Voting for Our Story: A Narrative Model of Electoral Choice in Multiparty Systems

Tamir Sheafer, Shaul R. Shenhav, Kenneth Goldstein

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Based on narrative approaches, the authors develop an empirical technique to gauge the match between stories told by political actors and voters and assess its effect on voting behavior. Even with other fundamental attitudinal and demographic factors held constant, they hypothesize that voters should prefer parties that hold and communicate similar national narratives. Using data gathered during the 2009 elections to the Israeli Knesset, the authors gauge voter attitudes about fundamental national narratives in Israel and conduct a systematic analysis of parties’ discourse in parliamentary speeches to gauge parties’ stories. Controlling for demographics and ideology in a series of logistic regressions, the authors find that voting behavior for most parties is significantly affected by the narrative proximity between voters’ stories and parties’ stories.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)313-338
Number of pages26
JournalComparative Political Studies
Volume44
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2011

Keywords

  • Israel
  • multiparty system
  • narrative identity
  • narrative proximity
  • national stories
  • voting behavior

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Sociology and Political Science

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