Do we need warm leaders? Exploratory study of the role of voter evaluations of leaders’ traits on turnout in seven European countries

Abstract

Previous research on leader effects has focused exclusively on the impact of voters’ evaluations of leaders on vote choice, disregarding possible effects on the prior step of deciding whether or not to turn out to vote. In line with the personalisation of politics thesis, leaders have a higher impact among dealigned voters. Previous studies have demonstrated that leader effects are stronger among voters who voice their dealignment – namely party switchers. However, the potential impact of leaders among those who exited (i.e., who have abstained) is still unstudied. Could leaders have a mobilisation effect and therefore trigger turnout decisions? What characteristics of party leaders are more relevant in this regard? This article is the first comparative study to examine how the evaluation of party leaders’ traits influences voter turnout in general elections. The work incorporates data from election studies across seven countries with different social contexts (Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Hungary). Characteristics of leaders were grouped into two dimensions – competence and warmth – in accordance with the stereotype content model and relevant studies on leaders’ traits evaluation. Multiple binary logistic regression models were performed to analyse the predictive power of competence and warmth on turnout, controlling for sociodemographic, political ideology variables and voters’ past political behaviour. Results reinforce the personalisation of politics theory, showing the utmost relevance of warmth personality traits of leaders in voter turnout decisions. Competence personality traits were found to be relevant only in some situations. Interaction effects were also demonstrated between warmth evaluations and identifying with a right‐wing party as well as past political behaviour with both warmth and competence.

Candidate evaluations across the aisle: Cross-cultural and experimental evidence that out-partisans value candidate warmth more than in-partisans

“…Studies 1 and 2 thereby exploit the benefits of comparative data following a most different systems logic and ensure the high external validity of our tests. This is one of the largest, most diverse comparative datasets in the candidate evaluations literature (for notable efforts see Bittner, 2011;Ohr & Oscarsson, 2013;Silva & Costa, 2019). Meanwhile, Study 3 reanalyzes experimental data from Cassese and Holman ( 2018) and provides tentative evidence that the hypothesis holds even if confounding is purged via random manipulation of the independent variables.…”

“…This yields a sample of 96,319 observations. Comparative datasets are still rare in the candidate evaluations literature (but see Bittner, 2011;Silva & Costa, 2019), despite their considerable benefits. All candidates and elections are unique, so any analysis relying on a limited pool of cases is subject to concerns about external validity.…”

All the prime minister’s glory? Leader effects and accountability of prime ministers in parliamentary elections

“…Figure 1 shows this relationship graphically. 2 Previous electoral research has clearly established the electoral impact of voters’ perception of party leaders (Bittner, 2011, 2018; Ferreira da Silva and Costa, 2019; Garzia, 2014, 2017a, 2017b; Lobo and Curtice, 2014; Mughan, 2015). The direct effect of voters’ perceptions of party leaders on vote choice is usually labelled as leader effects and I use this term throughout the study.…”

“…Do voters hold prime ministers (PMs) accountable for the performance of their government? The personalisation of parliamentary elections and electoral impact of party leaders 1 has received growing attention in electoral research (Aarts et al, 2011; Berz, 2019; Bittner, 2011, 2018; Ferreira da Silva, 2018; Ferreira da Silva and Costa, 2019; Garzia, 2014, 2017a, 2017b; Lobo and Curtice, 2014; Poguntke and Webb, 2005; Wattenberg, 1991). However, these findings raise a major concern: Do parliamentary elections become dominated by voters’ perception of party leader’s personality which would endanger the accountability of elected governments (Curtice and Hunjan, 2011; Huber, 2014)?…”

Are Political Leaders with Professional Background in Business Bad for Climate Mitigation?

“…On the other hand, some studies report a personalization process of modern politics (Caprara and Zimbardo, 2004;Caprara, 2007;Garzia, 2011), what implies that individual characteristics of candidates is becoming more important for voters (Winter, 1987;Bittner, 2011;Vecchione et al, 2011;King, 2002;Cutler, 2003;Aarts et al, 2013;Campbell and Cowley, 2013;Costa and Ferreira da Silva, 2015;Ferreira da Silva and Costa, 2018;Sevi, 2020).…”