Who Votes More Strategically?

Eggers, Andrew C.; Vivyan, Nick

doi:10.1017/s0003055419000820

Who Votes More Strategically?

Eggers, Andrew C.; Vivyan, Nick

Authors

Andrew C. Eggers

Professor Nick Vivyan nick.vivyan@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Strategic voting is an important explanation for aggregate political phenomena, but we know little about how strategic voting varies across types of voters. Are richer voters more strategic than poorer voters? Does strategic behavior vary with age, education, gender, or political leaning? The answers may be important for assessing how well an electoral system represents different preferences in society. We introduce a new approach to measuring and comparing strategic voting across voters that can be broadly applied, given appropriate survey data. In recent British elections, we find that older voters vote more strategically than younger voters and that richer voters vote more strategically than poorer voters, even as strategic behavior varies little across the education level. The differences in strategic voting by age and income are smaller than observed differences in turnout by age and income, but they tend to exacerbate these better-known inequalities in political participation.

Citation

Eggers, A. C., & Vivyan, N. (2020). Who Votes More Strategically?. American Political Science Review, 114(2), 470-485. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055419000820

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Dec 12, 2019
Online Publication Date	Feb 10, 2020
Publication Date	2020
Deposit Date	Dec 13, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Dec 13, 2019
Journal	American Political Science Review
Print ISSN	0003-0554
Electronic ISSN	1537-5943
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	114
Issue	2
Pages	470-485
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055419000820

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article will be published in a revised form in American political science review. This version is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND. No commercial re-distribution or re-use allowed. Derivative works cannot be distributed. © American Political Science Association.