The Impact of Religion on Voting Behaviour – A Multilevel Approach for Switzerland

Abstract

1 : The traditional cleavages like social class or religion are often reported to have lost explanatory power for the voting decision. Regarding the religious cleavage, the evidence is ambiguous depending on the choice of cases and indicators used. The present study tests the impact of religion for the preference to vote the Christian Democratic Party of Switzerland (CVP) using data from the 2007 and 2011 Swiss national elections. Additional to the inclusion of individual variables, a special focus lies on contextual effects. The estimated hierarchical linear models confirm a prevailing influence of the simple individual factors and the presence of a significant contextual effect. Statistical evidence is also presented for some of the supposed interaction effects between individual and contextual religious variables.

The evolution of cleavage voting in four Western countries: Structural, behavioural or political dealignment?

“…Evans 2000 The vast amount of cleavage studies attests these broad developments. However, the majority of studies do not distinguish between different mechanisms (exceptions are Lachat 2007a;Best 2011;Elff & Roßteutscher 2017;Goldberg 2017;Heath 2018), and even those few that do suffer from the same limitations as many other cleavage studies in that they focus on only one specific country (e.g., De Graaf et al 2001;Evans & Tilley 2012;Elff & Roßteutscher 2017;Goldberg 2017;Heath 2018); consider only one particular cleavage or cleavage group, such as workers (e.g., Clark et al 1993;Raymond 2011;Jansen et al 2013;Goldberg 2014;Heath 2018); or only analyse specific parties or merged (left versus right) party blocs (e.g., Franklin et al 1992;Elff 2007;Best 2011;Jansen et al 2013;Elff & Roßteutscher 2017). The aim of this article is to offer a more comprehensive analysis of all three underlying mechanisms of (declining) cleavage voting.…”

Class (Non)Voting in Switzerland 1971‐2011: Ruptures and Continuities in a Changing Political Landscape

“…It is useful to mention here that another specific characteristic of class cleavage in Switzerland can be found in the literature: that is, that the strength of class voting displays important subnational variations, between the linguistic regions and the types of cantonal party systems (e.g. Kerr ; Kriesi ; Rennwald ; Goldberg ; Goldberg and Sciarini in this issue). For space reasons, this article focuses on the national level.…”

Untitled

“…The study of voters' behaviour and election outcomes is complex due to the fact that no single variable or factor can adequately explain voting behaviour and what determines voters' choices at the polls (Roth 1998). Scholarly literature which dwells on the determinants of voting behaviour and election outcomes indicates that variables such as money, religion, social status, political party affiliation and charisma shape voters' decisions (Agomor & Adams 2014;Akhter & Sheikh 2014;Goldberg 2014;Andrews & Inman 2009). While studying determinants of voters' behaviour in Ghana, Agomor and Adams (2014) investigated what determines the choice of the Ghanaian electorate in making voting decisions based on evaluative and non-evaluative variables.…”

“…Some reasons have been advanced by Goldberg (2014) to explain why religion plays such a crucial role in determining voting behaviour or choice. The strong link between religious ideals and a range of general political and social principles, which are in turn connected to party choice, is one of the reasons why religion has such a great influence on voters' behaviour.…”