Långsiktiga och kortsiktiga faktorers effekter på partisympatier i 2015 års finländska riksdagsval

Authors

• Peter Söderlund

Abstract

This study analyzes citizens’ degree of sympathy for eight political parties in the Finnish parliament. Four blocks of explanatory variables are included in a block-recursive model: 1) social position, 2) issue positions, 3) government performance and economic evaluations and 4) party and party leader image. Based on data from the 2015 Finnish national election survey, the results imply that the blocks of variables jointly explain between 30 and 40 percent of sympathy scores for the majority of parties. Social position contributes over one-third of the explained variance in party sympathy scores. Most of the explanatory power is attributed to political preferences across issues and issue domains, particularly along the left-right socioeconomic dimension, but also the sociocultural dimension. Short-terms factors relating to government and economic performance, as well as party and party leader image, have very little explanatory power. This suggests that long-term factors are important in structuring party support in Finland.