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Tactical Voting in Norway: Context, Motives and Occurrence
Author(s) -
Jenssen Anders Todal
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9477.12057
Subject(s) - voting , political science , blame , sophistication , norwegian , disapproval voting , voting behavior , context (archaeology) , ranked voting system , first past the post voting , politics , bullet voting , group voting ticket , public relations , social psychology , psychology , sociology , law , social science , linguistics , philosophy , paleontology , biology
Hitherto, tactical voting has not been a topic in N orwegian electoral research, despite the fact that tactical considerations have been publically discussed both by politicians and citizens for years. The complexity of the electoral system is partly to blame. Norwegian voters experience a number of tactical situations that give rise to rather different dilemmas, and hence several tactical motives. These need to be mapped and analysed separately. A set of survey questions has been especially designed for the present study to record these motives. Special attention has also been paid to the political sophistication of voters, campaign messages encouraging tactical voting, and the restraining effects of habitual voting and negative attitudes towards tactical voting. These factors may modify the inclination to tactical electoral behaviour. The web survey designed for the present project was conducted immediately following the Norwegian parliamentary election of 2013 (N = 2,278). Of the voters in the survey, 18.3 percent reported casting a tactically motivated vote. The 4 percent threshold on the distribution of compensatory seats, the competition for the last district seats and the composition of government coalitions triggered tactical voting. Tactical voters do not stand out as more politically sophisticated than other voters. Rather than calculating the expected utility for each party, they seem to rely on campaign information from the political parties and the media when voting tactically. For the habitual voters and voters with a strong dislike of tactical voting, the propensity for tactical voting is well below average.