Municipal elections in the German multi-level system
Final Report Abstract
The research project focused on the two most important forms of citizens behaviour in elections to the main political institutions of municipalities and cities: voter turnout and voting decisions. While these two aspects of voting behaviour have been extensively studied for the national level in Germany, there is a lack of studies for the local level. A key reason for this are the existing challenges in case selection and the limited availability of data – especially in regard to individual data. However, these are particularly necessary for the analysis of voting behaviour. The project's aim was therefore to address this lack of data and insights regarding local voting behaviour. As part of the project, telephone surveys were conducted in the first weeks after the municipal elections in four federal states. Specifically, these were the elections in North Rhine- Westphalia (2020), Hesse (2021), Lower Saxony (2021) and Schleswig-Holstein (2023). The data from each survey were then combined into an integrated dataset. Since it is not assumed that voting behavior in local elections fundamentally differs from that at the federal level, and to enable comparability with elections at other political levels, established national explanatory approaches were applied. These were supplemented by levelspecific factors in order to determine the relative weight of local and national influences on voter turnout and voting behaviour. In addition, key contextual factors of local democracies were taken into account: the size of the municipality as well as the local electoral and party system. The question of voting behaviour in local council elections differs significantly from other system levels due to the specifics of the supply side and electoral regulations. Therefore, new measurement instruments had to be developed. The established national measurement tools for explanatory factors also had to be adapted to the local level. A key finding of the analyses is that, contrary to some claims in the political science research, local elections are not of secondary importance to most participants and are not primarily an effect of overarching federal politics. Furthermore, specific forms of local voting behavior could be examined and new insights into explanatory factors were gained, some for the first time based on individual data across several federal states. These include the election of independent voter associations, accumulation and panache as well as the use of local elections as a protest vote. In addition, the data set offers the opportunity to analyse electionrelevant political attitudes at the local and national system levels.
Publications
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Kurzanalyse zu den Gemeinderatswahlen in Nordrhein-Westfalen am 13. September 2020
Cordes, Malte & Völkl, Kerstin
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Die hessischen Briefwähler:innen. Eine Analyse zu den Briefwähler:innen bei der hessischen Gemeinderatswahl 2021. Online-Vortrag auf der DVPW- Tagung, 14. bis 16. September 2021
Cordes, Malte
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Kurzanalyse zu den Gemeinderatswahlen in Hessen am 12. September 2021
Höpfner, Armin; Völkl, Kerstin & Cordes, Malte
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Kurzanalyse zu den Gemeinderatswahlen in Hessen am 14. März 2021
Cordes, Malte & Völkl, Kerstin
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Erklärung der Wahlbeteiligung bei Gemeinderatswahlen – Kommunal- oder Bundeseffekt? Vortrag auf der Tagung „50 Jahre Arbeitskreis Lokale Politikforschung – Stand und Perspektiven der Politikforschung“, Universität Heidelberg, 5. bis 6. Oktober 2022
Cordes, Malte & Völkl, Kerstin
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Die Wahlbeteiligung bei Gemeinderatswahlen – Kommunal-, Bundesoder Kontexteffekt? Vortrag auf der Tagung „Das Superkommunalwahljahr 2024 and beyond: Herausforderungen und Perspektiven für die lokale Demokratie in Deutschland, Universität Duisburg-Essen, 4. bis 5. Juli 2024
Völkl, Kerstin
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Wie „lokal“ sind lokale Wahlen? Parteiwahlverhalten bei Gemeinderatswahlen. Vortrag auf der Jahrestagung AK „Wahlen und politische Einstellungen“, Universität Siegen, 6. bis 7. Juni 2024
Völkl, Kerstin & Vetter, Angelika
