Hybrid Voters: How the Politics in the Home and the New Country Influences External Voters

[en] Based on 20 years of election data gathered for 6 European countries, this article analyses how the non-resident citizens vote from abroad in the elections of their origin country. Our mediation model demonstrates that the external vote share of a party is dependent on the support for this party in the home-country before the election and the support registered for ideologically close parties in the new country of residence at the same moment. Our results put thus forward that external voting choices are hybrid: they mostly reflect the political context of their ‘home’ origin country, but also mirror politics in the ‘new’ country of residence. Furthermore, the article shows that the link between incumbency and the share taken by a party among the external community is not direct but mediated by how much is this party supported in the home-country, and how much ideologically similar parties are supported in the host-country. This finding further confirms that the flow of public opinion in the home and the new country both shape the choices that are made by external voters.

Disciplines :

Sociology & social sciences

Author, co-author :

Ognibene, Marco ; Political Science Department (Cevipol), Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

PAULIS, Emilien ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Humanities (DHUM) > Philosophy ; Political Science Department (Cevipol), Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Hybrid Voters: How the Politics in the Home and the New Country Influences External Voters

Publication date :

2023

Journal title :

Representation

ISSN :

0034-4893

eISSN :

1749-4001

Publisher :

Routledge

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

465 - 484

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00344893.2021.1978531

Funding text :

The authors did not receive any support for the research, authorship and/or publication. The authors would like to thank the editors of the special issue (Emilie Van Haute and Tudi Kernalegenn) and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Available on ORBilu :

since 22 November 2023

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