Voters don’t care too much about policy: How politicians conceive of voting motives

Abstract

Politicians’ perceptions of how citizens decide which party to vote for matter for how they behave in between elections. Yet, except for three older studies, a systematic assessment of how political actors today conceive of citizens’ voting motives is non-existent. This study’s goal is to fill the empirical lacuna by asking a large number of Belgian Members of Parliament what they believe determines citizens’ party choice. It shows that few politicians believe that citizens do their democratic duty and vote for a party because of its policy profile. In politicians’ conception, voters hardly take into account the party’s policy promises for the future nor the party’s past behavior when casting their vote. Instead, most MPs believe that citizens are seduced to vote for a party because of individual candidates on the party list, and because of the party’s campaign communications. These findings matter for substantive representation.