The first stage of the inquiry determines whether voters' expectations about the outcome of the election have an independent effect on vote choice, after controlling their preferences, more specifically their party identification and evaluations of parties and leaders. ![]() We propose a method for measuring strategic voting in multiparty plurality elections, and we apply that method to the 1997 Canadian election. In sum, the mechanical effect turns out to be the most decisive link of the electoral chain. The variance we find surrounding psychological effects is too large to exert a targeted impact. Finally, while our analyses reveal that some strategic voting takes places, it is blurred by a comparatively large amount of non-strategic behaviour by voters. Second, in the two established democracies we examine, we observe that district-level bottom-up coordination takes places. First, macro-sociological context, measured as cleavages, operate at the district level: An increase in the heterogeneity within a constituency significantly increases party system size. Our study yields three major findings drawing on constituency-level data covering 462 electoral districts in Finland and Portugal between 19. This paper addresses this shortcoming by analysing the effect of electoral systems on party system size, accounting for all three mechanisms. ![]() While electoral research has become one of political science’s most fertile areas, to date no empirical contribution has addressed the three mechanisms of the electoral chain – strategic entry, strategic voting, and the electoral system’s mechanical effect – in a unified analytical framework.
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