36: Elections and Voting Behavior

Scott McClurg, Southern Illinois University, mcclurg@siu.edu

In line with the theme of this year’s conference, I encourage proposals focusing on how elections mediate the relationship between politicians and citizens in times of economic and social duress. For example, are voters more or less susceptible to campaign messages and manipulation under such conditions? How is blame attributed to different political elites and what effect does it have on voting and participation? To what degree are contextual variations in economic hardship related to campaigns and voting? What are the psychological, ethnic, racial, and aggregate sources of heterogeneity that moderate the impact of economics on voting?

Papers that reconsider fundamental orthodoxies in the field of elections and voting behavior, such as individual economic attitudes and objective economic conditions explanations for voting behavior, are encouraged. Have we learned anything about voters in recent years that differs from what is based on previous economic downturns? In what ways can election and voting scholars inform the public debate about the relationship between politics and the economy?

Papers employing standard methodologies are welcome, though I also am interested in highlighting new methods and data for understanding electoral behavior. This includes – but is not limited to – experiments, social network analyses, implementation of geographic and spatial models, cross-national and hierarchical research designs, and computational models.