Voting Pocketbook or Voting Your Place? Decomposing Variance in Economic Voting

• In Event: Political Geography, Political Economy, and Representation

Abstract

Many accounts of changing voting patterns in advanced industrial democracies focus on political geography. Subnational clustering of voting may indicate that place-based factors are an important determinant of political behavior. Using methodology to decompose variation in voting, we examine whether place-based economic factors, in addition to pocketbook economic interests, are predictors of individuals' vote choices and how cohesively income groups vote. In a cross-national sample from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, we measure redistributive orientation in party voting among rich and poor voters in rich and poor regions. We argue that individuals in rich regions have strong theoretical place-based motivations to support redistributive parties, and those in poor places also have reason to support more economically conservative parties. We document an overall preference towards less redistributive parties as individual income rises, but the average effect obscures considerable variability among rich and poor people that depends on their location. Rich and poor people in poor places vote significantly more for parties opposed to redistribution than their counterparts in rich regions. By decomposing vote choice variance, we also identify the cohesiveness of class-based and region-based voting groups. We argue that cross-pressure coming from voters' individual incomes and that of their regions leads to high variability in rich voters in rich regions, in particular. Of all subgroups, we find the strongest voting cohesion among the rich in poor regions, in which both their individual motivations and place motivations push them towards conservative parties. Our empirical approach and findings have the potential to spur new research on the place-based effects of voting behavior.

Authors

• Dong Wook Lee, Adelphi University

• Melissa Ziegler Rogers, Claremont Graduate University