Political Leaders and Democratic Elections
ISBN13: 9780199259007ISBN10: 0199259003
Hardback,
320 pages
Jun 2010,
Not Yet Published
Price:
$85.00 (06)See more from the series
Description
Outcomes of legislative elections are typically reported in terms of party support: how many votes and seats were obtained by each party? But in fact voters are faced with three choices which must be folded into one. They must decide which party they prefer, but in so doing they must take account of the policies advocated by these parties and the leaders who will eventually have to enact them.This simple fact raises questions about the relative weight of these considerations, and especially the importance granted to the leaders. This issue has been largely neglected in the vast literature on voting behavior. The dominant traditions in the study of voting behavior focus on political parties and party identification; and on political issues and ideology, respectively.
This volume uses election surveys over the past 50 years to systematically asses the impact of political leaders on voting decisions in nine democracies (United States, Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Australia). It analyzes issues such as the changes in political communication (particularly the rise of televised politics), and the relative importance accorded to political leaders in different types of political systems. It demonstrates how electoral systems and other political institutions have a discernible effect on the importance voters accord to actual political leaders. Contrary to popular wisdom, Political Leaders and Democratic Elections shows how unimportant the characteristics of political leaders, parties, and indeed voters themselves actually are on voting patterns. The volume shows that voters tend to let themselves be guided by the leaders they like rather than being pushed away from those they dislike.
Features
- Based on comparative survey data from nine major democracies: US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, Spain, and Norway
- First major book-length treatment of the importance of leaders' personality on the outcome of democratic elections
- Contains contributions from some of the world's leading experts on the topic
About the Author(s)
Kees Aarts
is Associate Professor of Research Methods and Statistics at the University of Twente.
André Blais
is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the University of Montreal.
Hermann Schmitt
is Associate Professor at the University of Mannheim and Free University in Berlin.
