Party Preference Orders at the German 2021 Federal Election

• In Event: Voter Preferences in Multiparty Systems

Abstract

We extract complete preference orders of the German electorate based on pairwise comparisons. Application background is the 2021 German Federal Election with six parties entering the Bundestag: AfD, CDU/CSU, FDP, Greens, Linke, SPD. Accounting for indifferences we characterize the complex preference orders as in Brady and Ansolabehere (APSR, 1989) given the different context of a complex multiparty system with coalition governments. Of special interest will be whether and to which degree preference orders resulting from pairwise comparisons are congruent as compared to scalometer scores. Finally, we will statistically explain the preference orders with prominent electoral research variables (ideology, issues, candidate evaluations, coalition preferences etc.) based on the rank ordered logit model, also known as the Plackett-Luce model. It will be shown that despite the structure of rankings is mainly determined by the left-right dimension, other short-term factors also play a considerable role.

Authors

• Paul W. Thurner, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen

• Fabian Haggerty, LMU Munich

• Viktor Bengs

• Eyke Hüllermeier, LMU Munich