Since John Agnew’s work in 1996, it has been known the influence of context on voting behaviour in the field of electoral geography. Based on this, the voters’ choice is influenced not only by their individual attributes, but also by the socio-economic context of their everyday places. During the research, the impact of this phenomenon was quantified by connecting it with the territorial Simpson’s paradox. Because based on the theoretical hypothesis and the methodological hypothesis derived from it, by demonstrating the existence of the Simpson’s paradox, the measure of the contextual effect (which is described by Agnew) can be received. To prove this connection, the micro-scale (precinct level) election results of the Hungarian capital were compared with various socio-economic indicators (from the census tracts) by the calculation of Pearson correlation coefficients both on a local (functional-morphological zone) scale and on a scale which is including the entire metropolitan area. Based on the results, the contextual effect is mostly observed in the Buda villa district and large housing estates. In the case of the former, the influence of the social status (and in some cases education) on the voting bases of political parties (which can be observed for the whole capital region) has decreased. This means that these parties’ support was independent of the characteristics of socio-economic status, so areas with different status but in the same zone voted similarly. In the case of large housing estates, the results show that areas with low social status tended to vote more likely to the populist right-wing Fidesz, and graduates voted for the socialist party in a much higher proportion than in the capital in general.

Tamás Kovalcsik
University of Szeged, Hungary

 
ID Abstract: 906