Split-Ticket Voting in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: A Theoretical and Methodological Investigation [Paperback]

This book relaxes common assumptions in the voting behaviour literature to provide an in-depth study of split-ticket voting across ten established and non-established democracies.Why do voters support different parties at elections when given the opportunity of casting two votes to elect the same representative body? This book relaxes common assumptions in the voting behaviour literature to provide an in-depth study of split-ticket voting across ten established and non-established democracies. It proposes an original framework and combines a theoretical investigation with a purely methodological analysis to test the reliability of the predictive models. The broader picture that emerges is the one of a simple voter with sophisticated preferences. Parties still function as the principal cue for voting, but voters appear sophisticated in that they often like more than one party or choose candidates regardless of their party affiliation. Despite mixed-member systems being one of the most complicated electoral systems of all, there is no evidence supporting the conclusion that voters are not able to cope with the complexity of the electoral rules.ContentsList of Figures and Tables viiList of Abbreviations ixAcknowledgements xiPart I. Split-Ticket Voting: Definition and Measurement 1Chapter One  Introduction: What is it and Why Study Split-Ticket Voting? 3Chapter Two  Theories of Split-Ticket Voting 11Chapter Three  Measuring Split-Ticket Voting 23Part II. Empirical Evidence: Why and How Voters Split Their Vote 47Chapter Four  A Cross-Country Analysis of Split-Ticket Voting 49Chapter Five  Parties, Candidates and Forced Split-Ticket Voting:Evidence from Japan 71Chapter Six  Pre-Electoral Coalitions and Split-Ticket Voting: Evidencefrom the Italian Regional Level 93Part III. Theoretical Implications 109Chapter Seven  Conclusion and Directions for Future Research 111Appendices 119Bibliography 141Index 153Since December 2013, Carolina Plescia has been Assistant Prls4