Vote as you think: Determinants of consistent decision making in direct democracy

Abstract

This study investigates the conditions under which Swiss citizens take consistent decisions, that is, decisions that reflect their argument-based opinions, during direct-democratic ballots. In line with recent work on cognitive political behavior, we expect the drivers of consistent voting to be found at the individual and contextual level. At the individual level, we argue that political knowledge positively affects consistent decisions. At the contextual level, we anticipate a positive effect for campaign intensity, complexity and negativism. We estimate hierarchical logistic models based on VOX survey data (1999-2005) and original data that captures the nature of political campaigns. Our results support our expectations for the situational level and (partially) for the individual factors.