Political Behaviour/Sociology

F09 - Experimental Approaches to Voter Behavior / Approches expérimentales du comportement électoral

Date: Jun 4 | Time: 08:30am to 10:00am | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Jordan Mansell (University of Western Ontario)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Jordan Mansell (University of Western Ontario)

Between Norms and Party Allegiance: Do Canadian Voters Withdraw Their Vote When Politician Disregard Democratic Norms?: Eric Merkley (University of Toronto), Thomas Galipeau (University of Toronto)
Abstract: Do Partisans Endanger Canadian Democracy? Recent research reveals a rise in affective polarization in Canada, with online spaces becoming increasingly susceptible to misinformation and vitriolic discourse. Public protests, like the trucker convoy in 2021, have intensified in both polarization and tension. Recent Provincial electoral results are being put into question. Overall, tribalism appears to be more prevalent than before. Given these trends, this paper examines whether Canadian voters adhere to the normative expectation to reject politicians who violate democratic norms. Specifically, it investigates whether partisans are willing to abandon their party when its candidates deviate from democratic principles. To explore this, the paper employs a forced-choice conjoint design with hypothetical candidates that vary by party affiliation, policy positions, and—most critically—their stance on institutional restraint, protection of fundamental rights, and democratic safeguards. An embedded experimental component further allows participants to abstain from voting, offering causal insight into how choice structure impacts the likelihood of in-party defection. We also observe the roles of in-party loyalty and out-party antagonism in voter’s choice. This paper’s contribution is twofold. First, introducing an abstention option within the forced-choice design advances our understanding of whether partisans conform to normative expectations in a realistic voting context. This methodological innovation enriches political behavior research by refining conjoint design to reflect real-world conditions more accurately. Second, it sheds light on how the dual aspects of affective polarization—in-group affinity and out-group hostility—influence partisan decision-making.

Positive attraction: voters' preference for positive ads: Tim Abray (Queen's University)
Abstract: This paper stems from a recent doctoral project examining the effects of political attack advertising on voters’ choices. The primary argument of the dissertation hinged on the perennial, contentious debate around potentially negative impacts of attack advertising on voter evaluations and choices. That project used a controlled, between-groups experimental study to investigate the differentiated cognitive effects of exposure to nearly identical negative and positive ads. The results of that study underline the fragility of voters’ conscious assessments of political information, clearly showing that the effects of attack messaging are measurably present in the post-exposure behaviour of individual subjects, unconsciously altering their considered assessments of subsequent political information, contrary to the expectations of most orthodox theories of voting behaviour (Abray 2024). The structure of the experiment did, however, produce significant tangential data that supports at least one important secondary finding: clear, empirical evidence that subjects prefer positive ads to negative ads—by a wide margin. On the surface, the finding seems sensible and intuitively obvious. Subjects have been reporting this preference in survey-based studies for many years, reports that have often been greeted with some skepticism, due to frequently higher engagement levels produced by negative ads. In this study, however, the subjects were not asked about their positive/negative preferences. Rather, the preference is expressed incidentally, between groups. Drawing on related work in cognitive psychology, consumer behaviour, and political psychology, this paper reveals and explores the implications of this apparently ingrained preference.

Titre: Différentes arènes, même motivation? Comprendre les transferts de votes des électeurs provinciaux et fédéraux: Thomas Gareau-Paquette (Cornell University), Matthew Taylor (Université de Montréal)
Abstract: Dans de nombreux systèmes politiques multiniveaux, les électeurs bénéficient d'un alignement clair entre les partis provinciaux et fédéraux, offrant ainsi un raccourci cognitif guidant le choix électoral des citoyens. Au Canada, cet alignement est toutefois très faible dans plusieurs provinces, les partis provinciaux n'ayant souvent aucun lien formel—et relativement peu d’affinités—avec leurs homologues fédéraux, entraînant ainsi un ensemble de choix distincts à chaque palier. Compte tenu de ces différences entre les systèmes partisans aux paliers fédéral et provincial, les Canadiens font-ils des choix de vote cohérents, et si oui, en fonction de quel(s) clivage(s) ? Nous répondons cette question à travers le cas québécois, une province où les partis fédéraux et provinciaux sont particulièrement distincts entre les niveaux. En utilisant les sous-échantillons québécois des Études électorales canadiennes de 2019 et 2021 et deux enquêtes de sondage originales, nous examinons les choix de vote du provincial vers le fédéral. Nous effectuons ensuite des analyses avec effets d’interaction pour déterminer si certains clivages tel que le libéralisme économique, le traditionalisme moral et les attitudes envers l’indépendance du Québec ont des effets hétérogènes à travers les clientèles électorales provinciales dans la décision des citoyens d’appuyer un parti fédéral donné. Cette étude contribue à améliorer notre compréhension sur la façon dont les allégeances partisanes influencent les choix électoraux dans les systèmes politiques multiniveaux, un aspect fondamental non seulement pour la politique canadienne et québécoise, mais également pour l’ensemble des systèmes politiques multiniveau.