Voting research

The coordination of research is a branch mainly of political science , sometimes the communication science , the political geography and political economy . It examines the voting behavior of those entitled to vote. These are usually the voters; but it can also be politicians, for example the members of parliament.

Voting research is carried out on the basis of official statistics on voting behavior or on the basis of data from representative surveys that are collected before or after the behavior and the decision itself.

In contrast to election research , voting research is little developed. This has to do with the selective occurrence of referendums in the various political systems, but also with the complexity of issues, which is higher than in elections.

Voting research is carried out systematically and for a long time only in Switzerland and the USA (especially in California ).

Methods

The following methods are used for voting research, especially for the analysis of decision-making:

Quantitative methods such as surveys of eligible voters (by telephone, orally, online or in writing)
Qualitative methods like focus groups
Projections
Aggregate data analyzes such as initial analyzes
Media content analysis
Estimates based on models

Voting Research Institutes (Switzerland)

The political science institutes of the Universities of Bern , Geneva and Zurich, together with the research institute gfs.bern, publish a well-founded voting investigation after every federal referendum, the so-called VOX analysis , the data of which is open to scientific research.

In addition, nationwide and various cantonal offices publish descriptive and visual representations of the voting results that are accessible to research.

The sotomo research group also conducts research into the voting behavior of politicians, especially national councilors.

Since 1998, the research institute gfs.bern has been regularly analyzing opinion-forming on referendums for the SRG SSR media .

Results

Descriptive spatial analyzes of voting results from referendums are largely limited to the peculiarities of voting behavior according to the characteristics of the settlement and to the influences of language and Denominational contexts. In addition, analytical spatial analyzes show three fundamental lines of conflict in voting behavior in Switzerland that go beyond individual factual issues:

the contrast between right and left (analogous to elections)
the contrast between tradition and modernity
the contrast between technocratic and ecological understanding of politics.

Every topic, but also every place, can be located on these three conflict dimensions. This creates a political space of factual issues and spatial cultures that is much more complex than in electoral research, which mostly manages with the positioning of voters and parties on the left / right axis.

Survey research on voting behavior in referendums, such as the VOX analyzes, confirms the great importance of political orientations and values for factual decisions. Together with everyday experiences, they form the predispositions for a decision. In addition, voting research works with the effects that information processing has on the formation of decision-making intentions.

The simplified notion that, analogous to party identification in elections, most people have clearly defined, static decision-making intentions on all factual issues and at any point in time is considered refuted. This only applies if, on the basis of everyday thematic experiences on the one hand, and political sophistication on the other hand, one has a sufficient idea of the subject of the vote, the problem or problem connected with it. can make the solutions under discussion.

In all other cases, there is a dynamic mixture of general and thematic predispositions on the one hand, and information processing during coordination battles on the other. Individual resp. Collective change of opinion occurs in two forms: the building of opinion from indecision to conclusiveness in one direction or the other, as well as change of opinion from preliminary approval to final rejection (or vice versa).

The disposition approach, which was specially developed for the analysis of opinion formation in referendums, offers explanations and forecasts for this. In the USA, the RAS model developed by the American political scientist John Zaller is mainly used to examine the chances of a change of opinion on factual issues independently of referendums.

Voting research on politicians' decisions also allows a classification of politicians that goes far beyond the left / right axis, usually taking into account the position between modernity and tradition and thus provides a profile of the parliamentarians among themselves, but also in comparison to the positions of their party or faction. This approach objectifies the positioning of party representatives, which is generally defined by membership of a wing.

literature

Patrick Donges (Ed.): Political Communication in Switzerland . Haupt, Bern et al. 2005, ISBN 3-258-06765-1 .
Michael Hermann , Heiri Leuthold : Atlas of the political landscapes. An ideological portrait of Switzerland . vdf Hochschulverlag at the ETH Zurich, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-7281-2901-1 .
Bruno Kaufmann, Rolf Büchi, Nadja Braun: Guidebook to Direct Democracy in Switzerland and Beyond . 2nd edition. The Initiative & Referendum Institute Europe, Bern 2007, ISBN 3-00-019057-0 , (available in various languages).
Hanspeter Kriesi: Citoyenneté et démocratie directe. Competence, participation et décision des citoyens or citoyennes suisses . Seismo, Zurich 1993, ISBN 2-88351-002-4 .
Claude Longchamp: Predispositions and campaigns in Swiss referendums. The disposition approach as an instrument of political communication for decision analysis in direct democracy . In: Theo Schiller, Volker Mittendorf (Ed.): Direct Democracy: Research and Perspectives (= Campus Studies ). Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 978-3-531-13852-7 , pp. 288-303 .
Theo Schiller: Direct Democracy. An introduction . Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2002, ISBN 3-593-36614-2 , ( Campus Studium ).
John R. Zaller: The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-521-40449-5 .