Changes in Public Opinion and Voting Behaviour in European and National Elections

The main factors influencing political attitudes, participation, and vote choice in advanced democracies have substantially changed over the past few decades. The effect of relatively stable, long term predictors of public opinion and voting behaviour (such as religious denominations and social class) seem to have been weaken, while alternative factors (such as issues, the characteristics of party leaders and candidates, government performance, and campaigns) have a stronger effect on the voting decision process. The weakened role of group loyalties in political alignments have led to decreased partisan loyalties and increased importance of election campaigns. In addition, online social networks have rapidly changed the landscape and the dynamics of public opinion, enabling political parties and candidates to directly mobilize potential voters through decentralized platforms in an unregulated media environment. At the same time, various online platforms give voters the opportunity to become active participants and to engage with groups and networks with other like-minded citizens. In many cases, social media users may end up living in their own echo chambers, fostering a trend of polarization along group and partisan lines. Considering these developments, it becomes crucial to further examine the interaction between long-term and short-term factors in shaping the electoral outcome. Further work is needed in order to better understand whether current developments in public opinion are indicative of a process of dealignment or of the process of realignment along new cleavages, such as the cleavage between the (new) left and the radical right which is based mostly on a socio-cultural and identity based dimension that structures conflicts over immigration policies and European integration. To gain a deeper understanding of the changing political landscape of many advanced democracies, it is important to employ a comparative perspective taking into consideration the contextual factors influencing party systems and the relationship between parties and voters. In addition to the usual contextual factors, we need to pay attention to recent international developments that may have a significant impact on public opinion and voting behaviour, for example, the war in Ukraine and Gaza, issues related to climate change and the resulting extreme natural disasters leading to disruption of local socio-economic systems, among others. Finally, 2024 is the biggest election year in history with citizens from a diverse range of countries—including the USA, Russia, India, Austria, Belgium, and likely the UK—going to the polls on top of the European Parliament elections, making it an exceptionally significant period in electoral politics. We are particularly interested in studies focusing on long-standing and new issues and trends related to public opinion and voting behaviour. For instance, we welcome studies analysing voter turnout, the implication of the wars on political behaviour, citizens interest in European affairs, the impact of new and traditional political issues among others. Against this background, this section invites submissions from scholars working on political attitudes, voting choices, political participation, political engagement and turnout, political representation (e.g. congruence, responsiveness) and on patterns of electoral competition such as identity politics, support for populist parties, Euroscepticism and personalization of the electoral context, the nature and dynamics of campaigns and the role of social media. We are particularly interested in comparative analyses, taking advantage of the variation across countries, regions, or levels (European, national, regional, etc.). The section is open to a variety of topics and methodological approaches within the general field of comparative research on public opinion and voting behaviour. Scholars working in these areas of study may take advantage of data collected by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, the Comparative Candidate Survey, the European Election Studies as well as many other social surveys such as the ISSP, that allow scholars to account for both individual-level characteristics and contextual features. Also, new, innovative tools and methodological advances are increasingly common, such as Voting Advice Applications, online text analyses, etc. We suggest below a tentative list of the panels that we will form within this section. These panel themes however are not fixed. We want to maintain some flexibility to be able to accommodate work on emerging topics. Our intention is therefore to organize the section based on the panel and paper proposals that we will receive. We are confident, however, that many of the themes mentioned in the list of panels below will indeed be covered by the proposals that the members of the Standing Group will be submitting for this Section. Given the large number of submissions that are generally received for the sections that are endorsed by our Standing Group, we are confident that we will be able to attract sufficient interest to organize twelve panels. Tentative list of panels: ▪️ European Elections ▪️ Turnout and participation ▪️ Issue Voting ▪️ Ideological and affective polarization ▪️ Populism, Nativism and Euroscepticism ▪️ Transformation of cleavages and voting ▪️ Generations and Political Attitudes ▪️ Electoral integrity ▪️ Institutions and political representation ▪️ New methods and data in political analysis Interest for this section and likely participants: ▪️ As panels have a strong focus on substantive research questions, methodological (and data) diversity within each panel is especially welcomed and encouraged. This section should attract participants working in the field of election studies, public opinion, and comparative politics. Focusing on the comparative analysis of political behaviour and political representation, this section will likely be of interest to a broad range of scholars, working on both established and new democracies. We will seek to balance the participants in terms of gender, regions, and seniority level.