Richard Nadeau

Université de Montréal | UdeM · Department of Political Science

Résumé Cette étude examine l’évolution de la couverture accordée aux enjeux dans la presse écrite durant les campagnes au Québec de 1994 à 2018. Deux constats ressortent de cette étude. On assisterait d'abord à une diversification de l'ordre du jour médiatique s'expliquant notamment par un recul de la question nationale dans l'espace médiatique au...

A growing body of research has attempted to measure the propensity of individuals to prioritize environmental issues over economic objectives. A frequently used item for this purpose asks respondents to choose between protecting the environment at the cost of less economic growth and growing the economy at the expense of less environmental protecti...

This research examines how false beliefs shape perceptions of government transparency in times of crisis. Measuring transparency perceptions using both closed- and open-ended questions drawn from a Canadian panel survey, we show that individuals holding false beliefs about COVID-19 are more likely to have negative perceptions of government transpar...

Citizens who voted for a party that won the election are more satisfied with democracy than those who did not. This winner–loser gap has recently been found to vary with the quality of electoral democracy: the higher the quality of democracy, the smaller the gap. However, we do not know what drives this relationship. Is it driven by losers, winners...

Against the backdrop of rising energy demand and growing public concern over climate change , the building of new and the expansion of existing oil and gas pipelines has emerged as a hotly contested political issue. Yet little is known about how elite debate over pipelines influences mass public opinion. Using the case of TransCanada’s Energy East...

The COVID-19 crisis has demanded that governments take restrictive measures that are abnormal for most representative democracies. This article aims to examine the determinants of the public’s evaluations towards those measures. This article focuses on political trust and partisanship as potential explanatory factors of evaluations of each governme...

Studies of citizens' compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures routinely rely on survey data. While such data are essential, public health restrictions provide clear signals of what is socially desirable in this context, creating a potential source of response bias in self-reported measures of compliance. In this research, we examine whether the...

The COVID-19 public health pandemic has seen governments spend trillions of dollars to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus as well as to soften the economic blow from the shutting down of national economies. Subsequent budget shortfalls raise the question of how governments will pay for the direct and indirect costs associated with the COVID-19...

Most forecasting models for American presidential elections provide estimates of the national two-party vote. Since popular vote winners generally win a majority of Electoral College votes, these models can normally assume that their forecast offers a clear indication of who will end up in the Oval Office. Evidently, this assumption is not always w...

Studies of citizens’ compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures routinely rely on survey data. While essential, public health restrictions provide clear signals of what is socially desirable in this context, creating a potential source of response bias in self-reported measures of compliance. In this research, we examine whether the results of a...

The unequal burden from the COVID-19 crisis (e.g., in terms of infection and death rates) across Canadian provinces is important and puzzling. Some have speculated that differences in levels of citizen compliance with public health preventive measures are central to understanding cross-provincial differences in pandemic-related health outcomes. How...

The extent to which citizens comply with newly-enacted public health measures such as social distancing or lockdowns strongly affects the propagation of the virus and the number of deaths from COVID-19. It is however very difficult to identify non-compliance through survey research because claiming to follow the rules is socially desirable. Using t...

Election forecasting has become a fixture of election campaigns in a number of democracies. Structural modeling, the major approach to forecasting election results, relies on ‘fundamental’ economic and political variables to predict the incumbent’s vote share usually a few months in advance. Some political scientists contend that adding vote intent...

The extent to which citizens comply with newly-enacted public health measures such as social distancing or lockdowns strongly affects the propagation of the virus and the number of deaths from COVID-19. It is however very difficult to identify non-compliance through survey research because claiming to follow the rules is socially desirable. Using t...

Election forecasting models based on voting theories and estimated via regression analysis are routinely available for virtually all advanced industrial democracies. Denmark, however, offers an exception, for no such prediction equations have been published on the Danish case. This absence has sometimes been attributed to the puzzling nature of eco...

Economic and political considerations are important in determining citizens' level of satisfaction with their democratic system, but research analyzing which criteria prevail in which contexts is still limited. We examine under what conditions citizens chiefly rely on economic or political considerations in assessing their level of satisfaction wit...

Many studies show that past and current economic conditions are strong determinants of citizens’ attitudes toward government and political institutions. In this article, we develop a forward-looking theory, and argue that economic expectations also drive the level of satisfaction with democracy. Crucially, we contend that this relationship is condi...

This study analyzes the level of satisfaction with democracy through attitudes toward the two mechanisms that affect citizens’ financial situation: The Market and the State. Using survey data from 16 established democracies, we show that satisfaction with democracy depends on the interplay between citizens’ level of income and their evaluation of t...

Changes in voters' behavior and in the campaign strategies that political parties pursue are likely to have increased the importance of campaigns on voters' electoral choices. As a result, scholars increasingly question the usefulness and predictive power of structural forecasting models, that use information from “fundamental” variables to make an...

Satisfaction with democracy is driven by the two mechanisms that affect citizens’ income: the market and the state. When people consider that the levels of economic growth and redistribution are sufficient, they are more satisfied with the performance of democratic institutions. This relationship is moderated by personal income: since low-income ci...

Why do some voters accept their defeat and agree to a democratic verdict while some do not? This distinction between “graceful” and “sore” losers is essential for the stability of democratic regimes. This paper focuses on the phenomenon of losers’ consent in the 2016 Brexit referendum using original public opinion data. Extant studies suggest that...

Voter turnout still receives considerable attention in electoral studies. Recently, there have been numerous investigations of a neglected determinant, sometimes labeled “patrimony” and here labeled “wealth.” This variable, measuring how much wealth a voter has, appears to help account for party choice, beyond more usual socioeconomic measures. How...

This article studies support for upper chamber reforms in multinational countries. In his seminal work on the topic, Lijphart argues that the upper chamber can be used to accommodate minority groups. However, to date, we still know very little about the perception of minority populations of this institution. We explore this topic building upon an o...

À chaque élection municipale, certains commentateurs annoncent des résultats largement tributaires de la conjoncture nationale. D'autres affirment que le sort des élus dépend avant tout de la situation locale.Dans la perspective d'anticiper les basculements à gauche ou à droite lors de ces scrutins, les auteurs ont analysé les résultats d'un panel...

Perhaps no variable in political science has received more attention than electoral participation. Despite, or because of, the great amount of research on this topic, significant new determinants for electoral participation have not been recently forthcoming. Here we offer a significant new determinant – patrimony. For theoretical reasons, we expec...

The Michigan model, named after the institution where it was first articulated, has been used to explain voting behavior in North American and Western European democracies. In Latin American Elections, experts on Latin America join with experts on electoral studies to evaluate the model’s applicability in this region. Analyzing data from the Americ...

Few have asked about political implications of increasing income inequalities in Canada. Over several generations, those in higher echelons have enjoyed considerable growth, while those in lower tiers have seen no growth, or worse, declines. This leads us to ask whether there also exists a bifurcation of political attitudes, with those in the lower...

Election forecasting work, in Britain and elsewhere, has been confined mainly to traditional approaches – statistical modeling or poll-watching. We import a new approach, which we call synthetic modeling. These models, developed out of forecasting efforts from the American 2012 presidential election, we are currently testing in a comparative Europe...

RESUMEN En la actualidad existe un amplio conocimiento acerca del voto económico; conocimiento que, en general, proviene de democracias desarrolladas (Norteamérica y Europa Occidental). Existen trabajos relevantes sobre democracias con niveles de ingresos bajos, pero basados en estudios de casos con datos agregados. Trabajos que incorporen diferent...

Durante la última década del siglo XX la teoría clásica del voto eco-nómico ha recibido considerable apoyo empírico. Los votantes premian al partido de gobierno por los buenos tiempos económicos y lo castigan por los malos. Pero el éxito de este paradigma, el cual adopta la visión clásica [valence] de la economía que posee un amplio consenso, ha ec...

French popularity functions are under-studied, at least when as compared to vote functions. After a first wave of studies conducted in the wake of Lafay’s pioneering work, scholarly works on French popularity functions have been few and far between in the last two decades. And this, despite the fact that public opinion data on French popularity hav...

Issue ownership has become a useful concept for explaining party and voter behaviour in electoral democracies. This article argues that issue ownership can also provide us with a better understanding of the economic issue’s impact on the vote because perceptions of party competence at managing the economy can counterbalance the influence of retrosp...

Election forecasting has become a standard part of the tool kit for political scientists around the world. However, that focus is almost exclusively on forecasting national electoral contests. Here we offer another, unique, focus – the changing political color of the core nations of the European Union, the Fifteen. First, we offer a model that fore...

Trying to explain French elections sometimes seems like trying to see through a blinding snowstorm. But a focus on choice and outcome in presidential contests provides a clear path to their understanding. These elections, paramount in themselves, frame the lesser contests. Here we develop a theory of French presidential elections, using a French-st...

Durante la última década del siglo XX la teoría clásica del voto eco-nómico ha recibido considerable apoyo empírico. Los votantes premian al partido de gobierno por los buenos tiempos económicos y lo castigan por los malos. Pero el éxito de este paradigma, el cual adopta la visión clásica [valence] de la economía que posee un amplio consenso, ha ec...

Durante la última década del siglo XX la teoría clásica del voto económico ha recibido considerable apoyo empírico. Los votantes premian al partido de gobierno por los buenos tiempos económicos y lo castigan por los malos. Pero el éxito de este paradigma, el cual adopta la visión clásica [valence] de la economía que posee un amplio consenso, ha ecl...

We look at economic voting during times of financial crisis using individual-level survey data from the 2008 and 2011 Canadian Election Studies. We posit that in times of crisis, the economy’s impact on incumbent voting can be twofold. There is first an impact that is more traditional in nature and based on retrospective assessments of national eco...

Heated debate surrounds the topic of health care in both the US and in Canada. In each country, these debates are based in some measure on perceptions about health care in their neighboring country. The perceptions held by Canadians about the US health care system, or those held by Americans about Canada, end up having significant impact on health...

Studies of French voting behavior have pioneered the inclusion of patrimony in explanations of vote choice in presidential elections. Patrimony, as measured by the number of assets that an individual owns, has been found to matter to vote choice in recent French presidential elections. Can we say that its influence has continued with the latest 201...

Hugo Chávez has attracted considerable political support since his emergence on the Venezuela political scene. But what are the bases of this support? More specifically, is economic voting a significant component of his support? Through investigation of the 2010 LAPOP Barometer data, we estimate the various components of a Chávez vote model. In a s...

Economic voting has been well-studied in a number of advanced industrial democracies, including Denmark. However, that work has been almost entirely on the valence dimension, i.e., rewarding or punishing government according to whether the overall economy prospers. Recent work has looked at other economic voting dimensions, including patrimony, i.e...

In a seminal paper, Kramer (1983) posed his "problem" for the study of economic voting with election surveys: the items administered can measure neither individual nor national economic wellbeing accurately. Instead these items of economic perception are laden with erroneous judgment and partisan bias. Thus, the investigation of economics and elect...

Several studies have shown the importance of patrimony on voting for the right in French, British, and American national elections. However, these studies have only taken into account the diversity of patrimony and not their value. We propose to fill this gap in the literature with the “Mode de vie des Français” dataset that contains information on...

The economics and elections connection has been heavily investigated, although mostly through single-country studies. The first comparative, survey-based research on economic voting, by Lewis–Beck, found serious effects. Subsequently, other comparative scholars have explored this terrain. The most recent, and most ambitious, examinations are by Duc...

Almost all the prolific work done on economic voting has been based on the classic reward–punishment model, which treats the economy as a valence issue. The economy is a valence issue, but it is much more than that. This article explores two other dimensions of economic voting – position and patrimony. Investigating a 2010 British survey containing...

We review theories of French elections, drawing on a recent general theory developed in our analysis of presidential elections (1988–2007). We offer an explanation for why President Sarkozy was not re-elected in 2012. Two key theoretical variables were involved: one long term—ideological identification—and one short term—economic evaluation. The ef...

In country after country, economic voting analysts have found that voters react sociotropically rather than egotropically. However, in a series of papers Nannestad and Paldam have found the exact opposite result for Danish voters – a result which challenges the scope conditions of economic voting. Changing only a few minor aspects of Nannestad and...

This article revisits our forecast of the 2012 French presidential election. Although our forecast was generally accurate in seeing the return of the left to the presidency, its point estimate error proved to be large (9.2 points). This article suggests that this forecast error may come from a wrong choice of dependent variable. New empirical tests...

On the basis of his record in office, especially with regard to the economy, a heavy defeat for Sarkozy could have been expected. Our presidential election forecast supported that expectation. However, that forecast was for a larger Sarkozy defeat than actually occurred. We suggest, through an examination of leadership data, that Sarkozy managed to...

Will President Obama lose votes in 2012 because of racial prejudice? For 2008, we estimated, via a carefully controlled, national survey-based study, that on balance he lost about five percentage points in popular vote share due to intolerance for his race on the part of some voters. What about 2012? There are at least three possibilities: (1) the...

Economic voting has been little studied in the nations of Southern Europe. Here we examine economic voting in the Southern European countries of Portugal, Italy, Spain, and Greece – the PIGS. Through the analysis of a large, ten European nation survey pool, we establish that economic voting exists in the PIGS, with a strength that significantly exc...

The several models of French presidential election forecasting that have been proposed focus virtually exclusively on substantive explanation of the vote, embedded within a single-equation macro-model. We offer something different – a powerful Proxy Model based on prediction alone. However, that model itself forms part of a larger two-equation syst...

How useful are polls taken a few months before a French presidential election for predicting the decisive second round ballot? We address this question from two points of view: (a) a retrospective angle based on the incumbent candidate record; and (b) a prospective and comparative perspective centred around the images of the main candidates. Accord...

Prevailing wisdom has it that campaigns don’t matter when it comes to forecasting U.S. presidential elections; the incorporation of direct campaign measures into statistical forecasting models does not appear to improve forecasting accuracy. Richard Nadeau and Michael Lewis-Beck now challenge that assertion, based on consideration of the quality an...

Who will win the next French presidential election? Forecasting electoral results from political-economy models is a recent tradition in France. In this article, we pursue this effort by estimating a vote function based on both local and national data for the elections held between 1981 and 2007. This approach allows us to circumvent the small N pr...

Fort d'une analyse conjointe des quatre élections présidentielles de 1988, 1995, 2002, 2007, cet ouvrage dresse le portrait d'un électorat français, de l'évolution de ses opinions, de ses orientations idéologiques et de ses choix.Son intérêt est de montrer dans quelle mesure les variables dites « lourdes » (classe, patrimoine, âge, genre, religion,...

The persistence of the “patrimony effect” during the French presidential elections In a seminal and innovative book, Jacques Capdevielle and his colleagues suggested some thirty years ago the existence of a “patrimony effect” to help explain electoral behavior in France. Despite the significance of this finding, the issue has received little subseq...

While economic voting has been much studied, almost all the work has been based on the classic reward-punishment model, which treats the economy as a valence issue. The economic is, indeed, a valence issue, but it is much more than that. In the work at hand, we explore two other dimensions of economic voting – position and patrimony. Through invest...

In a seminal and innovative book, Jacques Capdevielle and his colleagues suggested some thirty years ago the existence of an “asset effect” to help explain electoral behavior in France. Despite the significance of this finding, the issue has received little subsequent attention. The measurement of wealth has been given less and less space in French...

This paper first offers a final forecast for the May 2010 UK general election based on our “two-step model” [Nadeau, R., Lewis-Beck, M.S., Bélanger, É., 2009. Election forecasting in the United Kingdom: a two-step model. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 19, 333–358.]. That model is then used to explore a new technique, “nowcasting.”...

Classical economic voting theory has received considerable empirical support. Voters reward the incumbent for good times, punish it for bad. But the success of this paradigm, which views the economy as strictly a valence issue, has crowded out testing of other theoretical dimensions. In particular, positional and patrimonial economic voting have ha...

Economic voting studies have been dominated by the classic reward-punishment paradigm, in which voters vote for the incumbent under good economic performance, but against under bad. This paradigm works well when the economic issue is a valence issue, such as prosperity. However, it leaves out positional economic voting, in which the voter's place i...

Abstract will be provided by author.

The presidential election campaign constitutes one of the most important moments of modern-day French political life. Each candidate uses the campaign as a means to present their ideas, positions, and policy proposals. In addition to promoting their past achievements, candidates also seek to underline the weaknesses of their adversaries. During thi...

For Karl Marx, France was a prime testing ground for his theories of class struggle, in particular the experiences of the 1848 revolution. (See especially his Class Struggle in France, 1848 to 1850; various editions dating from 1850.) As Theodore Zeldin (1973, p. 477), a leading British historian of France, remarked, “The importance of 1848 is that...

Recent work has suggested that the traditional socio-demographic differences among French electoral clienteles are crumbling. In a volume edited by Pascal Perrineau (2007) for instance, claims are made about the “embourgeoisement” of socialist voters (Rey, 2007), as well as the gradual disappearance of gender and generational gaps among voters who...

Contemporary France, as is often said, is quickly changing. So too is the character of French presidential elections. With the reordering of the election calendar and the possible end of cohabitation, and with both of these evolutions leading to a growing “presidentialization” of French politics, presidential contests have certainly taken on greate...

The notion of left versus right pervades the discussion of politics the world over. This use of the terms “left” and “right” began in France itself, during the Revolution. In the 1790s, the deputies of the national legislative assembly regularly grouped themselves physically from left to right across the space of the chamber’s half-circle of seats....

In contemporary democracies, issues stand at the heart of electoral debate. We have not yet talked directly about the impact of issues on the French voter. To be sure, matters that weigh heavily on the public mind have been discussed: social class, religion, and left-right ideology, to name a few. But these long-term forces, powerful as they are, d...

What is the influence of a candidate’s image on voting in French presidential elections? There have been surprisingly few attempts to answer this question over the past few decades. This is despite the fact that historic leaders such as General de Gaulle have left a lasting imprint on French politics (Hoffman, 1974). According to some, the French e...

In France, more than other mature democracies, the election rules undergo reform. Our concern is how these reforms influence mass electoral behaviour, namely voter turnout. We gather an extended national data set on the abstention rate, across the republics of France, and subject it to an interrupted time-series analysis. Two sets of hypotheses are...

Patrimonial economic voting has been neglected in favour of classical economic voting studies. This assertion holds less, however, with French election investigations, where the neglect is relative rather than absolute. Whereas classical economic voting holds the economy to be a valence issue, patrimonial economic voting regards the economy as a po...

This article contributes to the emerging literature on election campaign strategies by studying the strategy adopted by the Liberal government in the 2000 Canadian federal election. Two questions are addressed: Why did the Liberal government choose in that election to focus its campaign on health care in spite of its poor record with regard to this...