Pub Date : 2026-01-07DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103037
Allan Sikk , Sona N. Golder , Raimondas Ibenskas , Paulina Sałek-Lipcean
Members of parliament (MP) may change their parliamentary party group (PPG) for a variety of reasons including the desire to improve their electoral prospects. But is changing PPGs associated with better electoral performance and outcomes? We show that switchers generally perform worse than non-switchers, though electoral outcomes for switchers vary depending on the nature of their switch. Using an original dataset on Polish MPs since the early 2000s, we examine how party switching affects their electoral performance in terms of (a) running again, (b) re-election success and (c) personal preference votes. We find that switchers are much less likely to seek reelection compared to non-switchers. Among switchers, those not associated with a PPG at the end of the term are less likely to run again than others. Switching is related to weaker electoral performance and re-election success, but the effect depends on the type of switching. While switching is a risky endeavour, some types of switching are riskier than others.
{"title":"Does switching pay off? The impact of parliamentary party instability on individual electoral performance","authors":"Allan Sikk , Sona N. Golder , Raimondas Ibenskas , Paulina Sałek-Lipcean","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103037","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103037","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Members of parliament (MP) may change their parliamentary party group (PPG) for a variety of reasons including the desire to improve their electoral prospects. But is changing PPGs associated with better electoral performance and outcomes? We show that switchers generally perform worse than non-switchers, though electoral outcomes for switchers vary depending on the nature of their switch. Using an original dataset on Polish MPs since the early 2000s, we examine how party switching affects their electoral performance in terms of (a) running again, (b) re-election success and (c) personal preference votes. We find that switchers are much less likely to seek reelection compared to non-switchers. Among switchers, those not associated with a PPG at the end of the term are less likely to run again than others. Switching is related to weaker electoral performance and re-election success, but the effect depends on the type of switching. While switching is a risky endeavour, some types of switching are riskier than others.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103037"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145938546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-07DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2026.103044
Raf Reuse , Dieter Stiers
Ideology is considered one of the main determinants of the vote. However, most research focuses on national elections, leaving the role of policy preferences in local voting behaviour largely unexplored. This gap is surprising, because the role of ideology is more contested in local than in national elections. Whereas some claim that managing local communities is a mostly technocratic affair, others argue that this still allows for ideological divisions between parties and voters. This article contributes to this debate by testing proximity and issue salience voting in local elections in Flanders. Do voters take the positions and issue attention of local parties into account when they cast their ballot at the local level? Using exit poll data combined with a novel measure on local parties' left-right position and issue salience, we find that ideology does matter in determining voter choices. Our results suggest that local elections might be less different from national elections than often assumed.
{"title":"Finding your perfect match nearby. A test of proximity and issue salience voting in local elections","authors":"Raf Reuse , Dieter Stiers","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2026.103044","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2026.103044","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ideology is considered one of the main determinants of the vote. However, most research focuses on national elections, leaving the role of policy preferences in local voting behaviour largely unexplored. This gap is surprising, because the role of ideology is more contested in local than in national elections. Whereas some claim that managing local communities is a mostly technocratic affair, others argue that this still allows for ideological divisions between parties and voters. This article contributes to this debate by testing proximity and issue salience voting in local elections in Flanders. Do voters take the positions and issue attention of local parties into account when they cast their ballot at the local level? Using exit poll data combined with a novel measure on local parties' left-right position and issue salience, we find that ideology does matter in determining voter choices. Our results suggest that local elections might be less different from national elections than often assumed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103044"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145938545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-06DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103040
Elizabeth Evans , Stefanie Reher
Political parties in the UK and elsewhere have, to varying degrees, tried to diversify the pool of candidates from which they can select. Attempts to eradicate the range of institutional and cultural barriers experienced by candidates from under-represented groups, such as women and racially minoritized communities, are beginning to bear fruit. However, less attention has been paid to the specific processes and norms which might make it harder for disabled people to get selected as candidates for elected office. Accordingly, this study takes the UK as its case study to address two inter related questions: 1) what are the political parties doing to make candidate selection more accessible for disabled people?; and 2) what are the experiences of disabled people who participate in the candidate selection process? Drawing upon qualitative analysis of formal party rules and processes, alongside interviews undertaken with over 80 disabled candidates, politicians, and party activists from across the political spectrum, we find a great deal of variation in party approaches. We also identify gaps between formal rules adopted to ensure accessibility and the experiences of disabled candidates. Along the way we also note some of the methodological and empirical challenges of studying candidate selection processes in relation to disability.
{"title":"Ableist institutions and party selection processes: Exploring the political recruitment of disabled candidates","authors":"Elizabeth Evans , Stefanie Reher","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103040","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103040","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Political parties in the UK and elsewhere have, to varying degrees, tried to diversify the pool of candidates from which they can select. Attempts to eradicate the range of institutional and cultural barriers experienced by candidates from under-represented groups, such as women and racially minoritized communities, are beginning to bear fruit. However, less attention has been paid to the specific processes and norms which might make it harder for disabled people to get selected as candidates for elected office. Accordingly, this study takes the UK as its case study to address two inter related questions: 1) what are the political parties doing to make candidate selection more accessible for disabled people?; and 2) what are the experiences of disabled people who participate in the candidate selection process? Drawing upon qualitative analysis of formal party rules and processes, alongside interviews undertaken with over 80 disabled candidates, politicians, and party activists from across the political spectrum, we find a great deal of variation in party approaches. We also identify gaps between formal rules adopted to ensure accessibility and the experiences of disabled candidates. Along the way we also note some of the methodological and empirical challenges of studying candidate selection processes in relation to disability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103040"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145938544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-27DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103026
Yen-Chieh Liao , Li Tang
Electoral systems have profound effects on legislator-constituent communication and representation. In this paper, we examine how Taiwan’s electoral reform—from multi-member districts under the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) to single-member districts under a Mixed Member Majoritarian system (MMM)—shapes district legislators’ particularistic behavior. Using fine-tuned transformer architectures, we analyze over 63,000 parliamentary questions from 402 district legislators spanning two decades to identify geographically targeted content. Controlling for legislator and municipal characteristics, we find that the reform from SNTV to MMM reduces geographically targeted questions, though this effect varies across municipalities with different economic profiles. Our analysis reveals that SNTV is associated with greater particularistic responsiveness to local socioeconomic conditions than single-member districts under MMM, suggesting that candidate-centered electoral systems of different types produce different behavioral incentives.
{"title":"Electoral systems and geographically targeted oversight: Evidence from the Taiwan Legislative Yuan","authors":"Yen-Chieh Liao , Li Tang","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103026","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103026","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Electoral systems have profound effects on legislator-constituent communication and representation. In this paper, we examine how Taiwan’s electoral reform—from multi-member districts under the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) to single-member districts under a Mixed Member Majoritarian system (MMM)—shapes district legislators’ particularistic behavior. Using fine-tuned transformer architectures, we analyze over 63,000 parliamentary questions from 402 district legislators spanning two decades to identify geographically targeted content. Controlling for legislator and municipal characteristics, we find that the reform from SNTV to MMM reduces geographically targeted questions, though this effect varies across municipalities with different economic profiles. Our analysis reveals that SNTV is associated with greater particularistic responsiveness to local socioeconomic conditions than single-member districts under MMM, suggesting that candidate-centered electoral systems of different types produce different behavioral incentives.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103026"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145883467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-22DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103038
Chloé De Grauwe, Silke Goubin
Economic voting theory posits that electoral outcomes are influenced by economic performance: voters reward incumbent parties when the economy performs well and punish them when economic conditions deteriorate. Traditionally, this theory assumes that voters react uniformly to economic conditions. However, this study challenges that notion by exploring how income groups differ in holding incumbents accountable. We hypothesize that lower-income voters who are more vulnerable to economic downturns, and higher-income voters, insulated from personal financial risk but with more available assets, will react differently when economic conditions change. Through analyzing multilevel models based on the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), we find that higher-income voters give more weight to economic evaluations when punishing or rewarding incumbent parties. Our results underscore voter heterogeneity in economic voting, suggesting that incumbents may disproportionately respond to the interests of wealthier voters.
{"title":"Who punishes the government? Income-based disparities in economic voting","authors":"Chloé De Grauwe, Silke Goubin","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103038","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103038","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Economic voting theory posits that electoral outcomes are influenced by economic performance: voters reward incumbent parties when the economy performs well and punish them when economic conditions deteriorate. Traditionally, this theory assumes that voters react uniformly to economic conditions. However, this study challenges that notion by exploring how income groups differ in holding incumbents accountable. We hypothesize that lower-income voters who are more vulnerable to economic downturns, and higher-income voters, insulated from personal financial risk but with more available assets, will react differently when economic conditions change. Through analyzing multilevel models based on the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), we find that higher-income voters give more weight to economic evaluations when punishing or rewarding incumbent parties. Our results underscore voter heterogeneity in economic voting, suggesting that incumbents may disproportionately respond to the interests of wealthier voters.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103038"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145839281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-22DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103035
Ida B. Hjermitslev , Svenja Krauss
Coalition governments have traditionally been criticized for creating low clarity of responsibility and thus impairing voters’ ability to hold representatives accountable. Recent scholarship has suggested that voters are actually evaluating the coalition behavior of individual parties—not only at the end of the government period but also at the government formation stage. The answers to an open-ended question included in the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) in 2020, provide unique insights into the considerations that voters have when evaluating the formation of a government coalition. We find that these considerations include expected policy output, but also other aspects such as ideology, portfolio allocation, and fairness of payoffs etc. When exploring the topic of portfolio allocation in depth, we find that both quantitative and qualitative considerations play a role. Furthermore, we explore whether the extent to which voters think about and rationalize their satisfaction with the coalition formation, and the specific type of considerations that voters have in mind, depend on individual-level characteristics such as satisfaction with the outcome, political sophistication and partisanship.
{"title":"An attentive audience? If and how voters evaluate coalition formation","authors":"Ida B. Hjermitslev , Svenja Krauss","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103035","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103035","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Coalition governments have traditionally been criticized for creating low clarity of responsibility and thus impairing voters’ ability to hold representatives accountable. Recent scholarship has suggested that voters are actually evaluating the coalition behavior of individual parties—not only at the end of the government period but also at the government formation stage. The answers to an open-ended question included in the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) in 2020, provide unique insights into the considerations that voters have when evaluating the formation of a government coalition. We find that these considerations include expected policy output, but also other aspects such as ideology, portfolio allocation, and fairness of payoffs etc. When exploring the topic of portfolio allocation in depth, we find that both quantitative and qualitative considerations play a role. Furthermore, we explore whether the extent to which voters think about and rationalize their satisfaction with the coalition formation, and the specific type of considerations that voters have in mind, depend on individual-level characteristics such as satisfaction with the outcome, political sophistication and partisanship.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103035"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145839282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-22DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103039
Patrick Flavin
Popular media accounts of the 2024 U.S. presidential election contend that inflation played a decisive role in Donald Trump's victory over Kamala Harris. The limited scholarly studies conducted so far on the election also suggest that voters' concerns about inflation and higher prices were pivotal. However, these studies rely exclusively on voters' surveyed perceptions of inflation whereas, to date, there has not been an analysis of whether Trump did better in areas where inflation was objectively worse. Using existing data sources to calculate a measure of price increases at the county level leading up to the 2024 election, I assess whether Trump performed better (relative to the 2020 election) in counties where inflation was higher. My analysis reveals generally consistent evidence that Trump's vote share improved more where inflation was higher – across counties, a one standard deviation increase in inflation predicts a 0.07 to 0.15 percentage point increase in vote share depending on the spending category in question. Notably, in subsample analyses, I also find that the relationship between inflation and Trump's performance is particularly pronounced in lower income counties where the pain of higher prices was likely most acutely felt by voters.
{"title":"Did Trump do better where inflation was worse? Evidence from county-level data","authors":"Patrick Flavin","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103039","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103039","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Popular media accounts of the 2024 U.S. presidential election contend that inflation played a decisive role in Donald Trump's victory over Kamala Harris. The limited scholarly studies conducted so far on the election also suggest that voters' concerns about inflation and higher prices were pivotal. However, these studies rely exclusively on voters' surveyed perceptions of inflation whereas, to date, there has not been an analysis of whether Trump did better in areas where inflation was objectively worse. Using existing data sources to calculate a measure of price increases at the county level leading up to the 2024 election, I assess whether Trump performed better (relative to the 2020 election) in counties where inflation was higher. My analysis reveals generally consistent evidence that Trump's vote share improved more where inflation was higher – across counties, a one standard deviation increase in inflation predicts a 0.07 to 0.15 percentage point increase in vote share depending on the spending category in question. Notably, in subsample analyses, I also find that the relationship between inflation and Trump's performance is particularly pronounced in lower income counties where the pain of higher prices was likely most acutely felt by voters.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103039"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145839280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-19DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103031
James Breckwoldt
Vote-seeking parties have a clear incentive to align their policies with voter demands, but they do not always do so. When demands go unaddressed, this gap between opinion and responsiveness can weaken trust in democracy and boost support for outsider parties. Despite their relevance to electoral competition, progress in uncovering unmet demands and measuring their relative importance to voters has been limited. This study develops a systematic method to prospectively detect ‘issues of high potential’ where there is bottom-up public demand, elite neglect, and the policy could motivate vote choice if a party were to adopt it. I combine open-ended survey responses, parliamentary speech analysis and a conjoint experiment, which is applied to the United Kingdom. I find that this is successful at uncovering a number of high potential policies, including those that are popular and motivating, those that are divisive and polarising, and those that divide public opinion evenly but motivate voting more strongly on one side. The methodology and findings have important implications for issue voting, political entrepreneurship and democratic responsiveness.
{"title":"Issues of high potential: A novel methodology to uncover unactivated public policy demands","authors":"James Breckwoldt","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103031","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103031","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Vote-seeking parties have a clear incentive to align their policies with voter demands, but they do not always do so. When demands go unaddressed, this gap between opinion and responsiveness can weaken trust in democracy and boost support for outsider parties. Despite their relevance to electoral competition, progress in uncovering unmet demands and measuring their relative importance to voters has been limited. This study develops a systematic method to prospectively detect ‘issues of high potential’ where there is bottom-up public demand, elite neglect, and the policy could motivate vote choice if a party were to adopt it. I combine open-ended survey responses, parliamentary speech analysis and a conjoint experiment, which is applied to the United Kingdom. I find that this is successful at uncovering a number of high potential policies, including those that are popular and motivating, those that are divisive and polarising, and those that divide public opinion evenly but motivate voting more strongly on one side. The methodology and findings have important implications for issue voting, political entrepreneurship and democratic responsiveness.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103031"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145796845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-19DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103036
Don S. Lee , Charles T. McClean
Scholars of electoral reform have long debated the trade-off between accountability and representation in majoritarian versus proportional systems, yet few have examined how voters themselves view this trade-off. We argue that voters who have historically lacked political voice, such as women and young people, are more likely to favor reforms that expand representation, even at some cost to accountability. We test this argument using a conjoint experiment conducted before South Korea’s 2020 election—a moment marked by intense public debate over whether the government should implement electoral reforms to enhance representation or accountability. Our findings show that while women and younger voters lean toward more representative rules, they also value accountability and resist certain reforms that would weaken it. This preference for representation is stronger when considering major electoral system changes rather than minor rule adjustments and is especially pronounced among independent or minor party supporters compared to major party supporters. These insights have important implications for our understanding of electoral reform, voter preferences, and the political inclusion of underrepresented groups.
{"title":"How do underrepresented voters view electoral system trade-offs?","authors":"Don S. Lee , Charles T. McClean","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103036","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103036","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Scholars of electoral reform have long debated the trade-off between accountability and representation in majoritarian versus proportional systems, yet few have examined how voters themselves view this trade-off. We argue that voters who have historically lacked political voice, such as women and young people, are more likely to favor reforms that expand representation, even at some cost to accountability. We test this argument using a conjoint experiment conducted before South Korea’s 2020 election—a moment marked by intense public debate over whether the government should implement electoral reforms to enhance representation or accountability. Our findings show that while women and younger voters lean toward more representative rules, they also value accountability and resist certain reforms that would weaken it. This preference for representation is stronger when considering major electoral system changes rather than minor rule adjustments and is especially pronounced among independent or minor party supporters compared to major party supporters. These insights have important implications for our understanding of electoral reform, voter preferences, and the political inclusion of underrepresented groups.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103036"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145796844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-10DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103032
Selcen Cakir , Elif Erbay , Konstantinos Matakos
How do parties update candidate lists after electoral setbacks, and what does this mean for women’s representation? We exploit Turkey’s 2015 back-to-back parliamentary elections as quasi-experimental leverage and implement a difference-in-differences design that compares the governing Justice and Development Party (JDP) to the Republican People’s Party (RPP), whose March 2015 primaries largely fixed the district-level gender composition of slates. Falling short of a single-party majority in June was followed by a roughly 40 % contraction in the JDP’s women candidates and a disproportionate downgrading at electable ranks, interrupting a decade-long upward trend. The contraction is concentrated in conservative strongholds. A rank-weighted decomposition shows that net removals, rather than simple demotions, account for most of the decline; changes outside electable ranks are smaller and imprecisely estimated. Event-time estimates indicate the shock produced a one-off adjustment that reverted by 2018. Taken together, the evidence is most consistent with a mix of statistical discrimination where seats are at stake and attribution bias that overshoots, illustrating how elite responses under compressed timelines can quickly erode representational gains in closed-list systems.
{"title":"All the “Missing” ladies: Attribution bias in candidate selection after electoral setbacks","authors":"Selcen Cakir , Elif Erbay , Konstantinos Matakos","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103032","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.103032","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How do parties update candidate lists after electoral setbacks, and what does this mean for women’s representation? We exploit Turkey’s 2015 back-to-back parliamentary elections as quasi-experimental leverage and implement a difference-in-differences design that compares the governing Justice and Development Party (JDP) to the Republican People’s Party (RPP), whose March 2015 primaries largely fixed the district-level gender composition of slates. Falling short of a single-party majority in June was followed by a roughly 40 % contraction in the JDP’s women candidates and a disproportionate downgrading at electable ranks, interrupting a decade-long upward trend. The contraction is concentrated in conservative strongholds. A rank-weighted decomposition shows that net removals, rather than simple demotions, account for most of the decline; changes outside electable ranks are smaller and imprecisely estimated. Event-time estimates indicate the shock produced a one-off adjustment that reverted by 2018. Taken together, the evidence is most consistent with a mix of statistical discrimination where seats are at stake and attribution bias that overshoots, illustrating how elite responses under compressed timelines can quickly erode representational gains in closed-list systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"99 ","pages":"Article 103032"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145747371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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