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Black and white photo of Annika Fredén. Photo.

Annika Fredén

Associate Senior Lecturer

Black and white photo of Annika Fredén. Photo.

Betting on the underdog : The influence of social networks on vote choice

Author

  • Annika Fredén
  • Ludovic Rheault
  • Indridi H. Indridason

Summary, in English

People are commonly expected not to waste their vote on parties with small probabilities of being elected. Yet, many end up voting for underdogs. We argue that voters gauge the popular support for their preferred party from their social networks. When social networks function as echo chambers, a feature observed in real-life networks, voters overestimate underdogs' chances of winning. We conduct voting experiments in which some treatment groups receive signals from a simulated network. We compare the effect of networks with a high degree of homogeneity against random networks. We find that homophilic networks increase the level of support for underdogs, which provides evidence to back up anecdotal claims that echo chambers foster the development of fringe parties.

Publishing year

2022

Language

English

Pages

198-205

Publication/Series

Political Science Research and Methods

Volume

10

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Topic

  • Political Science

Keywords

  • elections and campaigns
  • experimental research
  • social networks
  • voting behavior

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2049-8470