The conventional wisdom about tactical voting is wrong

Have you ever voted for another party because you felt that your party had no chance of winning the seat? If yes, then you might be among the 5 to 10 per cent of tactical voters. In this article, Michael Herrmann, Simon Munzert, and Peter Selb explain how, contrary to popular belief, the Liberal Democrats were the big winners of tactical voting in 1997 and 2001

Partisan choices in a direct-democratic campaign

Ever since Lazarsfeld and his colleagues' (1944) seminal study, it has become common wisdom that election campaigns, if anything, serve the activation of voters' fundamental predispositions. However, disagreement emerges on the role of partisan orientations. Although some authors consider them as fundamental predispositions, which are activated during the campaign and subsequently act as filters for incoming information, others argue that party attachments are simple running tallies of political assessments, which are constantly updated in response to campaign events, or decision shortcuts for voters innocent of substantial information. In this study, we scrutinize the role of partisan orientations in a direct-democratic campaign using data from a panel survey fielded during the run-up to the 2006 Swiss asylum law referendum. We find that, as voters accumulate knowledge in the course of the campaign, vote intentions dramatically converge on pre-campaign partisan orientations. Moreover, voters, whose earlier issue-specific and partisan orientations collide, tend to resolve their ambivalence in favour of their partisan leanings. These results corroborate the view of partisanship as a fundamental predispositio

Content comparison and personcenteredness of standards for quality improvement in cardiovascular health care

Background: Quality standards are important for improving health care by providing compelling evidence for best practice. High quality person-centered health care requires information on patients’ experience of disease and of functioning in daily life. Objective: To analyze and compare the content of five Swedish National Quality Registries (NQRs) and two standard sets of the International Consortium of Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) related to cardiovascular diseases. Materials and methods: An analysis of 2588 variables (= data items) of five NQRs—the Swedish Registry of Congenital Heart Disease, Swedish Cardiac Arrest Registry, Swedish Catheter Ablation Registry, Swedish Heart Failure Registry, SWEDEHEART (including four sub-registries) and two ICHOM standard sets–the Heart Failure Standard Set and the Coronary Artery Disease Standard Set. According to the name and definition of each variable, the variables were mapped to Donabedian’s quality criteria, whereby identifying whether they capture health care processes or structures or patients’ health outcomes. Health outcomes were further analyzed whether they were clinician- or patient-reported and whether they capture patients’ physiological functions, anatomical structures or activities and participation. Results: In total, 606 variables addressed process quality criteria (31%), 58 structure quality criteria (3%) and 760 outcome quality criteria (38%). Of the outcomes reported, 85% were reported by clinicians and 15% by patients. Outcome variables addressed mainly ‘Body functions’ (n = 392, 55%) or diseases (n = 209, 29%). Two percent of all documented data captured patients’ lived experience of disease and their daily activities and participation (n = 51, 3% of all variables). Conclusions: Quality standards in the cardiovascular field focus predominately on processes (e.g. treatment) and on body functions-related outcomes. Less attention is given to patients’ lived experience of disease and their daily activities and participation. The results can serve as a starting-point for harmonizing data and developing a common person-centered quality indicator set

Who are the users of ChatGPT? Implications for the digital divide from web tracking data

A major challenge of our time is reducing disparities in access to and effective use of digital technologies, with recent discussions highlighting the role of AI in exacerbating the digital divide. We examine user characteristics that predict usage of the AI-powered conversational agent ChatGPT. We combine web tracking and survey data of N=1068 German citizens to investigate differences in activity (usage, visits and duration on chat.openai.com). We examine socio-demographics commonly associated with the digital divide and explore further socio-political attributes identified via stability selection in Lasso regressions. We confirm lower age and more education to affect ChatGPT usage, but not gender and income. We find full-time employment and more children to be barriers to ChatGPT activity. Rural residence, writing and social media activities, as well as more political knowledge, were positively associated with ChatGPT activity. Our research informs efforts to address digital disparities and promote digital literacy among underserved populations

Eidgenössische Wahlen 1999 und 2003: Panelbefragung

Die Schweizer Wahlstudie Selects 2003 knüpft an ihre beiden Vorgängerstudien Selects 1995 (Ref. Nr. 1815) und Selects 1999 (Ref. Nr. 6646) an. Während in Selects 1995 die Wirkung institutioneller, struktureller und kultutreller Differenzen zwischen den Kantonen auf das individuelle Wahlverhalten im Vordergrund stand, beschäftigte sich Selects 1999 zentral mit den Meinungsbildungsprozessen in Wahlkampagnen bis hin zum individuellen Wahlentscheid. Im Rahmen von Selects 2003 wurden Befragungs- und Kontextdaten erhoben, die einerseits in Anknüpfung an Selects 1995 die Untersuchung der Wirkung kantonaler Bedingungen auf das Wahlverhalten, diesmal auch in dynamischer Perspektive, erlauben. Andererseits ermöglicht eine nationale Panelbefragung der Respondenten aus Selects 1999 erstmals die Analyse der Veränderungen von individuellen Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen zwischen zwei Wahlen. Mit Blick auf die international vergleichende Wahlforschung war darüber hinaus auch das zweite Modul der Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) integraler Bestandteil von Selects 2003, nachdem Modul 1 bereits im Rahmen von Selects 1999 realisiert wurde. Neben den Befragungen wurde im Rahmen von Selects 2003 auch eine Erhebung der Wahlkampfberichterstattung in ausgewählten Printmedien durchgeführt, die es ermöglicht, individuelle Meinungen und Verhaltensweisen in ihren Informationskontext einzubetten. Die über die vergangenen Jahre voran getriebenen Bemühungen zur Institutionalisierung der Schweizer Wahlstudie zeigen mittlerweile einen grossen Erfolg: Die Schweizer Wahlstudie Selects gehört seit Februar 2004 zu den Infrastrukturaufgaben des Schweizerischen Nationalfonds NF.Selects 2003 was financed by the Federal Chancellery, the Swiss Academy for the Human and Social Sciences SAGW, and the Swiss National Science Foundation. Post-election Survey A national telephone survey was conducted immediately after the October elections, and correspondent contextual data was collected. The survey included 5900 interviews, of which 2000 were from a national representative sample. In addition, the number of interviews was increased to 600 in the cantons of Zurich, Bern, Luzern, Schaffhausen, Aargau, Ticino, Vaud, and Geneva, allowing for the effects of the variety of the electoral systems, parties, as well as differences in the political culture between cantons, to be taken into account in the analysis of electoral behavior. Additional interviews were also conducted to ensure at least 30 respondents in smaller cantons. Panel Study 1999-2003 In Selects 1999, a panel study was conducted in the cantons of Zurich, Luzern, and Geneva, so as to study the opinion formation processes during the campaign. In 2003, 898 of the 2048 respondents from the national sample of Selects 1999 were interviewed, which permitted, for the first time in Switzerland, to study the stability and change in individual opinion and behavior between elections

Die eidgenössischen Wahlen 2003 in den Medien

Die Schweizer Wahlstudie Selects 2003 knüpft an ihre beiden Vorgängerstudien Selects 1995 (Ref. Nr. 1815) und Selects 1999 (Ref. Nr. 6646) an. Während in Selects 1995 die Wirkung institutioneller, struktureller und kultutreller Differenzen zwischen den Kantonen auf das individuelle Wahlverhalten im Vordergrund stand, beschäftigte sich Selects 1999 zentral mit den Meinungsbildungsprozessen in Wahlkampagnen bis hin zum individuellen Wahlentscheid. Im Rahmen von Selects 2003 wurden Befragungs- und Kontextdaten erhoben, die einerseits in Anknüpfung an Selects 1995 die Untersuchung der Wirkung kantonaler Bedingungen auf das Wahlverhalten, diesmal auch in dynamischer Perspektive, erlauben. Andererseits ermöglicht eine nationale Panelbefragung der Respondenten aus Selects 1999 erstmals die Analyse der Veränderungen von individuellen Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen zwischen zwei Wahlen. Mit Blick auf die international vergleichende Wahlforschung war darüber hinaus auch das zweite Modul der Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) integraler Bestandteil von Selects 2003, nachdem Modul 1 bereits im Rahmen von Selects 1999 realisiert wurde. Neben den Befragungen wurde im Rahmen von Selects 2003 auch eine Erhebung der Wahlkampfberichterstattung in ausgewählten Printmedien durchgeführt, die es ermöglicht, individuelle Meinungen und Verhaltensweisen in ihren Informationskontext einzubetten. Die über die vergangenen Jahre voran getriebenen Bemühungen zur Institutionalisierung der Schweizer Wahlstudie zeigen mittlerweile einen grossen Erfolg: Die Schweizer Wahlstudie Selects gehört seit Februar 2004 zu den Infrastrukturaufgaben des Schweizerischen Nationalfonds NF.Selects 2003 was financed by the Federal Chancellery, the Swiss Academy for the Human and Social Sciences SAGW, and the Swiss National Science Foundation. Post-election Survey A national telephone survey was conducted immediately after the October elections, and correspondent contextual data was collected. The survey included 5900 interviews, of which 2000 were from a national representative sample. In addition, the number of interviews was increased to 600 in the cantons of Zurich, Bern, Luzern, Schaffhausen, Aargau, Ticino, Vaud, and Geneva, allowing for the effects of the variety of the electoral systems, parties, as well as differences in the political culture between cantons, to be taken into account in the analysis of electoral behavior. Additional interviews were also conducted to ensure at least 30 respondents in smaller cantons. Panel Study 1999-2003 In Selects 1999, a panel study was conducted in the cantons of Zurich, Luzern, and Geneva, so as to study the opinion formation processes during the campaign. In 2003, 898 of the 2048 respondents from the national sample of Selects 1999 were interviewed, which permitted, for the first time in Switzerland, to study the stability and change in individual opinion and behavior between elections

A deeper look at the proportionality-turnout nexus

Evidence that turnout is higher under proportional representation (PR) than in majoritarian elections is overwhelming. Yet previous research has largely failed to explain why. One line of argument maintains that higher turnout under PR is a by-product of larger party systems. However, a larger number of parties has been demonstrated to depress turnout. Alternatively, it is argued that majoritarian electoral systems tend to produce safe seats and that voters have little incentive to turn out there. Thus, uneven turnout over electoral districts due to variable intensities of local competition is made responsible for the lower overall turnout. Empirical evidence on this conjecture is scant. This article scrutinizes the relationship between electoral rules, competition, and turnout with district-level data from 31 national elections. Results from a heteroscedastic model indicate that lower net turnout in majoritarian systems is indeed a consequence of uneven turnout over districts due to variable levels of local competitiveness