Issue voting behavior: A descriptive analysis
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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Authors
Date
2022
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Information and Service Management (ISM)
Language
en
Pages
56 + 2
Series
Abstract
This thesis focuses on issue voting and in particular, the following three issue voting models used by voters: the proximity model, the discounting model, and the directional model. Although the significance of issues has been recognized, there does not exist much previous research on what impact different issues or issue categories have on the use of different voting models. Moreover, the scientific community lacks an understanding of the role of various demographic factors on the use of the voting models. This thesis explores the use of different voting models within the Finnish electorate base and any differences in the model usage based on issue and gender. With this purpose, the thesis’ aim is to provide a descriptive analysis of the matter. The data used for the research was collected from a survey conducted by a professional market research company (Taloustutkimus) so that the sample results can be generalized to the whole Finnish population. About 1000 Finnish voters responded to our survey. After assessing the results, it was observed that the proximity model had the highest share out of all other models. These findings in fact align with previous research by other researchers. In addition, we found some evidence of implications of issue influence and gender on model share. The findings need to be statistically verified. Although our findings are based on a descriptive analysis of the results, the findings of the thesis can be used to develop tailored Voting Advice Applications.Description
Thesis advisor
Wallenius, JyrkiKeywords
issue voting, voting behavior, Finnish electorate, descriptive analysis