ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR: Exploring The Role of Institutions, Campaigns, Parties & Events

Transcription

1 Syllabus Spring 2012 ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR: Exploring The Role of Institutions, Campaigns, Parties & Events Départment Science Politique et Relations Internationales Université de Genève PRACTICAL INFORMATION Meeting Time: Wednesday am Meeting Room: Uni-Mail M 2193 Instructor: Catherine E. De Vries Office: Uni-Mail, 4th floor, room 4266 Telephone: catherine.devries@unige.ch Office Hours: Tuesday am, or by appointment Course Website: COURSE DESCRIPTION This course aims to familiarize students with state-of-the-art approaches within the study of electoral behavior. Specifically, it deals with questions of how the context in which elections are fought and voters have to make up their minds, affects electoral decisions. In order to conceptualize contextual effects in electoral behavior, we will focus on four key components: institutions, campaigns, real-world events, and the behavior and strategies of political parties. In doing so, this course aims to bring together contemporary work on how context characteristics shape voters behavior and partisan leanings. A wide variety of topics will be covered. First, we will review key scholarly work theorizing the role of context in electoral behavior. Next, we turn to studies that spell out the way in which institutional configurations, such as the electoral system or clarity of responsibility, affect voters party choices. Thereafter, we explore the ongoing academic debate regarding the impact of electoral campaigns, and specifically the role the mass media plays within them, on voters decision-making processes. Fourth, we compare and contrast scientific work concerning the role of political parties in shaping voters attitudes and behavior. Finally, we examine recent contributions pointing to the importance of real-world events for understanding dynamics in electoral outcomes. As might be expected for questions as broad and complex as these, while there is much we currently know, many debates are still open. The objective of this course is to weigh the available evidence both descriptive and inferential to arrive at the fullest possible understanding of the contextual forces shaping electoral behavior. Although many examples will come from the United States and Europe, we will also aim to apply the different approaches to specific developments in Switzerland. COURSE REQUIREMENTS This course is a Master level reading and discussion seminar. All students are expected to have done the required reading before each seminar, and come to class with a willingness to critically reflect on the readings. Since some of the readings may be fairly challenging at times, having multiple people contribute through class discussion and questions about difficult topics will help everyone s understanding of the material. Participating in class also demonstrates that you have done the reading. For these reasons, a grade for classroom participation will be given. Considering that we have 12 classes that will last two hours, everyone should have ample opportunity to participate. One absence during the semester upon prior notification via is granted. In this course there will be no final exam. Instead, grading is based on classroom participation (20 %), a presentation (30 %), and two response papers (50 %). The presentation should provide a short and concise summary (maximum of 15 minutes) of the week s readings, and should serve as a basis for in-class 1

2 discussion. The two response papers are meant to survey and compare the readings of the week. These written assignments should highlight the central themes and points of disagreement in the literature, and pose any potentially important but unanswered questions. Students will sign up on the first day of class for the weeks in which they will prepare a presentation, or write a response paper. The response papers should be handed in via on the Monday afternoon (3 pm at the latest) after the class in which the readings were discussed. The response papers should be between 3,000 and 4,000 words in length, and should follow the usual formatting, and citation requirements of research papers. More information on the format of the presentation and response papers will be provided during the first week of the course. Students are expected to follow the honor code of the Universié de Genève at all times, particularly with respect to issues of honesty and attribution. Instances of suspected academic misconduct will be handled strictly in line with University policy (see Art. 63 of the Loi sur l Université). REQUIRED TEXTS In a field like electoral behavior in which the topics addressed are broad, and thus defy easy summary, major contributions are, and will likely be made, in books. That is not to say that shorter academic journal articles are not important, we will read many of them, but we will also focus on several book chapters throughout this course. Articles and/or book chapter that are not available online are made available through the course website. In addition, we will read a variety of texts that are available online (see course website). Finally, please note that next to the required reading, the course schedule also entails some optional reading. These optional texts are listed to provide additional insight into the topics we address during the class, and will be crucial in preparing a presentation, or writing a response paper. 2

3 COURSE SCHEDULE & READINGS Session 1: February 22 Introduction: Electoral Behavior in Overview Bartels, Larry (2008) The Study of Electoral Behavior. See bartels/electoralbehavior.pdf Curtice, John (2002) The State of Election Studies: Mid-Life Crisis of New Youth? Electoral Studies 21: None. Session 2: February 29 Conceptualizing Context in Electoral Behavior Franklin, Mark and Christopher Wlezien (2002) Reinventing Election Studies. Electoral Studies 21: Marsh, Michael (2002) Electoral Context. Electoral Studies 21: None. Session 3: March 7 Institutions I: Electoral Systems Blais, Andre, Romain Lachat, Airo Hino & Pascal Doray-Demers (2011) The Mechanical and Psychological Effects of Electoral Systems: A Quasi-Experimental Study. Comparative Political Studies 44: Kedar, Orit (2006) How Voters Work Around Institutions: Policy Balancing in Staggered Elections. Electoral Studies 25: Bargsted, Matias & Orit Kedar (2009) Coalition-Targeted Duvergerian Voting: How Expectations Affect Voter Choice under Proportional Representation. American Journal of Political Science 53: Session 4: March 14 Institutions I: Clarity of Responsibility De Vries, Catherine E., Erica E. Edwards & Erik R. Tillman (2011) Clarity of Responsibility Beyond the Pocketbook: How Political Institutions Condition EU Issue Voting. Comparative Political Studies 44: Powell, G. Bingham & Guy D. Whitten (1993) A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context. American Journal of Political Science 37: Tillman, Erik R. (2008) Economic Judgments, Party Choice, and Voter Abstention in Cross- National Perspective. Comparative Political Studies 41:

4 Session 5: March 21 Campaigns I: Do They Matter? Finkel, Steven E. (1993) Reexamining the Minimal Effects Model in Recent Presidential Campaigns. Journal of Politics 55:1-21. Iyengar, Shanto & Adam F. Simon (2000) New Perspectives and Evidence on Political Communication and Campaign Effects. Annual Review of Psychology 51: Farrell, David & Ruediger Schmitt-Beck, eds. (2002) Do Political Campaigns Matter? London: Routledge. Session 6: March 28 Campaigns II: Campaign Effects in Elections Druckman, Jamie (2004) Priming the Vote: Campaign Effects in a U.S. Senate Election. Political Psychology 25: Fournier, Patrick, Richard Nadeau, Andre Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil & Neil Nevitte (2004) Time-of-Voting Decision and Susceptibility to Campaign Effects. Electoral Studies 23: Arceneaux, Kevin (2006) Do Campaigns Help Voters Learn? A Cross-National Analysis. British Journal of Political Science 36: Stevenson, Randolph T. & Lynn Vavreck (2000) Does Campaign Length Matter? Testing for Crossnational Effects. British Journal of Political Science 30: Session 7: April 4 Campaigns III: Campaign Effects in Referenda De Vreese, Claes H. & Holli Semetko (2004) News matters: Influences on the Vote in the Danish 2000 Euro Referendum Campaign. European Journal of Political Research 43: Selb, Peter, Hanspeter Kriesi, Regula Haenggli & Mirko Marr (2009) Partisan Choices in a Direct-Democratic Campaign. European Political Science Review 1: Haenggli, Regula & Hanspeter Kriesi (2010) Political Framing Strategies and Their Impact on Media Framing in a Swiss Direct-Democratic Campaign. Political Communication 27: Session 8: April 11 No Class 4

5 Session 9: April 18 Political Parties I: Selecting Issues? Belanger, Eric & Bonnie M. Meguid (2008) Issue Salience, Issue Ownership, and Issue-Based Vote Choice. Electoral Studies 27: Green, Jane & Sara B. Hobolt (2008) Owning the Issue Agenda: Party Strategies and Vote Choices in British Elections. Electoral Studies 27: Petrocik, John R. (1996) Issue Ownership in Presidential Elections, with a 1980 Case Study. American Journal of Political Science 40: Session 10: April 25 Political Parties II: Vehicles for Choice? Highton, Benjamin (2010) The Contextual Causes of Issue and Party Voting in American Presidential Elections. Political Behavior 32: Lachat, Romain (2008) The Impact of Party Polarization on Ideological Voting. Electoral Studies 27: De Vries, Catherine E. (2007) Sleeping Giant: Fact or Fairytale? Examining the Impact of European Integration on National Elections. European Union Politics. 8: Session 11: May 2 Political Parties III: The Role of Rethorics Merolla, Jennifer & Elizabeth Zechmeister (2011) The Nature, Determinants, and Consequences of Chavez s Charisma: Evidence from a Study of Venezualan Public Opinion. Comparative Political Studies 44: Trager, Robert F. & Lynn Vavreck (2011) The Political Costs of Crisis Bargaining: Presidential Rhetoric and the Role of Party. American Journal of Political Science 55(3): Van der Pas, Daphne, Catherine E. De Vries & Wouter van der Brug (2012) A Leader Without a Party: Exploring the Relationship Between Geert Wilders Leadership Performance in the Media and His Electoral Success. Forthcoming in Party Politics, see course website on dokeos. Session 12: May 9 No Class 5

6 Session 13: May 16 Real-World Events: How Events Shape Election Outcomes Bechtel, Michael & Jens Hainmueller (2011) How Lasting Is Voter Gratitude? An Analysis of the Short- and Long-Term Electoral Returns to Beneficial Policy. American Journal of Political Science 55: Margalit, Yotam (2012) Costly Jobs: Trade-Related Layoffs, Government Compensation, and Voting in U.S. Elections. American Political Science Review 105: Achen, Christopher H. & Larry M. Bartels (2004) Blind Retrospection: Electoral Responses to Drought, Flu, and Shark Attacks. Working Paper, see course website on dokeos. Session 14: May 23 Wrapping Up: Conclusion & Evaluation 6