Why are politicians selective in granting investment incentives to foreign direct investment (FDI) projects? One understudied reason is that politicians want to minimize backlash from voters. In this article, I present the first study to systematically analyze voter preferences toward investment incentives. I theorize that voters should be more likely to support investment incentives for FDI projects that they perceive as “high quality”—that is, projects that voters perceive to be highly effective in improving the living standards of their communities. As a result, I expect that politicians who support low-quality FDI projects with incentives will lose voter support. A factorial survey experiment in the United States provides evidence in favor of this argument. Voters reward politicians only if they provide investment incentives to high-quality projects. An additional conjoint survey experiment highlights the importance of project characteristics that indicate high quality in increasing the approval of investment incentives. To demonstrate the external validity of these experimental results, I present descriptive evidence that illustrates the consistencies between the determinants of investment incentives for FDI projects and voter preferences.

Political scientists have increasingly deployed conjoint survey experiments to understand multidimensional choices in various settings. In this paper, we show that the average marginal component effect (AMCE) constitutes an aggregation of individual-level preferences that is meaningful both theoretically and empirically. First, extending previous results to allow for arbitrary randomization distributions, we show how the AMCE represents a summary of voters’ multidimensional preferences that combines directionality and intensity according to a probabilistic generalization of the Borda rule. We demonstrate why incorporating both the directionality and intensity of multi-attribute preferences is essential for analyzing real-world elections, in which ceteris paribus comparisons almost never occur. Second, and in further empirical support of this point, we show how this aggregation translates directly into a primary quantity of interest to election scholars: the effect of a change in an attribute on a candidate’s or party’s expected vote share. These properties hold irrespective of the heterogeneity, strength, or interactivity of voters’ preferences and regardless of how votes are aggregated into seats. Finally, we propose, formalize, and evaluate the feasibility of using conjoint data to estimate alternative quantities of interest to electoral studies, including the effect of an attribute on the probability of winning.

How do voters sort within an electoral coalition? Voting literatures on ideology, character valence, and issue ownership provide explanations for inter-coalition or inter-party voting, yet the coalition context remains understudied. Do voters in proportional coalition-based systems use the same ideological and issue-based heuristics ascribed to them in two-party systems that favor single-party government? Voting behavior in Italy in the 2000s is used to explore this question. This paper examines what motivates the voters of the large center-left and center-right coalitions, specifically whether ideology, economic issues, or other considerations lead voters to select their party of choice. Results indicate that, on average, voters select a coalition ideologically-proximal and deemed the more competent on issues, while they select a specific party based upon character and reputation issues. Findings thus suggest that voters sort for both coalition and party-specific reasons.

Communication networks play an important role in the process of political socialization. This article, based on Taiwan's 2002 Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral election data, investigates the extent to which political discussion with family and close friends affects changes in vote choices. Using two definitions of changes in vote choice—vote switching and partisan defection—the empirical findings support Alan Zuckerman and his followers' structural theory and partially sustain Paul Beck's social support theory. First, partisan voters in both cities who perceive great heterogeneity in their communication networks are likely to switch their vote in two consecutive elections. Second, partisan voters in Kaohsiung who frequently discuss politics within communication networks are not likely to defect their party identification. The implications of the findings for the development of deliberative democracy are discussed.