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Scrutinizing Strategy Scrutinizing Strategy The effect of coalition expectations on strategic voting in the Netherlands Arnal Kuntze 24-03-2016 Student number: 0591939 Supervisor: Dr. Jonas Lefevere Master Thesis Political Communication Graduate School of Communication University of Amsterdam 1 Introduction While cycling to the voting booth, Bert Bakker (36) deliberates on which party to vote for during the Dutch general elections. He doubts if a switch from his lifelong favourite, labour party PvdA, is necessary. These last few days he has read several news articles regarding possible future coalitions. According to the latest information the PvdA has absolutely no chance of governing after the elections. Especially the fact that the polls show that his second choice, social democratic party D66, is in a close battle to win a spot in the coalition with the right wing party PVV, his least preferred party, makes the choice even harder. Fifteen minutes and counting before he makes his final call. This case, while fictional, gives a small insight into how during the last decades the habits of the Western voter have changed significantly. As can be seen from the literature, a growing share of the electorate no longer feels connected to longstanding predispositions based on social divisions or identification with a particular party (Hansen et al., 2011; Irwin & Holsteyn, 2008; Meer et al., 2015; Meffert & Gschwend, 2011; Schmitt-Beck & Partheymüller, 2012). Whereas the classic voter had the tendency to engage in a lifelong relationship with a party, the modern-day voter seems to be more rational when choosing which party or candidate to vote for (Fischer, 2004; Meer et al., 2015). The Netherlands is no exception to this rule of changing voting habits. Whereas half a century ago Dutch voting preferences could largely be explained by social class and religion, nowadays these sociological and structured models lack explanatory power (Irwin & Holsteyn, 2008). When a voter casts a ballot on a party other than their preferred party based on strategical considerations this is referred to as strategic voting or tactical voting (Blais & Nadeau, 1996; Cox, 1997; Fischer, 2004; Irwin & Holsteyn, 2012; Mc Cuen & Morton, 2010; Meffert & Gschwend, 2011). The importance of this behaviour is that it has a significant impact on the outcome of an election (Hansen et al., 2011). 2 Many scholars have placed this behaviour within a rational choice theory framework (Blais et al., 2006; Cox, 1997; Downs, 1957; McCuen & Morton, 2010; Meffert & Gschwend, 2009). This implies that these voters are using the information available to them to make rational decision based on the costs and benefits of voting for a particular party. This opens up the space for an inquiry into what kind of information this could be, and in what way it could be instrumental in this consideration. One of the main tasks of a voter in a proportional representation system like the Netherlands is to determine which coalitions are likely to govern after the elections and try to increase the odds of the coalition of their preference (Downs, 1957). They do this mainly on the basis of media coverage based on political polls (Irwin & Holsteyn, 2012). These polls predicts what coalition is likely to be made up after elections. In order to investigate the influence of this media coverage on voters, this study uses an experimental design to present respondents with future coalitions via manipulated news articles (the independent variable) and investigates to what degree these possible outcomes affect the respondent’s vote intention (the dependent variable). For this study, the following research question has been maintained: To what extent does exposure to coalition expectations influence actual strategic voting? This study will extend the literature on strategic voting in the Dutch context by not only testing the relationship between coalition expectations and voting behaviour but also by introducing the influence of an individual’s least preferred party in this matter. This new insight could help parties to understand how to position themselves in the media and what would be the most appropriate way to react to certain other parties in order to obtain more votes in future elections. 3 Furthermore, several studies have shown the influence of political knowledge on an individual’s political behaviour (Dolan & Holbrook, 2011; Gschwend, 2007; Meffert & Gschwend, 2011). For example it could be said that political knowledge influences strategic voting behaviour in a negative way, as those with the highest political sophistication are less inclined to change (Dassonneville & Dejaeghere 2014). This study will also take into account the moderating role of voter’s political knowledge, by testing the following sub question: To what extent is the influence of exposure to coalition expectations on strategic voting moderated by a voter’s political knowledge and a voter’s political orientation? In this thesis I will first discuss the literature already written on the subject, from which I will derive five hypotheses. After this, I will elucidate my methodological framework, showing which choices have been made in order to go about answering the research question. I will then turn to the results derived from several different statistical applied to the data derived from the experimental survey that was conducted amongst 225 participants. Finally, I reflect on these results in the conclusion and discussion by reiterating the connection with the literature discussed. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK The Dutch context This study will examine strategic voting within the Dutch multiparty system. The Dutch electorate is known to drift in their voting choices (Mair, 2008), and nowadays is even considered to be the most volatile in Western Europe (Meer et al., 2015). Distinguishing characteristics of the Dutch political system are the high amount of parties and the relatively open structure of party competition (Mair, 2008). Another important point to take into account 4 when focusing on this context is that the Netherlands is characterized by opposing a ruling minority government. In the Dutch multiparty system the government is expected to possess more than half of the 150 seats in parliament. As in practice no party is able to achieve this amount by its own, this means that parties are forced to rely on post-election bargaining, in order to form a government that is based on a coalition between different parties (Mair, 2008). Downs’ conditions One of the first scholars to write on strategic voting is the American economist Anthony Downs. According to Downs (1957) three conditions need to be satisfied for a voter to act in such a strategic manner. First, it has to be known what possible coalitions each party would enter after the elections. Second, an estimated probability of these different coalitions should be known. Finally, it should be clear which different policies these coalitions would implement if they would be in power. According to Downs these conditions cannot be fulfilled within the context of proportional representation systems such as the Netherlands, because precarious post-election bargaining will determine which coalitions are actually formed and which policies will consequently be implemented (Downs, 1957). This conclusion has been questioned by many authors, including Irwin and Holsteyn (2012). They suggest that adjusting these conditions slightly could make them applicable to a proportional representation system such as the Dutch political system. They rephrase the first condition by stating that voters should have expectations not on the exact coalition that will be formed but rather on what other voters will vote and on what size a party will be after the elections. Results showed that this made the first condition applicable to the Dutch context as Dutch voters in general were able to come up with a fairly accurate estimation on these points (Irwin & Holsteyn, 2012). 5 The second condition focusses on the expectation of a voter in relation to the likelihood of certain coalitions post-election. As Dutch parties will not indicate what possible coalition preferences they might have prior to the elections (Blais et al., 2006), it seems impossible for the Dutch voter to fulfil this condition. Despite this seemingly crucial lack of information, voters have still found ways to come up with fairly correct expectations to anticipate the future government compositions (Armstrong & Duch, 2010). One key source for the Dutch voter are public opinion polls, as it is shown that Dutch voters rely mostly on them to form their expectations (Irwin & Holsteyn, 2012). Finally, the third condition of Downs is rephrased as voters being able to estimate what compromises a party will make in the coalition bargaining stage of forming a governmental program. This condition for a Dutch voter is not possible to know, as the party elite does not even know what compromises will be made (Fischer, 2004; Irwin & Holsteyn, 2012). On the other side it is shown that if Dutch voters are presented with coalition expectations, they will be able to make optimal strategic voting decisions, beneficial to their own preferences (Irwin & Holsteyn, 2012). This study follows Irwin and Holsteyn’s conclusion that Down’s conditions are in some respect applicable to proportional representation systems. Strategic voting Now we have established that strategic voting can occur within the Dutch multiparty system, a closer look into the topic of strategic voting is useful
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