Institutions, parties, and the evolution of electoral preferences

Wlezien, Christopher and Jennings, Will (2023) Institutions, parties, and the evolution of electoral preferences. European Journal of Political Research, 62 (4), 1347-1368. (doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12579).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Political institutions and parties define the set of choices faced by voters, and structure the evolution of electoral preferences over the election cycle. While previous research examines the characteristics of institutions, here we consider the influence of political parties. We theorize ways in which they matter to the formation of electoral preferences over the election timeline, and also how these relate to institutional features. Our analysis simultaneously assesses the influence of different system- and party-level variables on the dynamic structure of voters’ preferences in legislative elections using a dataset of 27,357 vote intention polls in 26 countries since 1942, covering 231 discrete electoral cycles and encompassing 208 political parties. The results indicate that electoral institutions and parties are both important, but the characteristics of parties matter most of all, and effectively mediate institutional influences. These results have implications for the effects of election campaigns, the prediction of election outcomes, and party behavior itself.

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Institutions, Parties, and the Evolution of Electoral Preferences - Accepted Manuscript

Restricted to Repository staff only until 13 January 2025.

Available under License University of Southampton Accepted Manuscript Licence.

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European J Political Res - 2023 - WLEZIEN - Institutions parties and the evolution of electoral preferences - Accepted Manuscript

Restricted to Repository staff only until 13 January 2025.

Available under License University of Southampton Accepted Manuscript Licence.

Request a copy

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 2 December 2022

e-pub ahead of print date: 13 January 2023

Published date: 24 January 2023

Additional Information: Funding Information: we are grateful to numerous scholars for comments, particularly Ruth Dassonneville, Linda Flothe, Kentaro Fukumoto, Matt Golder, Andreas Graefe, Raimondas Ibenskas, Wiebke Marie Junke, Ben Lauderdale, Mike Lewis-Beck, Dan Nielson, Gregory Noble, Anne Rasmussen, Jeroen Romeijn, Matthew Shugart, Patrick Sturgis, and Dimiter Toshkov. We also thank the editors of the EJPR and their anonymous reviewers. Full replication data and syntax are available in the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/DR9RRK.

Keywords: Polls, comparative, dynamics, timeline, votes