Pre-Electoral Coalition Signals

• Applicant: Professor Thomas Gschwend, Ph.D., since 3/2017
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 322534374

In multi-party systems, parties often announce the coalitions they would like to enter after the election or even publicly oppose certain coalition options. To understand parties` pre-electoral coalition behavior, the project pre-electoral coalition signals connects individual-based voting theories with parties` strategic decision to communicate coalition politics during their electoral campaigns. The project focuses on two connected aspects. First, it is crucial to understand how pre-electoral coalition signals actually influence voting behavior. Only if pre-electoral coalitions matter, parties will consider talking about coalitions during the electoral campaign. The proposed strategic voting model is based on the idea that parties can prime specific coalition considerations in voters` decision-making. For example, if a party reveals its preferred coalition, voters increase the weight on preferences for this coalition when evaluating the party. The voting model will be tested in a comparative framework and a set of experimental studies, outlining the great potential as well as the risks of coalition signals affecting electoral behavior. The second part of the project subsequently employs this voting model to generate expectations about parties` pre-electoral coalition signals. A formal model will be developed in order to derive strategic implications for parties to signal their preferred coalition partner. The argumentation generates comparative statics, leading to hypotheses that directly address the research question. Only under specific conditions, the voting model form the first part creates incentives for two parties to announce a coalition prior to the election. The aggregated evaluation and expected platform of a coalition should be a major determinant of a party`s rationality to do so. The project compiles a comparative database of coalition signals to test the expectations and further runs laboratory experiments to establish the internal validity of the causal mechanism. Parties strategically choose to communicate coalitions, as this affects the voters` decisions and increases the parties` chances of obtaining governmental responsibilities.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Lukas Stötzer, until 3/2017