Innovative Approaches to Understanding Voter Preferences

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Traditionally, the literature on voter preferences in the context of party politics has focused on outcomes such as vote choice and ideological/policy preferences and on explanations such as socio-economic status or group membership. More recent research recognizes a much richer set of voter preferences and has also broadened the set of explanatory factors that help us understand these preferences in novel and enlightening ways. The proposed panel brings together some of this innovative work. The papers focus on moral rhetoric, election timing, victory or defeat, and economic structure as potential origins of various politically relevant voter reactions, including not only policy preferences and voting behavior but also expressive preferences, emotions, and feelings.

Sub Unit

• Division 37: Public Opinion

Individual Presentations

• Snap Elections’ Diverse Effects on Voters - Zeynep Somer-Topcu, University of Texas at Austin; Kendall Curtis, University of Texas at Austin

• Voters’ Preferences for Parties' Moral Rhetoric - Jae-Hee Jung, University of Houston

• How Election Outcomes Influence Voter Emotions - Christopher Lucas, Washington University in St. Louis; Jacob M. Montgomery, Washington University in St. Louis; Taishi Muraoka, Washington University in St. Louis; Margit Tavits, Washington University in St. Louis

• The Economic Roots of Cross-National Similarity in Voter Preferences - David Fortunato, University of California, San Diego; Sebastian Juhl, University of Mannheim; Laron K. Williams, University of Missouri, Columbia

Chair

• James Adams University of California, Davis

Discussants

• James Adams University of California, Davis

• Randolph T. Stevenson Rice University