What Do We Choose: the Leaders, the Parties or the Ideologies? A Case Study for the 2016-2020 Local Elections in Romania, in Iași County
Keywords:
electoral system, local election, lider, political party, ideology, electoral behaviorAbstract
The electoral behavior is influenced by a wide range of factors that can shape voters' decisions in different political and social contexts. Among them, there are psychological, socio-cultural, economic, and political elements (such as the way in which the candidate-leaders of political parties behave, the activity of political parties and the way in which they behave during electoral campaigns), implicitly the type of the electoral system (which determines or can determine the political dynamics of the parties and their leaders), each having a different impact on the electoral options.
The purpose of this article is to provide, on the one hand, a theoretical approach to electoral behavior, investigating the key factors influencing voters' choices. Special emphasis is placed on the determinants that can influence their decisions, in particular on the links between the political leaders and the parties to which they belong, and the way in which their political behavior can influence and determine the behavior and, especially, the electoral choice of those who have this right and exercise it.
In addition to this theoretical framework that identifies and catalogs possible determinisms on voters' behavior, the present analysis particularizes these possible determinisms on voters' behavior through an applied study on local elections, in this case those in Iasi County in 2020, trying to outline the impact that local leaders appointed for mayoral positions have on the electoral options regarding the election or not of the same party from which the political leaders come in the Local Council, as the dominant party.
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