Voting pattern determinants

[Hash]

An interesting thing to look at for us sad electoral nerds with no life is what determines a country's traditional voting patterns - given that they actually vary quite a bit on the details from country to country. Here's a basic list of what I think are determinants for voting patterns/voter behaviours in major democratic states

By class, I also mean stuff like income and all that stuff. By region, I mean where a candidate or a party's regional base is of significant importance/strong regional-based voting/. By geographic environment, I mean stuff like a major urban-rural divide or something along those lines. By tradition, I mean ancestral voting patterns being important and traditional party loyalties being important as well. By race, I mean skin colour. By ethnicity, I mean a level below skin colour with stuff like tribes, ethnic origin, ancestry. By religious practice I mean stuff like church/etc attendance. By religion, I mean voting patterns decided by religious differences like Papists vs. Prods. By values I mean stuff like societal attitudes and other values (not necessarily religious). I could mention 'party machines' for a lot, but since I'm idealistic today I'll exclude that.

I've only covered countries which I kinda know well, excluding countries I don't know as well. I probably excluded accidently some things in countries I've put on the list anyways;

US: race, geographic environment (urban-rural), tradition, values, religious practice; ethnicity, party machines, class as declining determinants
UK: class, religion (in Northern Ireland)
Brazil: class (which entails, oftentimes, race), government subsidies/payments (social programs); party machines as a declining determinant
Sweden: class
France: tradition, religious practice, class (to an extent), values; religious practice as a declining determinant
Canada: geographic environment (urban-rural and suburban), region, tradition, ethnicity, values; religious practice, language as declining determinants (for the latter, except in Quebec)
Spain: class, tradition, language (esp. for regional nationalisms), region
Portugal: class, region, tradition
Ireland: tradition
most West African democracies: ethnicity, language etc., party machines
South Africa: race (which entails, oftentimes, class)
Argentina: region, party machines (?)
Germany: class, tradition; religious practice as a declining determinant (?)
Italy: tradition, class (to an extent), region, "shady things"
India: class/caste, ethnicity, religion, party machines, regions, tradition (a broad guess)
Pakistan: region, party machines, ethnicity (a broad guess, again)
Australia: geographic environment (urban-rural?), class (to an extent), values
Switzerland: language, religion (declining), values, geographic environment (urban-rural)
Poland: geographic environment (urban-rural), class (to an extent), values

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Presumably you mean the main factors?

By class, I also mean stuff like income and all that stuff.

E.P. Thompson's approach to class (class as a historical process; a combination of collective experience, identity and material factors) is usually the best when it comes to looking at election results.

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There's also an important regional dimension, although that's complicated because it's actually linked strongly to class in some cases. A lot of interesting stuff at the margins as well, though only really at the margins; you have the obvious examples of occasional racist spasms in a couple of places (though it's true that no broad summary like this ought to pay much attention to that), and there are also odd little patterns here and there that are often linked to what you call tradition.

[tpfkaw]

Rich people in Connecticut certainly do vote very differently from rich people in Texas.

[Hash]

Rich people in Connecticut certainly do vote very differently from rich people in Texas.

Which is why I said "declining determinants"! Reading helps.

[afleitch]

Religion also plays a smaller but noticeable role in Scottish politics.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Religion also plays a smaller but noticeable role in Scottish politics.

It seems to be much stronger in lower turnout elections, which is interesting.

[Хahar 🤔]

In most pseudo-democracies the most important factor is local elites and whom they support. Of course, why the local elites support those whom they do can be an interesting question: often it's money, but not always.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

are there any countries or regions where greater religious practice is associated with more left-wing politics?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Shouldn't religion be included for all of Britain as a declining determinant, along with geographic divides as a major one?

[Niemeyerite]

you're right on spain and portugal

[Verily]

Rich people in Connecticut certainly do vote very differently from rich people in Texas.

But rich (white) people in Connecticut are more Republican relative to the (white) middle class in Connecticut than rich (white) people in Texas are relative to the (white) middle class in Texas.

Which shows that it really is still mostly about class, once you get past the three Rs of American politics (race, religiosity and region).

First you, look at race. If you're a racial minority, you're a Democrat (exceptions for a few odd groups like Vietnamese and Cubans). If you're white, look at religiosity. If you're very religious, you're a Republican. If you're not religious, you're a Democrat. If you're only sort of religious, look at region. If you're in the Northeast or West, you're a Democrat; if you're in the South or the Plains and Mountains, you're a Republican. If you're in the Midwest, look at class. If you're poor, you're a Democrat; if you're rich, you're a Republican. If you're middle class, look at ethnicity. If you're Scandinavian, you're a Democrat; if you're not, you're a Republican.

American politics: nutshell version.

(Okay, this oversimplifies a bit; some ethnicity and class issues should apply to the Northeast as well, or at least to PA and NJ. And there are always a few who buck the trend, usually because they meet other criteria very strongly [e.g., rich and very religious Hispanics are probably not all that Democratic]. But you get the point .)

[Smid]

I think Australia is probably fairly accurate - perhaps there are some more factors, but I'd have to think for a while before I could give any suggestion as to what they are.

The urban/rural is probably more important than income levels (class) because some of the very safe Liberal/National rural electorates have low incomes - especially in times of drought, which have been when the past couple of Censuses have been taken and therefore the values that show up when obtaining demographic data. Low income areas in metropolitan areas more likely to vote Labor, though, so it's sort of a geographic location > income values but incomes play a role once geographic location becomes metropolitan... Provincial towns tend to be more likely to vote Labor, though... I'm thinking specifically of places like Ballarat and Bendigo (each with their own electorate), Rockhampton (Capricornia), possibly Gladstone (Flynn), possibly Geelong might count as provincial although I wouldn't count it (mostly in Corio, some of it in Corangamite), Newcastle (has its own electorate), etc. I think many of those provincial towns are based on mining or manufacturing, though, which could partially explain that.

Perhaps employment by industry is more important than geographic location... agriculture means more likely to vote Liberal/National - possibly in part due to "tradition" and mining and manufacturing more likely to vote Labor, and after that, perhaps income level has more to do with it? I did a couple of charts in Excel for the 2006 Victorian State election, just comparing primary vote for party with income at the 2006 Census (the Australian Bureau of Statistics has an exceptional website, allowing you to compare demographic data for various geographic locations - including state or federal electoral districts, suburbs, and all the way down to Census Collection Districts, which are just a couple of hundred households, the data can be provided in a table or in a map - so you can get a map of a particular electorate, to spot trends across the electorate, or you can just get a table of all the electorates in the state, ranked by a particular variable, which is what I was doing in that Victorian Demographic Maps thread). There was a positive correlation between income and Liberal primary vote, a negative correlation between income and Labor primary vote, a positive correlation between income and Greens primary vote and a negative correlation between income and Family First primary vote. I think the strongest correlation was Labor's, I think followed by the Greens', then I think the Liberals' and finally the link with Family First was quite weak (although I suspect this is where religious practice would be a substantially more dominant variable).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Very interesting topic.

[Iannis]

For Italy, more than class, the kind of occupation matters. In public sector both the boss and the lowest level emplyee vote the same. Equally in some small factories in the North: blue collars and their boss share the kind of vote.
Also religion matters.

[Sol]

I'm sorry to necro, but this is a too cool topic.

South Korea: Region, urban vs. rural
Bosnia: Ethnicity
Bolivia: Race, Region, Class

[You kip if you want to...]

UK: class, religion (in Northern Ireland)

Class yes, but how one 'defines' class is another issue. Plenty of very upper-middle class Labour voters who'd never vote Tory because they feel they've come from a working class background.
North/South
In Wales, language
Public/Private sector employees
Race. At the last election, being non-White was the biggest determiner of whether an individual'd vote Tory or not.
Catholic/CofE traditionally

[DavidB.]

Netherlands: "zuil" used to be the most important, which is based on religion and class. Those two determinants were enough to predict most votes. Nowadays, one can argue that the cultural cleavage is the most important one. If you're highly educated, cosmopolitan, and urban, you'll be likely voting for D66, GroenLinks or PvdA. If you haven't got a lot of education, if you're more of a traditionalist/nationalist, if you live in rural areas or in poorer areas in the commuter belt of the big cities, you'll be likely to vote for cultural conservative parties like the PVV (and, in the south or if you're poor, SP). VVD and (to a lesser extent) CDA and PvdA hold a "middle ground" position.

Israel: ethnicity and religiosity. Parties solely apply to the upcoming election, general patterns do not.
- If you're (non-Druze) Arabic, you vote for an Arab party.
- If you're Druze, you could basically vote for anything.
-  If you're (non-Russian) Ashkenazic and you're not religious, you vote for one of the leftist or centre parties, in this election most likely the Zionist Union or Yesh Atid, unless you're rich and you live in the north/center of Tel Aviv, which will make you more likely to vote for Meretz. Living on a kibbutz makes you vote Zionist Union or Meretz.
- If you're Ashkenazic and you're a modern orthodox religious Zionist, you'll be voting for the Jewish Home (or, if you're even more to the right, for Yachad-Otzma).
- If you're Ashkenazic and you're haredi, you'll be voting for UTJ.
- If you're Russian (and therefore in most cases not religious), you'll be voting Yisrael Beiteinu or Likud.
- If you're Sephardic and you're traditional / only a bit religious, you'll be voting Likud or Kulanu. The more religious you get, however, the higher the chance that you'll be voting for Shas.

[King of Kensington]

Canada has stood out historically for lacking a "class cleavage."  The NDP resembles social democratic parties in terms of its structure and trade union base but they never came to close to getting anything close to a majority of the votes of union members or workers.  The 2011 breakthrough when they surpassed the Liberals raised hopes that a "proper" left-right polarization like that in Britain (Labour/Tory with small Liberal party) had emerged, but at this point it appears unlikely that such a fundamental realignment occurred.

I'm not so sure if class determines voting behavior more in the US than in Canada at this point, given that the Democrats are far less of a party of the workers than during the days it had more of  a social democratic tinge.

[DavidB.]

Canada has stood out historically for lacking a "class cleavage."  The NDP resembles social democratic parties in terms of its structure and trade union base but they never came to close to getting anything close to a majority of the votes of union members or workers.  The 2011 breakthrough when they surpassed the Liberals raised hopes that a "proper" left-right polarization like that in Britain (Labour/Tory with small Liberal party) had emerged, but at this point it appears unlikely that such a fundamental realignment occurred.

I'm not so sure if class determines voting behavior more in the US than in Canada at this point, given that the Democrats are far less of a party of the workers than during the days it had more of  a social democratic tinge.

So what are the cleavages in Canada?

[King of Kensington]

Regional, linguistic and religion (though today it's more how religious and less than Protestant vs. Catholic as it used to be; half the Catholic vote is in Quebec anyway so it's a reflection of region and language) have definitely been more pronounced than class.

The NDP does have regional pockets of a strong history of trade unionism and class-based votign where the NDP is very much the "labor party" however - the industrial cities of Hamilton and Windsor, Northern Ontario, the North End of Winnipeg, etc.

[Хahar 🤔]

Of course, as has been mentioned time and time again, the religious divide in Newfoundland is opposite that of Canada.