Alternating voter

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Swing voters , in a narrower sense of the word voters that in two consecutive parliamentary elections two parties choose. In another sense of the word and those voters are called swing voters referred to in the first or second choice of their right to choose no party, through non-participation in the electoral process , by abstaining exercise or by a deliberately invalid vote. The possibility to cast an empty ballot paper or to vote invalidly in a secret ballot also exists in countries with compulsory voting . The behavior of a swing voter is in contrast to that of a regular voter who chooses the same party in every election.

Citizens who re-elect the party in question after changing the name of a party (example: PDS → Die Linke ) are not considered to be swing voters .

Development of voter behavior

The proportion of swing voters in the narrower sense of the word has increased significantly in the EU compared to before.

Before the AfD moved into the German state parliaments and the Bundestag in the 2017 federal election , the parties represented in the German Bundestag were divided into two political camps, the “right” and the “left” camp. The CDU , the CSU and the FDP were assigned to the “right camp”, the SPD , the Greens and the Left to the “left camp” . The advocates of the " camp theory " assumed before 2017 that z. B. someone who voted for the SPD in the last election, but is dissatisfied with "his" party, votes in the current election either to another "left" party or not to any party, but not a party of the "right camp" will choose. Conversely, it is unlikely that a person entitled to vote who last elected the Union party responsible for him, but is dissatisfied with its current policy, will vote for the Greens in the current election.

The state elections in Bavaria in 2018 showed, for example, that the "camp theory" has become questionable: Compared to 2013, the CSU lost 190,000 voters in Bavaria to the Greens (more than to the AfD), and a quarter of the former SPD voters there voted for the CSU. The AfD and the Free Voters each received more than ten percentage points in the election in Bavaria. The "camp theory" is also called into question by the fact that there are coalitions between the CDU and the Greens in several German state parliaments and that economic liberals and conservatives, who no longer see a political home in the CDU, accuse the party of having three Grand coalitions in the federal government since 2005 "social democratized".

The state election in Bavaria in 2018 is of exemplary importance, also with regard to the loss of importance of the SPD. The proportion of those who voted for the SPD in 2013 and who did so in 2018 is 36.1 percent. The party received 9.7 percent of the vote, making it the fifth largest parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament. Other social democratic parties in Europe suffered a similar loss of votes. The Greek PASOK's share of the vote in parliamentary elections fell from 43.9 percent in 2009 to 4.7 percent in 2015. Some observers of this process speak of a pasokization of socialist or social democratic parties in Europe.

Identification procedure

In order to determine whether citizens are swing voters or not, surveys are usually used. If the so-called panel method is used, people are asked about their voting behavior for the first choice considered; the same people are asked about their current voting behavior for the second election considered. If you compare the two statements with each other, you can determine whether they match or not. This approach is problematic above all because not all of the originally interviewed respondents can be interviewed again and the remaining people can systematically differ from those who have left. In addition, repeat surveys are associated with considerable effort. Therefore, the so-called recall method is used more often. For this purpose, people at the time of the second election under consideration are asked about their current voting behavior as well as about their voting behavior in the past in the election of interest. Only one interview is necessary. But quite a few respondents can no longer remember their previous voting behavior or do not want to admit to it in the interview. Therefore, there are significant measurement errors. In Germany, this widespread method significantly underestimates the frequency of alternate voting.

Declaration of change of elected party

The reason for the increased proportion is seen, among other things, in the fact that traditional ties to certain social groups are increasingly loosening: Religious people tend to vote or chose the CDU, trade unionists tend to the SPD.

There are competing views on the characteristics of swing voters. The skeptical position sees them as “political drifting sand”, which - politically not very interested and informed - is carried now here, now there. The optimistic point of view not only recognizes those citizens who are particularly influential in elections in alternating voters, but also sees them as an elite of voters who are above average and who are very interested in politics. In fact, there are no general differences between swing voters and other voters in Germany with regard to education and political interests. Accordingly, there seems to be a similar number of disinterested, poorly educated and uninformed people as well as highly interested, highly educated and very well informed people among alternate voters as among voters who do not vote for different parties in two successive elections.

There are also cases of forced changes in the voting behavior of individual voters. Those who voted for the NSDAP in the Weimar Republic could no longer vote for this party in the German states after 1945 and in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949; the election of the successor organization SRP was also no longer possible after its ban on May 4, 1951. Even the KPD was no longer eligible for election in the FRG after its ban on August 17, 1956. In Italy, the Democrazia Cristiana party changed its name to Partito Populare Italiano in 1994 , so that PPI voters who voted for the DC in 1992 were not counted as swing voters. After the share of the votes for the DC in parliamentary elections fell from 48.5 percent (1948) to 29.6 percent (1992), the PPI received 11.1 percent of the vote in 1994. After that, the DC / PPI split into several individual parties. All voters of the successor parties of the DC / PPI immediately after 1994 are considered to be swing voters.

Importance as target group of election campaigners

The swing voters play a special role in the campaigns of the major parties because they are considered to be decisive for the election.

The election campaign is mainly aimed at those eligible voters who (for the first time) are to vote for the party being courted. This not only affects alternate voters in the narrower sense of the word, but also former non-voters and potential first-time voters. The previously “big” parties, the (former) people 's parties, primarily address voters who are located in the political center.

However, regular voters are by no means “safe” voters of “their party”. Apart from the fact that many of those close to a party (i.e. people with a high level of party identification ) have always stayed away from individual elections because they did not consider them to be sufficiently important or because they “missed a memorandum” by not voting for “their” party. wanted, there have recently been an increasing number of people who no longer vote for a party, although they have always done so in the past (the Bertelsmann Foundation describes this extreme loyalty as “positive party identity”). So previous regular voters must also be courted, also so that possible attempts to asymmetrical demobilization by election campaigners of competing parties will not be successful.

literature

  • Siegfried F. Franke: Alternating voters. An analysis of electoral mobility using the example of the 1998 Bundestag election and the state parliament elections from 1998 to 2000 . Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 2000. ISBN 3-89518-322-9
  • Sebastian Haffner : Considerations of a change voter . Kindler, Munich 1980. ISBN 3-463-00780-0
  • Ute Kort-Krieger: Alternating voters. Disenchanted parties - experienced democrats . Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1994. ISBN 3-89085-924-0
  • Harald Schoen: Voter change and change of election. A comparative study . West German Publishing House, Wiesbaden 2003.
  • Harald Schoen: Swap voters in the USA, Great Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany: politically adept or ignorant? In: Journal for Parliamentary Questions 35, 2004, pp. 99–112.
  • Harald Schoen: Change of choice. In: Jürgen W. Falter, Harald Schoen (Ed.), Handbook of election research . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 367–387.
  • Carstenzell: The alternating voter. A comparison of political and social approaches to explaining voter change in Germany and the USA . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1995. ISBN 3-531-12766-7

Web links

Wiktionary: alternating voter  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerd Schneider / Christiane Toyka-Seid: The young politics lexicon from www.hanisauland.de . Federal Agency for Civic Education. 2019. Retrieved May 6, 2019
  2. ↑ Swap voters (political science) . wissen.de . Retrieved May 6, 2019
  3. ↑ Sabine Kinkartz: European elections: More than ten percent right-wing regular voters . dw.com . April 26, 2019, accessed May 6, 2019
  4. ↑ Julian Stahnke / Julius Tröger / Sascha Venohr / Matthias Breitinger: Alternating voters in Bavaria: Where the CSU lost the absolute majority . zeit.de . October 15, 2018. Retrieved May 6, 2019
  5. ↑ "Left ideologies determine discussion": The economy takes Merkel politics to court . Focus Money Online . October 23, 2016, accessed May 7, 2019
  6. ^ Unrest in the Union: Conservatives fear loss of their political home . Spiegel Online . September 11, 2010, accessed May 7, 2019
  7. ^ Isabell Trommer: German conservatism has exhausted itself . sueddeutsche.de . January 21, 2019, accessed May 7, 2019
  8. ^ Judith Görs: Social Democracy Medical Record - Why Europe's comrades are on IV drip . n-tv.de . December 29, 2018, accessed May 7, 2019
  9. ↑ Harald Schoen: On the trail of the changing voters: Recall and panel data in comparison. In: Jan W. van Deth, Hans Rattinger , Edeltraud Roller (ed.): The republic on the way to normality? Behavior at the polls and political attitudes after eight years of unity. Leske and Budrich, Opladen 2000, pp. 199-226; Harald Schoen: Change of choice. In: Jürgen W. Falter, Harald Schoen (Ed.), Handbook of election research . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 367–387; Harald Schoen: Does ticket-splitting decrease the accuracy of recalled previous voting? Evidence from three German panel surveys, in: Electoral Studies 30, 2011, pp. 358–365.
  10. ↑ Klaus von Beyme: The political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. An introduction , 9th edition, Westdeutscher Verlag: Wiesbaden 1999, p. 112.
  11. ↑ Jürgen W. Falter, Harald Schoen: Alternating voters in Germany: elite voters or political sands? In: Oskar Niedermayer, Bettina Westle (eds.), Democracy and Participation. Festschrift for Max Kaase, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2000, pp. 13–33.
  12. ↑ Sabine Kinkartz: European elections: More than ten percent right-wing regular voters . dw.com . April 26, 2019, accessed May 8, 2019