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A Special Issue on Electoral Psychology
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A Special Issue on Electoral Psychology

A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2019) | Viewed by 31719

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Sarah Harrison

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Government, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, UK
Interests: electoral psychology; electoral ergonomics; electoral behaviour; political parties; youth participation; right-wing extremism; protest voting

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past few years, we have witnessed multiple unpredictable and tense electoral contests. From shock results, such as the victory of “Leave” in the UK referendum on EU membership or of Donald Trump as US President and, more recently, the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, to a seismic reshaping of the party system in Emmanuel Macron’s France or the emergence of populist or extremist parties in countries that have traditionally contained them, such as Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Spain, specialists of electoral behaviour have had excellent reason to question whether we sufficiently understand the complex psychology of voters.

While other approaches, including political sociology, political economy, and the study of electoral context have been largely represented in political science and related disciplines in the past 50 years, this Special Issue of Societies aims to reopen long-standing but not yet resolved questions about how electoral psychology insights could help us to understand some of the puzzles that have confronted us recently. Contributions will examine the role that personality and emotionality play in shaping citizens’ perceptions and behaviour in elections and also assess the extent to which institutional constraints and electoral design may affect psychological responses under the theme of “electoral ergonomics”.

Dr. Sarah Harrison
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Editorial

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10 pages, 235 KiB  
Editorial
What Is Electoral Psychology?—Scope, Concepts, and Methodological Challenges for Studying Conscious and Subconscious Patterns of Electoral Behavior, Experience, and Ergonomics
by Sarah Harrison
Societies 2020, 10(1), 20; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/soc10010020 - 19 Feb 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6465
Abstract
Electoral psychology is defined as any model based on human psychology that is used to explain any electoral experience or outcome at the individual or aggregate level. Electoral psychology can also be an interface with other crucial aspects of the vote. For example, [...] Read more.
Electoral psychology is defined as any model based on human psychology that is used to explain any electoral experience or outcome at the individual or aggregate level. Electoral psychology can also be an interface with other crucial aspects of the vote. For example, the interface between electoral psychology and electoral organization constitutes electoral ergonomics. The very nature of the models tested in electoral psychology has also led scholars in the field to complement mainstream social science methodologies with their own specific methodological approaches in order to capture the subconscious component of the vote and the subtle nature of the psychological processes determining the electoral experience and the way in which it permeates citizens’ thoughts and lives. After defining electoral psychology, this introductory article scopes its analytical roots and contemporary relevance, focuses on the importance of switching from “institution-centric” to “people-centric” conceptions of electoral behavior, and notably how it redefines key concepts such as electoral identity and consistency, and approaches questions of personality, morality, memory, identity, and emotions in electoral psychological models. Then, it discusses some of the unique methodological challenges that the field faces, notably when it comes to analyzing largely subconscious phenomena, and addresses them, before explaining how the various contributions to this Special Issue give a flavor of the scope and approaches of electoral psychology contributions to electoral studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue A Special Issue on Electoral Psychology)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

17 pages, 1171 KiB  
Article
Democratic Frustration: Concept, Dimensions and Behavioural Consequences
by Sarah Harrison
Societies 2020, 10(1), 19; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/soc10010019 - 11 Feb 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5792
Abstract
Using insights from the psychology literature, this article introduces and operationalises the concept of ‘democratic frustration’ to shed new light on the pathologies of democratic crises. While political scientists have devoted ample attention to democratic crises and dissatisfaction, this article suggests that citizens’ [...] Read more.
Using insights from the psychology literature, this article introduces and operationalises the concept of ‘democratic frustration’ to shed new light on the pathologies of democratic crises. While political scientists have devoted ample attention to democratic crises and dissatisfaction, this article suggests that citizens’ frequent references to their “frustration” should be taken more literally. Specifically, it suggests that citizens become frustrated when a perceived democratic delivery deficit interacts with a strong democratic expectation or desire. The article tests this model using two original surveys run in the UK during the 2017 General Election and 2019 European Parliament elections. By measuring expectations and delivery deficit separately, the article maps democratic frustration vis-à-vis alternative concepts such as apathy, criticality, and cynicism, and shows that it is more widespread as an expectation–deficit combination than any of them. It suggests that democratic frustration comprises of three dimensions: ideological, institutional and political. Adapting insights from the psychology of frustration that show it usually results in expressions of withdrawal, anger, or aggression, the article then explores how the three dimensions of frustration typically result in different pathologies. Ideological frustration leads to abstention (withdrawal), institutional frustration to peaceful demonstrations or radical vote (anger) and to envisage leaving one’s country, whilst political and institutional frustrations combine and lead citizens to consider taking part in violent demonstrations or even joining a revolution (aggression). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue A Special Issue on Electoral Psychology)
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10 pages, 1365 KiB  
Article
Electoral Ergonomics: Three Empirical Examples of the Interface between Electoral Psychology and Design
by Michael Bruter
Societies 2019, 9(4), 82; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/soc9040082 - 26 Nov 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3118
Abstract
Electoral ergonomics pertains to the interface between electoral psychology and electoral design. It moves beyond traditional models of electoral organisation that often focus on mechanical effects or changes to who actually votes to investigate the ways in which different forms of electoral organisation [...] Read more.
Electoral ergonomics pertains to the interface between electoral psychology and electoral design. It moves beyond traditional models of electoral organisation that often focus on mechanical effects or changes to who actually votes to investigate the ways in which different forms of electoral organisation will switch on and off various electoral psychology buttons (in terms of personality, memory, emotions and identity) so that the very same person’s electoral experience, thinking process, and ultimately electoral behaviour will change based on the design of electoral processes. This article illustrated this phenomenon based on two case studies, one which showed that young people seemed more likely to vote for radical right parties if they voted postally than in person at the polling station based on panel study evidence from the UK, and another which showed that the time citizens deliberate about their vote varied from 1 to 3 depending on whether they were asked to vote using materialised or dematerialised mono-papers or poly-paper ballots. The article suggested that electoral ergonomics, as the interface between electoral psychology and election design, exceeded the sum of its parts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue A Special Issue on Electoral Psychology)
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15 pages, 1151 KiB  
Article
Is There a Gender Gap in the Sense of Duty to Vote?
by Carol Galais and André Blais
Societies 2019, 9(4), 78; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/soc9040078 - 15 Nov 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4332
Abstract
The topic of gender differences in the propensity to vote has been a central theme in political behavior studies for more than seventy years. When trying to explain why the turnout gender gap has shrunk over the last few decades, some scholars have [...] Read more.
The topic of gender differences in the propensity to vote has been a central theme in political behavior studies for more than seventy years. When trying to explain why the turnout gender gap has shrunk over the last few decades, some scholars have claimed that this might be due to the fact that women are more dutiful than men; however, no study to date has systematically addressed gender differences regarding the sense of civic duty to vote. The present research focused on such differences and empirically tested the role of political interest and moral predispositions on this gender gap. We explored duty levels in nine different Western countries and, most of the time, we found small but significant gender differences in favor of men. Our estimations suggest that this relationship can be explained mainly by the simple fact that women are less interested in politics than men. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue A Special Issue on Electoral Psychology)
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18 pages, 733 KiB  
Article
Political Distrust and its Discontents: Exploring the Meaning, Expression and Significance of Political Distrust
by Eri Bertsou
Societies 2019, 9(4), 72; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/soc9040072 - 30 Oct 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 11388
Abstract
Political distrust has been the norm, rather than the exception, in many established democracies in recent decades. Despite a wealth of data tracking deteriorating citizen attitudes towards their governments, representatives and political systems in general, there is still a debate regarding the meaning [...] Read more.
Political distrust has been the norm, rather than the exception, in many established democracies in recent decades. Despite a wealth of data tracking deteriorating citizen attitudes towards their governments, representatives and political systems in general, there is still a debate regarding the meaning of distrust and its significance for the health of democracies. This article contributes to the discussion by providing qualitative evidence that map the meaning, evaluative dimensions and spill-over process of distrusting political attitudes. It finds, across the three national contexts studied, that citizens express political distrust using similar language and employing the same evaluative structure. Evidence suggests that political distrust is intertwined with the failure of representation and entails a fundamentally ethical dimension. This article concludes with a discussion regarding the implications of these findings for research on diffuse support in democratic systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue A Special Issue on Electoral Psychology)
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