Strategic voting in German constituencies

"We investigate strategic voting at German Bundestag elections. The common intuition about strategic voting holds that supporters of small party candidates split their ticket and cast a constituency vote for the candidate of a viable large party. We show that there is more potential for strategic voting than previously admitted. Based on the multiparty calculus of voting framework, we formulate a decision-theoretic model that allows us to take the full range of situations into account, that voters may encounter in their local constituencies. Applying this model to survey data from the 1998 and 2002 federal elections, we find that voters make use of sophisticated balloting, given the chance to influence the outcome of the constituency election. While the focus of this paper is on Germany, the approach we take is applicable to single seat elections in other countries as well." (author's abstract

Partei- und Koalitionspräferenzen der Wähler bei der Bundestagswahl 1998 und 2002

Our basic argument is that in multi-party systems we should not only analyze party preferences but also coalition preferences in order to explain voting behavior. We distinguish between coalition leaning and coalition preference and are interested in explaining under what conditions an explicit preference for a particular coalition of parties will be formed. Our hypothesis is that only for clearly identifiable pre-electoral coalition options we can expect to observe the formation of a coalition preference. We test this hypothesis with data from the German Federal election in 1998 and 2002. We find that parties sending clear coalition signals to the public are able to have an impact on individuals' decision-making process

Partei- und Koalitionskriterien der österreichischen Wählerschaft für die Nationalratswahl 2006

'Ergebnis-orientiertes Wählen berücksichtigt die Folgen der eigenen Stimmabgabe für die Regierungsbildung. Das ist in Mehrparteiensystem generell schwierig und war bei der Nationalratswahl 2006 wegen der vielen plausiblen Regierungsoptionen besonders schwierig. Trotzdem haben die österreichischen WählerInnen Koalitionspräferenzen entwickelt. In dem Beitrag wird zunächst die Partei- und Koalitionskonstellation aus der WählerInnensicht insgesamt beschrieben und mit den politischen Einstellungen der Wählerschaft interpretiert. Dann interessiert das Verhältnis zwischen den Partei- und Koalitionspräferenzen bei den einzelnen WählerInnen, weil nicht einfach davon ausgegangen werden kann, dass letztere eine simple Folge der ersteren sind. Im dritten Schritt kann dann nachgewiesen werden, dass die Koalitionspräferenzen auch bei Kontrolle der Parteipräferenzen einen eigenständigen Einfluss auf die Wahlentscheidung haben. Es existiert ein interner Mobilisierungseffekt, der Anhänger einer Partei zur Wahlentscheidung für ihre Partei umso mehr motiviert, je stärker eine bestimmte Koalitionspräferenz der eigenen Partei mit einem plausiblen Koalitionspartner vorhanden ist. Und es existiert ein externer Mobilisierungseffekt bei WählerInnen ohne starke Parteipräferenz. Je positiver diese Gruppe eine große Koalition bewertet hat, desto stärker wuchs die Bereitschaft SPÖ zu wählen, während die ÖVP generell von Koalitionspräferenzen weniger profitierte.' (Autorenreferat)'Outcome-oriented voters take the consequences for government formation into account. This is difficult in multiparty systems generally and it was especially difficult in die Austrian parliamentary election in 2006 because of the many plausible coalition options. Even so, the Austrian voters have developed coalition preferences. The party and coalition preferences are first used to describe their configuration at the macro level and to interpret it with the political attitudes of the electorate. Then the relationship between party and coalition preferences is studied at the micro level since the latter can not be interpreted as a simple consequence of the former. In the third step it is proved that coalition preferences determine the vote even if party preferences are controlled for. There exists an internal mobilization effect: Voters with a strong preference for one party get the better mobilized to vote for that party the more they prefer a specific coalition of their party with a plausible coalition partner. And there exists an external mobilization effect among voters without strong party preferences. The more positive this group rated the grand coalition of SPÖ and ÖVP, the stronger their tendency for an SPÖ vote, whereas the ÖVP could generally not profit from coalition preferences.' (author's abstract)

Partei- und Koalitionspräferenzen der Wähler bei der Bundestagswahl 1998 und 2002

Our basic argument is that in multi-party systems we should not only analyze party preferences but also coalition preferences in order to explain voting behavior. We distinguish between coalition leaning and coalition preference and are interested in explaining under what conditions an explicit preference for a particular coalition of parties will be formed. Our hypothesis is that only for clearly identifiable pre-electoral coalition options we can expect to observe the formation of a coalition preference. We test this hypothesis with data from the German Federal election in 1998 and 2002. We find that parties sending clear coalition signals to the public are able to have an impact on individuals� decision-making process.

Die konfessionell-religiöse Konfliktlinie in der deutschen Wählerschaft: Entstehung, Stabilität und Wandel [1985]

The German religious cleavage developed during a political conflict concerning the rights of the Catholic Church in the early 1870s of the just-founded German Empire. The Christian Democratic Party was successful in transforming this cleavage into a denominational-religious cleavage after WWII. Within the electorate, this cleavage is manifested by the CDU/CSU party identification of both religious Catholics and Protestants, the former delineated by frequency of church attendance, and the latter by religious belief systems. Communal social relationships among these groups support the stability of this cleavage. In addition, the CDU affiliation of Protestants varies by region. It is strongest within the overwhelmingly Protestant northern regions of Germany where the CDU was founded after WWII without “help” of former members of the Catholic Zentrum party. This cleavage between the Christian Democrats on the one side and all other parties on the other side still existed in 1982 as shown with Allbus data of that year

Themenschwerpunkte einer Wissenschaftlerlaufbahn

In the introduction to this HSR Supplement, Franz Urban Pappi recounts the development of his career as a social scientist, following how his academic interests have changed over time. Pappi then discusses why he has chosen social cleavages as the overreaching theme of this HSR Supplement, and follows with a discussion of his other research and publication themes, including topics of: local elites, social networks, and spatial models of party competition

Sozialstruktur, gesellschaftliche Wertorientierungen und Wahlabsicht: Ergebnisse eines Zeitvergleichs des deutschen Elektorats 1953 und 1976 [1977]

Social cleavages are defined as coalitions of large societal groups which are themselves organized in interest groups and other organizations with certain po-litical parties. Overcoming the macro analysis of Lipset and Rokkan, value orientations are analyzed as micro mechanisms connecting social structural positions and voting behavior. By replicating survey questions in 1976 which were first asked in a 1953 survey, changes of in the relation between certain social structural positons and voting over time are documented. A major result is that the political re-orientation of the new middle class towards the Social Democrats was less driven driven less by left economic attitudes than by increasing liberal attitudes towards marriage and family which are were propagated by the SPD