Who wins preference votes? An analysis of party loyalty, ideology, and accountability to voters

We study the distribution of preference votes across politicians with different behaviors and attitudes. There are two main findings. First, preference votes are concentrated to politicians who are more active in communicating their policy proposals and policy priorities. This suggests that preferen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of theoretical politics 2020-01, Vol.32 (1), p.11-35
Main Authors: Folke, Olle, Rickne, Johanna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accountability
Attitudes
Communication
Flexible-list proportional representation
Ideology
local politics
Loyalty
party cohesion
Political parties
Political representation
Politicians
preference vote
Proportional representation
Sweden
Transparency
Voters
Voting
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Summary:We study the distribution of preference votes across politicians with different behaviors and attitudes. There are two main findings. First, preference votes are concentrated to politicians who are more active in communicating their policy proposals and policy priorities. This suggests that preference voting may incentivize more transparency and communication among politicians, and, hence, be positive for accountability. Second, preference votes are concentrated to politicians who are more—not less—loyal to the party in their voting decisions, and to politicians who’s ideological and policy positions are mainstream—rather than extreme—compared to their party colleagues. Together with the first finding, this suggests that preference voting can strengthen the bond of accountability between voters and politicians without undercutting parties’ ideological cohesion.
ISSN:0951-6298
1460-3667
1460-3667
DOI:10.1177/0951629819893028