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Three Dimensions of Vote Choice

Elections
European Union
Political Competition
Voting
Political Sociology
Pierre Baudewyns
Université catholique de Louvain
Pierre Baudewyns
Université catholique de Louvain
Steven M. Van Hauwaert
Forward College

Abstract

Politics can be described as a set of infinite issue continuums often reduced to a limited number of relevant dimensions (mat-postmat/GAL-TAN and Left-right). The growing salience of European issues are providing new challenges to this two-dimensional understanding of political competition. This research paper proposes to contribute to the debate of vote choice dimensionality by specifying how dimensions and to what extent different – attitudinal – dimensions contribute to vote choice. We first seek to analyse whether we should design European factors should effectively be seen as a separate dimension and to what extent European variables are collinear with socio-economic and socio-cultural variables. Secondly, we will we also test two additional hypotheses (moderation effect and mediation effect) that allow for the specification of alternative, not-so-direct effects of European issues and attitudes on vote choice. The paper will use EVS trendfile (completed by recent EVS data).