Labour Market Disadvantage, Political Orientations and Voting : How Adverse Labour Market Experiences Translate into Electoral Behaviour
Journal
Socio-Economic Review
ISSN
1475-1461
ISSN-Digital
1475-147X
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2015-03-02
Author(s)
Abstract
How does labour market disadvantage translate into political behaviour? Bringing together the literatures on political alienation, redistribution preferences and insider-outsider politics, we identify three mechanisms by which labour market disadvantages influence voting behaviour. Disadvantages can increase support for redistribution, reduce internal political efficacy or lower external political efficacy. This translates into support for pro-redistribution parties, vote abstention or support for protest parties. Using the Dutch LISS survey, we observe a twin effect of increased support for redistribution and decreased external efficacy. Mediated through redistributive preferences, we find a positive effect of labour market disadvantage on voting for left parties. Mediated through external efficacy we find a positive effect of labour market disadvantage on protest voting. In contrast, we do not find any effect of labour market disadvantage on internal efficacy. Hence, the observed effect of labour market disadvantage on political abstention is entirely mediated by external efficacy.
Language
English
Keywords
political behaviour
labour market disadvantage
political efficacy
redistribution
elections
protest voting
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SEPS - Global Democratic Governance
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publisher place
Oxford
Volume
13
Number
2
Start page
189
End page
213
Pages
25
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
235092