Voting Experiments

Karine Van Der Straeten, Toulouse School of Economics, CNRS, Toulouse, FranceJean-François Laslier, Paris School of Economics, CNRS, Paris, FranceAndré Blais, Université de Montréal, Département de science politique, Montréal, QC, Canada

“Volume includes enough experimental research to make readers think twice about a decision to move to a multiparty state. … book has much to teach readers who hope to preserve their self-interest by contemplating a move from a dual-party system to a multi-party system. Contributors to Voting Experiments have defined most of their theoretical concepts clearly enough for readers who are not familiar with the disciplinary language found in political science and economics to be able to follow their arguments.” (Theresa A. Thorkildsen, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 62 (11), March, 2017)

• Part 1: Processing information about candidates / Voting correctly.- Deciding correctly: Variance in the effective use of party cues.- The company makes the feast. Party conflict and issue voting in multi-party systems.- Candidate extremity, information environments, and political polarization: Three experiments in a dynamic process tracing environment.- Common knowledge and voter coordination: Experimental evidence from Mali.- Part 2: Impact of polls on the decision to vote or to abstain.- Are people more or less inclined to vote when aggregate turnout is high?- Visibility and sanctions: The social norm of voting in the lab.- Part 3: Impact of polls on candidate choice: bandwagon effect and strategic voting.- Experiments on the effects of opinion polls and implications for laws banning pre-election polling.- Polls, partisanship, and voter decision-making: An experimental analysis.- Coalitions, coordination and electoral choice: A lab experimental study of strategic voting.- Patterns of strategic voting in run-off elections.- Strategic voting and personality traits.- Part 4: Methodological debate and innovations.- Individual behavior under evaluative voting: A comparison between laboratory and in situ experiments.- Recruiting for laboratory voting experiments: Exploring the (potential) sampling bias.- Measuring perceptions of candidate viability in voting experiments.- Electoral system and number of candidates: Candidate entry under plurality and majority runoff.- Through the polling booth curtain – a visual experiment on citizens’ behavior inside the polling booth.