Introduction to Political Science [ 2nd Semester ]

Political Participation
VOTING BEHAVIOUR
Human political actions, such as voting in a democratic election depend on a variety of social
and psychological factors. Voting in elections is the most obvious and direct way in which a
whole population can affect government. Voting is the most distinguishing imperative(essential)
stuff that a citizen can do to make sure that the government operates in the way it is intended;
and guaranteed that their political way of life are heard by the country's political system.
Therefore, the study of voting behaviour is a highly specialized sub-field within political science.
Voting has become virtually a universal means by which individuals make collective decisions.

Voting behavior is a form of political behaviour. Understanding voters' behavior can explain
• how and why decisions were made either by public decision-makers
• or by the electorate.
Interpretation of “voting behavior’ led to the emergence of a new field of study called ‘ political
psychology’.
To make inferences and predictions about behavior concerning a voting decision, certain factors
have to be considered such as gender, race, culture or religion.
Moreover, other influences include the role of emotions, political socialization, tolerance of
diversity of political views and the media.
Surveys from different countries indicate that people are generally happier in individualistic
cultures where they have rights such as the right to vote.
Additionally, social influence and peer effects, as originating from family and friends, also play
an important role in elections and voting behavior.
We learn about voting behavior from the results of the elections. Voting is the most studied of all
the political processes.
Study of the process of political socialization, the process through which the people gain their
political attitudes and behaviours can also be used to know about voting behavior of the
electorate. Researchers believe that around 95% of electorates agree with their parents.

RETROSPECTIVE VOTING:
Some political scientists contend that people engage in retrospective voting. Voters use the past
few years to decide how to vote. In general, if a voter thinks that the country has done well over
the last few years, he or she votes for the party in power.
According to this theory voters cast their vote on what a candidate has done for them
lately.
Voting behavior types
The existing literature does not provide an explicit classification of voting behavior types.
However, research shows
• In national elections it is usually the norm that people vote based on their political beliefs.

1
s.aman
 Introduction to Political Science [ 2nd Semester ]

• Local and regional elections differ, as people tend to elect those who seem more capable
to contribute to their area.
• A referendum follows another logic as people are specifically asked to vote for or against
a clearly defined policy.
Interestingly, an older study in postwar Japan identified that urban citizens were more likely to
be supportive of socialist parties, while rural citizens were favorable of conservative parties.

Meaning of Voting Behaviour

In contemporary democratic arrangement, voting is a method of expressing the approval or
disapproval of the policies, programmes and decisions of the administrative authority.

Voting may perhaps be looked upon as "the basic decision-making process in a democracy." It
may also describe the process either by which citizens choose candidates for public office or the
formal recording of opinion of a group on any subject. In either sense, it is a means of
transforming numerous individual opinions into a coherent and collective basis for decision.
Voters tend to choose candidates whom they perceived as benefiting them the most and as
having a reasonable chance of winning.

The study of voting behaviour started around the 18th century.

Voting behaviour refers to factors that determine the manner in which a particular group of
people vote for a specific political party or candidates that are up for elections. Therefore, voting
behaviour as Kini, sums up can be regarded as:

(1) a mode of legitimizing democratic rule;

(2) "participation" in the political process involving integration into the political community;
(3) an act of decision-making;
(4) a role-action involving political orientation imbedded in apolitical culture;
(5) a direct relation of the individual citizens to the formal government.

The notion of voting behaviour implies the study of voter's preferences, alternative, programmes,
ideology, etc., on which elections are fought. Among other things, voting behaviour helps to
arrive to a decision

• which official are chosen to run our governments,

• the multiplicity of parties that voters have to choose from at the polls,
• how many citizens will turn out to vote,
• who will or will not be represented in our legislatures, and
• whether the majority will rule.

It has a thoughtful consequence not only on the process of elections, but also on the degree to
which a political system is fair, representative, and democratic. Therefore, it lies at the heart
of democratic process and are an expression of popular will.

2
s.aman
 Introduction to Political Science [ 2nd Semester ]

Factors affecting Voting Behaviour

Voting behaviour is rather a complex and multi-faceted subject. Diverse factors that comprise
both political and non-political have an effect on it. Its determinants are vast and wide-ranging,
and differ from one person to another to a substantial degree. Voting behaviour is determined by
the political attitudes, assumptions, policy preferences, and partisan loyalties of individuals and
the political and institutional context within which they cast their votes in an election.

A variety of research on the study of voting behaviour has identified two major types of factors,
which can be broadly categorized as sociological (demographic, social, and economic attributes)
and psychological (politically relevant attitudes, beliefs and values).

Voters preferences can be predicted not by one sociological factor but many.

Sociological factors
Voters are influenced by sociological factors such as income, occupation, education, gender,
age, religion, ethnic background, geography, and family.

Gender: The analysis of sex is an important indicator of voting behaviour. Women voters tend
to be more wavering about their intention to vote as also in the voting act itself than the male
voters. However, the commitment is more to candidate then to party both to males and females.
Village consensus and advice of village headman work more with female voters than with male
voters, while the merit of the candidates attracts more males than females. Consequently, where
there is a difference between the voting pattern of the two sexes, women tend to support
traditionalist parties more than modernising ones.

Kinship: Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through
either biological or cultural, or historical descent. In a kinship based society, kinship provides
many of the social relations in which a person is likely to be involved in the course of his
life. Strong kinship and village loyalties affects a person’s choice; the family or the wife voting
as father or husband suggests, and the village casting its vote according to the advice of the
head-man or influential elder. Kins and clans are used to campaign for one or the other
candidate.

Age: Age has often been described as one of the leading indicators of voting behaviour, though it
is difficult to treat as an independent variable. As Alan R. Ball has pointed out, age is a 'complex
variable'. In common parlance, older citizens tend to vote for conservative parties but this may be
simple reflections of the historical period when the electors' voting habits were being formed.
Age may be less important than the strength of the voters' attachment to a political party, and it is
this allegiance that hardens with age.

Education: Over the years, education has emerged as one of the major predicators of voting.
Educations widen the political visualization and "expands the horizon of one's interest in the
political process. It enables the individual to develop the skill for political participation." The

3
s.aman
 Introduction to Political Science [ 2nd Semester ]

electorate having more years of formal education has the greater probability of exercising their
franchise in any election.

Economic Factors: The economic status of the electorate is an important indicator of voting
behaviour. Though it is often considered as non-existent impact on voting, economic factors play
an important role in shaping voting behaviour of the electorate.

Poor voters are reported to have received money offered by various candidates.

Public Employment: Along with education and economic status, occupation appears to exert a
great effect on voting behaviour. Public officials tend to take greater interest in voting and are
usually votes for the party which is likely to address their interest. Even farmers, who are
conventionally viewed as being uncommonly likely to abstain from voting, have become much
less distinctive in this regard. Studies have also revealed that government workers of all types
tend to take an unusual interest in political matters and are unlikely to vote in the election.
Urbanization – Industrial development – Indoctrination

Psychological Factors:
Candidates and issues are the two short term factors that can influence the most loyal voters.
People may vote out of their chosen party candidate if they dislike a candidate or the party stance
on a particular issue.
Interest in Public Affairs: (Political efficacy- belisef that ones vote does matter and can
actually make a difference) ( civic duty- belief that a citizen should vote to support
democratic govt.)Those voters who have interest in public affairs and who follows the news of
the present day situation are likely voters in any election. This is because of the fact that such
voters are very much concern with the affairs of state's policies and programme. On the contrary,
there are some who take minimal interest in such affairs and are unlikely voters.

Strength and Direction of Party loyalty: Voting behaviour is more easily explained by
emphasising party loyalty. Some party men are likely to vote in elections than others as different
parties may draw their members from different social base which reflects the weakness and the
strength of the party. However, in India, people do not hesitate to shift their votes from one party
to another as parties' identities are not very strong. Though party loyalty is an important indicator
of voting behaviour, it is often "determined by other factors like social class, economic position
or ethnic affiliation."

Perceived difference between Parties: In any election, if there is a clear-cut difference of

ideologies between the contesting parties, the electorates are more likely to exercise their
franchise. If the parties and the candidates are same and not easy to distinguish from each other,
then there will be a little point in electoral participation.
Charisma of the Candidate: (integrity, reliability and competence are three important
dimensions of a candidate’s image. Image plays a role in voting)

Role of personality in influencing the electoral behaviour cannot be refuted, Charisma refers to
mean 'a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from

4
s.aman
 Introduction to Political Science [ 2nd Semester ]

ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural ... or ... exceptional powers or
qualities'. Moreover it is this quality of the leader which enables him to attract a large number of
people and under the influence of which the people pay reverence to the charismatic leader.
Therefore, there is a strong belief that organisation of political party under a charismatic leader is
a source of popular support for the party.
Pubic Opinion and Mass Media: Public opinion and mass media has, of late, become an
important indicator of voting behaviour. Public opinion refers to the attitudes of a significant
number of people about public affairs, or matters of government and politics that concern the
people at large. Mass media has the capacity to bring matters to the attention of the public or to
conceal them. While the media may ignore certain topics or exaggerate others, the public also
has an enormous capacity for being highly selective in what to take interest in.

Party Identification: People still generally vote for a party that they still agree with. With the
emergence of TV channels networks and internet during 1980 and 1990, the hold of the party on
voters started eroding but again started stabilizing by 2000. So there is a large group of floating
voters who are up for grab during election campaign.

Affective influence: means role of human emotions

Affective means relating to, resulting from, or influenced by the emotions (emotionally charged).
A growing literature believes that affective factors play a role in public voting behavior that can
be both beneficial and biasing. Affect here refers to the experience of emotion or feeling, which
is often described in contrast to Cognition(logic).
Research in political science has traditionally ignored non-rational (non-logical) considerations
in its theories of mass political behavior, but the incorporation of social psychology has become
increasingly common. In exploring the benefits of affect on voting, researchers have argued that
affective factors such as anxiety and enthusiasm encourage the evaluation of new political
information and thus benefit political behavior by leading to more considered choices.
Others, however, have discovered ways in which affect such as emotion and mood can
significantly bias the voting choices of the electorate. For example, evidence has shown that a
variety of events that are irrelevant to the evaluation of candidates but can stir emotions, such as
the outcome of football matches and weather, can significantly affect voting decisions.
Mechanisms of affective influence on voting
The differential effect of several specific emotions have been studied on voting behavior:
Surprise – Recent research suggests that the emotion of surprise may magnify the effect of
emotions on voting. In assessing the effect of home-team sports victories on voting, Healy et al.
showed that surprising victories provided close to twice the benefit to the incumbent party
compared to victories overall.
Anger – Affective theory would predict that anger increases the use of generalized knowledge
and reliance upon stereo-types. In a study, subjects primed with the anger emotion were
significantly less likely to seek information about a candidate and spent less time reviewing a
candidate's policy positions on the web.
Anxiety – Affective Intelligence Theory identifies anxiety as an emotion that increases political
attentiveness while decreasing reliance on party identification when deciding between

5
s.aman
 Introduction to Political Science [ 2nd Semester ]

candidates, thus improving decision-making capabilities. Voters who report anxiety regarding an
election are more likely to vote for candidates whose policies they prefer. Others have denied
that anxiety’s indirect influence on voting behavior has been proven to the exclusion of
alternative explanations, such as the possibility that less preferred candidates produce feelings of
anxiety.
Fear – Studies in psychology has shown that people experiencing fear rely on more detailed
processing when making choices. One study found that subjects primed with fear spent more
time seeking information on the web.
Pride - Results from the American National Elections Survey found that pride, along with hope
and fear, explained a significant amount of the variance in peoples' 2008 voting choices. Appeals
to pride are found to be effective in motivating voter turnout.
Practical implications:
Political campaigns
The use of emotional appeals in political campaigns to increase support for a candidate or
decrease support for a challenger is a widely recognized practice and a common element of any
campaign strategy. Campaigns often seek to instill positive emotions such as enthusiasm and
hopefulness about their candidate among party bases to improve turnout and political activism
while seeking to raise fear and anxiety about the challenger.
( role of political parties & interest groups )
Political surveys
Research findings illustrate that it is possible to influence a persons' attitudes toward a political
candidate using carefully crafted survey questions, which in turn may influence his or her voting
behavior.
e.g- A laboratory study in the UK focused on participants' attitude toward former Prime Minister
Tony Blair during the 2001 pre-election period via a telephone survey. After gauging
participants' interest in politics, the survey asked the participants to list either i) two positive
characteristics of the Prime Minister, ii) five positive characteristics of the Prime Minister, iii)
two negative characteristics of the Prime Minister, or iv) five negative characteristics of the
Prime Minister. Participants were then asked to rate their attitude toward Blair on a scale from 1
to 7 where higher values reflected higher favorability.
Listing five positive or negative characteristics for the Prime Minister was challenging;
especially for those with little or no interest in politics. The ones asked to list five positive
characteristics were primed negatively towards the politicians because it was too hard to name
five good traits. On the contrary, following the same logic, those who were to list five negative,
came to like the politician better than before. This conclusion was reflected in the final survey
stage when participants evaluated their attitude toward the Prime Minister.
Military Voting Behavior
Recent research into whether military personnel vote or behave politically than the general
population has challenged some long-held conventional wisdom. The political behavior of
officers has been extensively studied (by Holsti, Van Riper & Unwalla, and Feaver & Kohn ) in
the United States, particularly since the end of the Vietnam War, officers are strongly
conservative in nature and tend to identify with the Republican Party in the United States.

6
s.aman