specifically, egocentric congruence boosts the chances of satisfaction more among citizens with the highest levels of political sophistication.In the next section we elaborate on the concept of ideological congruence as one aspect of political representation that citizens might take into account when evaluating democratic performance. We then introduce the distinction bet...

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“…Depending on level of sophistication, voters employ different judgmental criteria (Sniderman et al 1991;Rivers, 1988;Gomez and Wilson 2001;Gomez and Wilson 2006). Individuals with more sophistication put more weight on issue positions and policy differences while those on the lower end of the sophistication scale pay more the attention to the candidates' personality traits (Converse 1964;Knight 1985;Sniderman et al 1991).…”

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confidence: 99%

Political Sophistication and Presidential Candidate Considerations: Disentangling the Effects of Knowledge, Interest, and Media Exposure

DeWitt

2013

ARP

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Answers to political sophistication questions are typically tied to theoretical or normative assumptions, which produce given sets of operational guidelines. In this study, I develop an understanding of election specific expertise, conceived of as three distinct dimensions—knowledge, interest, and media exposure. This methodological approach helps provide a richer appreciation of the unique effects of each dimension on the nature, number, and breadth of candidate considerations employed by voters. Results lend support for the overriding claim that sophistication is a critical source of heterogeneity within the American electorate. The classic democratic competency standard of an issue-driven voting public is achieved through a more knowledgeable, interested citizenry. At the same time, knowledge and interest produce divergent influences on particular types of personality-based candidate evaluations while media exposure is most remarkable for its absence of explanatory value.

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Cognitive Heterogeneity and Economic Voting: A Comparative Analysis of Four Democratic Electorates

Abstract: This article examines the cognitive foundations of economic voting in four diverse

Cited by 120 publications

References 59 publications

Credit Where it’s Due? Valence Politics, Attributions of Responsibility, and Multi-Level Elections

Credit Where it’s Due? Valence Politics, Attributions of Responsibility, and Multi-Level Elections

Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Political Sophistication and Presidential Candidate Considerations: Disentangling the Effects of Knowledge, Interest, and Media Exposure

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