The Nordic Voter Myths of Exceptionalism [Paperback]

The Nordic Voter is the first book-length comparative analysis of voting behaviour in the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland.The Nordic Voter is the first book-length comparative analysis of voting behaviour in the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. Leading scholars from national election studies teams present a detailed account of voter turnout, party identification, satisfaction with democracy, preferential voting, government support and party choice. The five-nation study is based on a comparative data set prepared uniquely for this book that allows for comprehensive analysis of the diversity in voting behaviour in the Nordic countries, as well as discrepancies between Nordic and non Nordic countries. The book counters the widespread tendency for comparative analyses to lump Nordic countries together. Its general claim, substantiated by a unique and extensive empirical analysis of voter behaviour, is that the differences between the Nordic countries are in fact so large  in terms of institutional settings and micro-level voting behaviour  that there is no justification for making general claims about a typical Nordic voter. The authors challenge presumptions about remarkable similarities between Nordic voters, revealing numerous examples of remarkable dissimilarities between voters in the Nordic countries.ContentsList of Figures and Tables viiContributors xiForeword xiiiChapter One: Introduction 1Chapter Two: The Nordic Political Systems and our Research Design 11Chapter Three: The Nordic Party Systems 27Chapter Four: Voters and Representative Democracy 41Chapter Five: Party Identification in the Nordic Countries 67Chapter Six: Candidate Voting 81Chapter Seven: Voters and the Election Campaign 103Chapter Eight: Voters and the Government 123Chapter Nine: Voters and Party Choice 149Chapter Ten: The Not-So-Exceptional Nordic Voter 179Appendix 189References 217Index 237?sa Bengtsson PhD is prol.