Nathalie Giger: Do poor and rich vote differently? Electoral decision-making and unequal representation

Nathalie Giger, førsteamanuensis ved University of Geneva, vil holde en kort forelesning: 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 er førsteamanuensis ved Institutt for statsvitenskap og internasjonale relasjoner ved Universitetet i Genève. Hun har tidligere vært tilknyttet Universitetet i Zürich, Universitetet i Mannheim (Mannheim Center for European Social Research) og Universitetet i Bern. Hennes forskningsinteresser inkluderer komparativ politisk atferd, politisk representasjon og eksperimentelle metoder for samfunnsforskning.

Arrangementet er en del av CORE Lecture Series, organisert av forskningsgruppen MOR ved Institutt for sammenliknende politikk. Ledende internasjonale forskere inviteres til å presentere sin pågående forskning om et bredt spekter av interessefeltet til forskningsgruppen - medborger, opinion, representasjon og valg.

CORE Lecture Series er finansiert av SAMEVAL-tildelingen fra Norges forskningsråd.

Arrangementet foregår på Zoom og er åpent for alle interesserte. Delta her.