Search

Objectives: Preelectoral party coalitions are common in multiparty systems. We examine the proposition that individuals who choose between parties from competing coalitions think and behave differently compared to those who only consider voting for parties of the same coalition. Part of the reason, we suggest, is that coalition‐straddling voters play a key role in deciding who forms government. Methods: We rely on data from a multiwave panel with thousands of participants collected during two election campaigns in Sweden. Statistical regression techniques are used to analyze the data. Results: We find that citizens who straddle opposing coalitions think that the vote decision is harder and rely more on voting advice applications. Moreover, the evidence suggests that their ultimate vote choice is more consequential in how they view parties. Conclusion: Coalition‐straddling influences political behavior. The evidence is largely in line with the notion that coalition‐straddling individuals are aware of their importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract During a vote-decision process, citizens elect between some of the parties – not all of them. In this paper, we explore a potential strategic reason to include an additional alternative in the consideration set. Drawing on research from the field of strategic voting, we study incentives to defect to a party at risk of falling below an electoral threshold in order to elect a winning coalition ("insurance"). Our argument is that these types of strategic considerations occur already in the campaign, but do not always translate into choice. Using the so-called consideration set model approach (CSM), which focuses on how voters select fewer alternatives among a larger number of parties, we model vote choice over an election campaign using panel data from the Swedish National Election Studies of 2014. In line with our argument, we demonstrate that the insurance strategy was prevalent earlier in the decision-making process, when forming the consideration set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]