Contextual variation in voters' reasoning: voting in systems of single party and coalition governments

Abstract

This paper investigates differences in citizens' decision-making process of vote choice between systems of single party and coalition governments. Using data of the CSES project of 30 parliamentary elections in 27 democracies, I demonstrate that voters in different contexts systematically rely on different considerations when casting ballots. Such variation can partly be ascribed to differences between single and multi-party governments. This paper conceptualises voters' reasoning by three very general considerations, citizens potentially use across contexts: party, politician, and policy orientations. A multilevel conditional logit model estimates the effect of these three orientations on vote choice in a pooled model of 30 parliamentary elections. Random effect parameters at the contextual level demonstrate the variability of the importance of parties, politicians, and policies for individual vote choices. Modelling interactions between these orientations and a variable of the effective number of parties in government shows that single party governments promote a reasoning that is strongly affected by orientations towards politicians. This propensity towards political leadership is explained by the style of electoral campaigning in systems of single party governments, which is very much focused on the candidates for prime minister. The findings of this paper also indicate that voters in systems of coalition governments often opt for coalitions instead of supporting single parties with their vote. Since these coalitions are generally formed on basis on shared ideological positions, such poli cy dimensions become a focal orientation for voters. While single party governments seem to increase a presidentialisation of parliamentary elections, coalition governments appear to encourage their policy orientation.