The Accessibility and Electoral Consequences of Issue Competence Perceptions: Evidence from the Swiss 2019 Election

Details

Ressource 1Request a copy Under indefinite embargo.
UNIL restricted access
State: Public
Version: Final published version
License: CC BY-NC 4.0
Serval ID
serval:BIB_F975198228C5
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
The Accessibility and Electoral Consequences of Issue Competence Perceptions: Evidence from the Swiss 2019 Election
Journal
Swiss Political Science Review
Author(s)
Marquis Lionel, Tresch Anke
ISSN
1424-7755
1662-6370
Publication state
Published
Issued date
11/04/2022
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
28
Number
2
Pages
254-276
Language
english
Abstract
According to the issue ownership theory of voting, voters cast their ballot for the party that they consider to be most competent and most committed to handle an issue of importance to them. This article offers a theoretical expansion of this model, arguing that the effect of issue ownership on vote choice is conditioned by the accessibility of voters' ownership perceptions, as measured by response latencies. Through individual-level analyses of voting in the 2019 Swiss federal election, we demonstrate that the effect of voters' issue ownership perceptions on their voting decisions is strongest when their ownership attributions are highly accessible and when the issue at stake is considered important. Our results also reveal that the effects of accessibility are largely driven by voting decisions for parties that own the issue in the eyes of a large part of the electorate, such as the Greens in the case of the environment.
Keywords
attitude accessibility, issue ownership, issue salience, response times, voting
Open Access
Yes
Create date
19/04/2022 6:51
Last modification date
07/07/2022 5:35
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