Articles

Het geslacht van de kandidaat als heuristisch stemmotief : Een onderzoek naar het effect van politieke sofisticatie en electorale context op gender-based stemgedrag

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Abstract

In this paper, I study gender-based voting behavior in the Belgian proportional electoral system. In particular, I investigate two possible causes tor why voters experience  the need to simplify their voting decision by using a gender-cue. First, in line with the findings of previous studies, I find that voters with lower levels of political sophistication who are less able to collect and process political information, are consequently more likely to use the sex of a candidate as a shortcut. However, the effect of political sophistication on gender-based voting behavior is limited. Second, based on the literature, I expect that the low information context of the second-order European elections would cause both high and low information voters to become more reliant on gendercues to simplify their voting decision and by extent would cause the effect of political sophistication on gender-based voting to diminish. Against theoretical expectations, I find that the effect of the electoral context is negligible.

How to Cite:

de Leeuw, S., (2017) “Het geslacht van de kandidaat als heuristisch stemmotief : Een onderzoek naar het effect van politieke sofisticatie en electorale context op gender-based stemgedrag”, Res Publica 59(2), 141-169.