Tactical Voting in Norway: Context, Motives and Occurrence

Abstract

Hitherto, tactical voting has not been a topic in Norwegian electoral research, despite the fact that tactical considerations have been publically discussed both by politicians and citizens for years. The complexity of the electoral system is partly to blame. Norwegian voters experience a number of tactical situations that give rise to rather different dilemmas, and hence several tactical motives. These need to be mapped and analysed separately. A set of survey questions has been especially designed for the present study to record these motives. Special attention has also been paid to the political sophistication of voters, campaign messages encouraging tactical voting, and the restraining effects of habitual voting and negative attitudes towards tactical voting. These factors may modify the inclination to tactical electoral behaviour. The web survey designed for the present project was conducted immediately following the Norwegian parliamentary election of 2013 (N = 2,278). Of the voters in the survey, 18.3 percent reported casting a tactically motivated vote. The 4 percent threshold on the distribution of compensatory seats, the competition for the last district seats and the composition of government coalitions triggered tactical voting. Tactical voters do not stand out as more politically sophisticated than other voters. Rather than calculating the expected utility for each party, they seem to rely on campaign information from the political parties and the media when voting tactically. For the habitual voters and voters with a strong dislike of tactical voting, the propensity for tactical voting is well below average.

How Election Polls Shape Voting Behaviour

“…Perhaps it is a coincidence, but future research could explore if there is a relationship between a party's change in support and the size of the effect, and perhaps even characterise the shape of such a relationship, should it exist. Another thing that we do not consider is strategic considerations such as voting for a party with the intention of keeping another party out of power, affecting the balance of power in coalition governments, and taking a threshold into account (Jenssen ). These may intersect with the bandwagon effect .…”

“…should it exist. Another thing that we do not consider is strategic considerations such as voting for a party with the intention of keeping another party out of power, affecting the balance of power in coalition governments, and taking a threshold into account (Jenssen 2016). These may intersect with the bandwagon effect.…”

“…In total, 3,011 respondents (43.4 percent) completed the entire survey, which is satisfactory for this type of study. The complete questionnaire can be found in Dahlgaard et al (2015;2016). These respondents are representative of Danish voters in terms of demographic characteristics and make up a diverse sample of Danish voters.…”

“…In a multiparty context, a party might independently experience an electoral boost while its coalition partners experience a setback. 1 Third, and related to the merits of our multiparty context, we test whether the effect of opinion polls is consistent across different types of parties using both a large executive party and a small opposition party, and across different types of citizens by analysing whether factors such as gender and age moderate the bandwagon effect (Dahlgaard et al 2015;2016).…”