The interdependence of Party preferences: insights on the dynamics of electoral decision making

Political behavior scholars extensively explored how voters cast their votes during elections. However, the decision to vote for one party among the panoply of parties available during an election has always been studied as independent from the decision of not voting for another. People support particular political issues, beliefs, or ideologies and vote for the party closer to their preferences. The decision to vote for one party is influenced by the decision not to vote for other parties and by an entire ranking of voters' preferences. Hence, the preferences of each voter are not independent of each other. The relationship between the preferences that each voter has for the parties in a political system can be explored using social network analysis. This study considers the propensity to vote questions from the British Elections Survey (BES) and explores the relationship between the preferences of each voter employing network autocorrelations models. Network analysis can provide valuable new insights into how voters perceive parties and how the set of party preferences of each voter determines collective voting behavior. It can also help to identify key influential parties and their ideologies and understand how they shape decision-making.