Publications

Peer-reviewed

Politicians’ Theories of Voting Behavior (with Jack Lucas et al.)

Published in American Political Science Review, 2024

While political scientists regularly engage in spirited theoretical debates about elections and voting behavior, few have noticed that elected politicians also have theories of elections and voting. Here, we investigate politicians’ positions on eight central theoretical debates in the area of elections and voting behavior and compare politicians’ theories to those held by ordinary citizens. Using data from face-to-face interviews with nearly one thousand politicians in 11 countries, together with corresponding surveys of more than twelve thousand citizens, we show that politicians overwhelmingly hold thin, minimalist, “democratic realist” theories of voting, while citizens’ theories are more optimistic and policy oriented. Politicians’ theoretical tendencies—along with their theoretical misalignment from citizens—are remarkably consistent across countries. These theories are likely to have important consequences for how politicians campaign, communicate with the public, think about public policy, and represent their constituents.

Group-based Affect and the Canadian Party System (with Edana Beauvais)

Published in Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, 2024

In terms of party systems, Canada’s is an outlier. In this article, we develop Johnston’s account of Canada’s polarized pluralism in three ways. First, we link the literature on party systems to social identity theory. Second, we make an empirical contribution by directly testing Johnston’s claim that inter-group affect plays a central role in shaping the dynamics of the party system. Using Canadian Election Study (CES) data from seven elections, we offer strong empirical support for the theory of polarized pluralism. Congruent with existing research, we find that the most important feature summarizing group-based affect in Canadian politics corresponds with the ideological Left-Right divide; but we also find that feelings toward groups on a second, uncorrelated axis (feelings toward Quebec and minority groups) shape vote choice. Yet, our results show that fault lines in the polarized pluralist structure of the Canadian party system are emerging.

Policy Signals and Strategic Voting for Minor Parties: Evidence from Germany

Published in Electoral Studies, 2023

How does executive power-sharing in multiparty democracies influence voter decision-making? The current scholarship has identified two strategies that voters use to target coalitions and that involve voting for a minor party: coalition insurance voting and compensatory voting. Yet these strategies are not differentiated conceptually, and empirically, are observationally equivalent. By foregrounding the role of policy signals in strategic voting for minor parties, the present study disentangles these strategies at the theoretical and empirical levels. It also proposes a new, hybrid, strategy. To do so, it uses data on the 2013 and 2017 German federal elections from campaign-period surveys, polls and an original dataset of the candidates’ tweets about policy issues. The results show evidence of policy-driven voters using a hybrid strategy in 2013 and a compensatory strategy in 2017. There is no evidence of coalition insurance voting in these elections.

The Predictable Campaign: Theory and Evidence (with Richard Johnston)

Published in Electoral Studies, 2022

Are campaigns epiphenomena? The dominant answer in the US literature seems to be Yes. Outcomes are driven by ‘fundamental’ considerations in place before the campaign begins, such that dynamics within the campaign reflect the elimination of ‘accidental’ considerations. Multi-country comparisons, where they exist, tend to be fragmentary. Where they are not fragmentary, they are taken from so high an altitude that critical interpretive details are lost. Also fragmentary, surprisingly, is documentation of the US case itself. This paper identifies two overlapping but distinct claims: about frontrunners and about incumbents. We also identify an insufficiently recognized fact, that the very idea of a ‘fundamental’ is contested, and that this broadens the scope for potential within-campaign dynamics. We employ rolling cross-section survey data from the US, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and Canada.

Telephone versus Online Survey Modes for Election Studies: Comparing Canadian Public Opinion and Vote Choice in the 2015 Federal Election (with Charles Breton, Fred Cutler and Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki)

Published in Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, 2017

Election studies must optimize on sample size, cost and data quality. The 2015 Canadian Election Study was the first CES to employ a full mixed-mode design, aiming to take advantage of the opportunities of each mode while preserving enough commonality to compare them. This paper examines the phone interviews conducted by ISR-York and the online questionnaires from panellists purchased from a sample provider. We compare data quality and representativeness. We conduct a comprehensive comparison of the distributions of responses across modes and a comparative analysis of inferences about voting. We find that the cost/power advantages of the online mode will likely make it the mode of choice for subsequent election studies.

Other Academic Work

Policy Design, Cost Information and Support for Guaranteed Income (with Richard Johnston and Alan Jacobs)

Published in BC Basic Income Panel, 2020

This report presents the results of two studies on support for guaranteed income using survey experiments conducted on British Columbia voters. In the first, we test the effect of different policy designs that vary on characteristics like benefit type and eligibility. In the second, we select the two policy designs with the highest support in Study 1 and we test the effect of providing information about their cost on support. We also look at the interaction between demographic variables, like income and education, and our experimental variables.

L’impact de la distance, de la densité et du lieu de vote sur le taux de participation (with Marc André Bodet and Audrey E. Brennan), Published in Cahier de recherche électorale et parlementaire (Chaire de recherche sur la démocratie et les instiutions parlementaires, Université Laval), 2024

This research note looks at the impact of the distance to the polling station and the type of building where this station is situated on electoral participation. Using official electoral and geographical data at the voting subdivision level in two SMP elections in the province of Quebec, we estimate within-unit effects of distance and location. We show that living farther away from the voting location has a non-linear and negative impact on turnout. We also show that polling stations that are situated in buildings with certain functions (educational and religious/cultural) may also affect turnout.