Candidate-centered voting and political sophistication in Brazil 2002

More and more, elections around the world seem to be won or lost on the basis of the candidates’ personal qualities rather than their policies. Despite its prevalence and consequences, we still know very little about what explains such candidate-centered voting, particularly in new democratic contex...

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Main Author: Slosar, Mary Catherine
Other Authors: Luskin, Robert C.
Format: Others
Language:English
Published: 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2009-12-601
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spelling ndltd-UTEXAS-oai-repositories.lib.utexas.edu-2152-ETD-UT-2009-12-6012015-09-20T16:54:31ZCandidate-centered voting and political sophistication in Brazil 2002Slosar, Mary CatherineCandidate-centered votingVoting behaviorPolitical sophisticationBrazilCandidate personalityPresidential electionsMore and more, elections around the world seem to be won or lost on the basis of the candidates’ personal qualities rather than their policies. Despite its prevalence and consequences, we still know very little about what explains such candidate-centered voting, particularly in new democratic contexts. I argue that variation in candidate-centered voting is largely a function of political sophistication: voters with higher levels of political sophistication are better able to process information relating to policy and performance, which tends to be more cognitively demanding than information relating to candidate’s personalities. To test this argument, I estimate models of vote choice and electoral utility using survey data from the 2002 presidential election in Brazil. The results largely support my contention that political sophistication conditions the weight of candidate considerations relative to policy and performance considerations.textLuskin, Robert C.2010-08-27T15:41:08Z2010-08-27T15:41:15Z2010-08-27T15:41:08Z2010-08-27T15:41:15Z2009-122010-08-27December 20092010-08-27T15:41:15Zthesisapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2009-12-601eng
collection NDLTD
language English
format Others
sources NDLTD
topic Candidate-centered voting
Voting behavior
Political sophistication
Brazil
Candidate personality
Presidential elections
spellingShingle Candidate-centered voting
Voting behavior
Political sophistication
Brazil
Candidate personality
Presidential elections
Slosar, Mary Catherine
Candidate-centered voting and political sophistication in Brazil 2002
description More and more, elections around the world seem to be won or lost on the basis of the candidates’ personal qualities rather than their policies. Despite its prevalence and consequences, we still know very little about what explains such candidate-centered voting, particularly in new democratic contexts. I argue that variation in candidate-centered voting is largely a function of political sophistication: voters with higher levels of political sophistication are better able to process information relating to policy and performance, which tends to be more cognitively demanding than information relating to candidate’s personalities. To test this argument, I estimate models of vote choice and electoral utility using survey data from the 2002 presidential election in Brazil. The results largely support my contention that political sophistication conditions the weight of candidate considerations relative to policy and performance considerations. === text
author2 Luskin, Robert C.
author_facet Luskin, Robert C.
Slosar, Mary Catherine
author Slosar, Mary Catherine
author_sort Slosar, Mary Catherine
title Candidate-centered voting and political sophistication in Brazil 2002
title_short Candidate-centered voting and political sophistication in Brazil 2002
title_full Candidate-centered voting and political sophistication in Brazil 2002
title_fullStr Candidate-centered voting and political sophistication in Brazil 2002
title_full_unstemmed Candidate-centered voting and political sophistication in Brazil 2002
title_sort candidate-centered voting and political sophistication in brazil 2002
publishDate 2010
url http://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2009-12-601
work_keys_str_mv AT slosarmarycatherine candidatecenteredvotingandpoliticalsophisticationinbrazil2002
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