Understanding personalized voting. Media and campaign effects in local and national elections.

In recent discussions about the changing features of politics in advanced industrial democracies personalization is considered one of the key developments. The central idea is that individual politicians have taken a more central position in politics at the expense of political parties. Voters may increasingly make their electoral choices based on individual attributes of candidates, politicians may act more as individual actors and less as party members, and the media may represent politics more as a confrontation of individuals. However, it remains unclear how individual voting behaviour is influenced by the personalization of media coverage and campaigning. Particularly, one may wonder to what extent these two communication channels stimulate voters to think of individual characteristics that are purely individually based (e.g. gender) or rather party based (e.g. ballot position). Furthermore, the effectiveness of these channels may depend on the institutional context (local vs. national). Because Belgium appears to be a critical case for such an analysis, we construct a comprehensive model based on the local elections of 2012 in Antwerp and the regional/national elections in 2014. To our knowledge, no one has evaluated the interaction effects of media attention, personal (campaign) communication, and institutional context-in one integrated multilevel model of personalized voting behaviour. Our results will be relevant for all countries with electoral systems that provide voters with ordered party lists and multiple preference votes. Moreover, the insights of our multi-level design could integrate the findings of largely distinctive research traditions.

Keywords:ELECTION OBSERVATION, VOTING BEHAVIOR, BELGIAN POLITICS

Disciplines:Other economics and business, Citizenship, immigration and political inequality, International and comparative politics, Multilevel governance, National politics, Political behaviour, Political organisations and institutions, Political theory and methodology, Public administration, Other political science