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EXPLORING VOTERS’ SWITCHING BEHAVIOUR WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A FINANCIAL CRISIS

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Pistolas, Apostolos (2017) EXPLORING VOTERS’ SWITCHING BEHAVIOUR WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A FINANCIAL CRISIS. PhD thesis, University of Gloucestershire.

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Official URL: https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/14555/

Abstract

Voting is perceived as a behaviour that determines the direction a society takes and therefore impacts the everyday life of citizens. The complexity of voting behaviour has made an adequate number of studies to try and decode it by following various perspectives. Within the various factors that can impact the voting behaviour of individuals, the age of the voter is considered as being an important one. The high importance of age is based on the cohort, life-cycle and individual ageing effects. Where cohorts of voters live under the context of a financial crisis the latter is argued to have an impact on the voting behaviour of that cohort, which can lead to a switching vote decision. There are many researcher studies that have studied voting behaviour and the factors that have an impact on it. Moreover, the impact of financial crisis situation has also been studied. However, most researches that study voting behaviour either focus on younger generation. From the researches that focus on older voters most of them highlight the formers’ higher relative voting stability. Though, in situations of financial crisis switch of vote occurs also for older aged voters. The researches that discuss switch of vote focus on the reasons that can lead to that. The group of older voters that decide to switch their vote is practically neglected by the literature. Therefore, a theoretical gap is revealed, which is about the understanding of the voting behaviour of older voters who switched their vote under the context of financial crisis. This is where this research study will focus. To address this gap this study aims to explore the switching voting behaviour of older generation under the context of financial crisis. To meet this aim a qualitative methodology was designed to provide an insider’s perspective on the reasons that Greek older aged voters have decided to switch their vote under the context of financial crisis to SYRIZA and the impact of the latter (financial crisis) to this decision. Twenty seven interviews were conducted with voters who switched their vote to SYRIZA in general elections that were held under the context of financial crisis. It was revealed that the crisis has a substantial impact on the voting decision making of switching voters and that the meaning they assign to leader’s traits can give a deeper understanding of their voting behaviour. This study makes four major contributions to knowledge. Regarding the field of switching voting behaviour, the research contributes by identifying the main factors that can influence it and by identifying the reasons that older voters decide to switch their vote under the context of financial crisis. It also contributes to the field of political marketing by identifying the voters’ clusters and the new political perceptual map. Finally, it contributes to the field of financial crisis by identifying the impact that it has on the voting behaviour of the individuals. A number of implications for practice, as well as emerging areas of future research are drawn.

Item Type:

Thesis (PhD)

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