Outcomes of legislative elections are typically reported in terms of party support: how many votes and seats were obtained by each party? But in fact voters are faced with three choices which must be folded into one. They must decide which party they prefer, but in so doing they must take account of the policies advocated by these parties and the leaders who will eventually have to enact them.
This simple fact raises question about the relative weight of these considerations, and espeically the importance granted to the leaders. This issue has been largely neglected in the vast literature on voting behaviour.The dominant traditions in the study of voting behaviour focus on political parties and party identification; and on political issues and ideology, respectively.
This volume uses election surveys over the past 50 years to systematically assesses the impact of political leaders on voting decisions in nine democracies (Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United States). It analyses issues such as the changes in political communication (particularly the rise of televized politics), and the relative importance accorded to political leaders in different types of political systems. It demonstrates how electoral systems and other political institutions have a discernible effect on the importance voters accord to actual political leaders. Contrary to popular wisdom, Political Leaders and Democratic Elections shows how unimportant the characteristics of political leaders, parties, and indeed the voters themselves actually are on voting patterns. The volume shows that voters tend to let themselves be guided by the leaders they like rather than being pushed away from those they dislike.
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Kees Aarts is holds degrees from the University of Amsterdam (Ba, MA) and Twente (PhD). He is Professor of Political Science at the University of Twente and scientific director of its Institute for Innovation and Governance Studies.
André Blais, Université de Montréal
Hermann Schmitt holds degrees from the University of Mannheim (Ba, Hab.), the University of Duisburg (PhD), and the Free University of Berlin (Hab.) He is Professor of Political Science at the University of Mannheim and Research Fellow at its Center for European Studies MZES.
Bernt Aardal is a Norwegian political scientist who is among the best known practitioners of election science in Norway. He is a Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo.
Tanja Binder is a doctoral candidate in the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, research unit Democracy: Structures, performance, challenges.
Sir John Curtice is Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde.
Elisabeth Gidengil is Hiram Mills Professor at McGill University and the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. She studies voting behaviour and public opinion, with particular interests in gender, ethnicity, and political engagement. She was a co-investigator on the Canadian Election Study from 1992 to 2008. She is a past president of the Canadian Political Science Association and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her publications include Gender and Social Capital (co-edited with Brenda O'Neill, Routledge, 2006), and Canadian Democracy from the Ground Up (co-edited with Heather Bastedo, University of British Columbia Press, 2014).
Sören Holmberg is a Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg.
Ian McAllister is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The Australian National University.
Richard Nadeau is a Professor of political science at the University of Montreal.
Neil Nevitte is a professor in the Political Science department at University of Toronto.
Dieter Ohr is Professor at the Otto-Suhr-Institute of Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin.
Henrik Oscarsson is professor in electoral studies at the University of Gothenburg. His research focus is on representative democracy, opinion formation, voting behaviour and political methodology. Oscarsson is research director of the SOM Institute at UoG and head of the Swedish National Election Studies programme (SNES). He has published numerous monographs, edited volumes, book chapters and articles in Scandinavian Political Studies and Party Politics on democracy, public opinion, political behaviour and social science methodology.
Martin Wattenberg is a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine. He is an expert on American elections and party politics and is co-author of, 'Government in America: People, Policy, and Politics'.
