Nathalie Giger: Do poor and rich vote differently? Electoral decision-making and unequal representation
Main content
Nathalie Giger, associate professor at University of Geneva, will give a short lecture: Do poor and rich vote differently? Electoral decision-making and unequal representation.
There is extant literature so far documenting the unequal representation of the interests of economically defined groups. One of the potential explanations for this phenomenon resides in the electoral behavior of different groups of voters. More and less affluent citizens could differ in how they reach their electoral choice, and this then matters for unequal representation. If the more affluent base their vote decision more strongly on policy considerations while the less affluent rely on more unconditional forms of electoral support, this pattern could influence the ability of political elites to represent the poor as well as their willingness to do so as the accountability mechanisms might be less at play. We make use of the integrated CSES to study how income affects the way in which voters rely on different voting heuristics like proximity voting, valence considerations and economic voting in their electoral choice across a diverse set of countries. Our findings suggest that these different considerations are used to similar extents by all income groups. The more affluent base their vote decision slightly more strongly on their policy preferences, less affluent put slightly more weight on partisanship and in general their electoral decision making is not as well explained as the choices of the rich. However, substantively these differences are very small and can hardly explain a systematic underrepresentation of the policy preferences of the poor.
Nathalie Giger is Associate Professor at the Department for Political Science and International Relations at the University of Geneva. She has previously been affiliated with the University of Zürich, the University of Mannheim (Mannheim Centre for European Social Research) and the University of Bern. Her research interests include comparative political behavior, political representation and experimental methods of social research.
The CORE Lecture Series is organised by the CORE research group (Citizens, Opinion, Representation, and Elections) at the Department of Comparative Politics. Leading international scholars are invited to present their ongoing research on a broad range of topical issues for the research group.
The seminars are funded by the SAMEVAL grant awarded by the Norwegian Research Council.
The seminar will be held on Zoom and is open to all. Join the Zoom meeting here.
