This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford
Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and
selected open access locations. Over the past half century, the
behavior of German voters has changed profoundly - at first rather
gradually, but during the last decade at accelerated speed. Electoral
decision-making has become much more volatile, rendering election
outcomes less predictable. Party system fragmentation intensified
sharply. The success of the AfD put an end to Germany's exceptionality
as one of the few European countries without a strong right-wing
populist party. Utilizing a wide range of data compiled by the German
Longitudinal Election Study, the book examines changing voters'
behavior in the context of changing parties, campaigns, and media
during the period of its hitherto most dramatically increased fluidity
at the 2009, 2013, and 2017 federal elections. Guided by the notions
of realignment and dealignment the study addresses three questions:
How did the turbulences that increasingly characterize German
electoral politics come about? How did they in turn condition voters'
decision-making? How were voters' attitudes and choices affected by
situational factors that pertained to the specifics of particular
elections? The Changing German Voter demonstrates how traditional
cleavages lost their grip on voters and a new socio-cultural line of
conflict became the dominant axis of party competition. A series of
major crises, but also programmatic shifts of the established parties
promoted this development. It led to a segmentation of the party
system that pits the right-wing populist AfD against the traditional
parties. The book also demonstrates the relevance of coalition
preferences, candidate images as well as media and campaign effects
for voters' attitudes, beliefs, and preferences.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780192586735
Publisert
2022
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter