Study program: Written by: Bsc(B) 6. Niya Valkova Advisor: Robert P. Ormrod

Political Marketing in Eastern European

Context

Department of Marketing and Statistics

The Aarhus School of Business 2011

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Abstract

This thesis examines the factors that are believed to influence the political choice behavior of Eastern European voters. We begin by presenting necessary definitions as to what political marketing in general is. Subsequently, we examine the political background of Bulgaria- the selected state to represent the Eastern European context of the research. We also set delimitation to this thesis as it is to examine only the parliamentary aspect of elections, but not presidential ones.

The next step is reviewing different scientific literature in order to create the base for the further development of the topic. The theoretical frame represents a popular model for predicting Political Voter Choice Behavior which has been developed in the United States of America. Furthermore, two political research papers are evaluated to gain additional knowledge on subject from Western European point of view.

Next we used the knowledge gained from the presented sources for the creation of a self-administrated survey. After the distribution of the survey the collected data was to be evaluated and two statistical analyses were carried in order to test the two postulated hypotheses. The main points of the survey were related to gaining knowledge as to what are the attitudes of the respondents, towards issues such as the political environment (in terms of trust and satisfaction), what are the perceived attitudes towards ethnic minority political organizations and most importantly how the model of Predicted Voter Choice Behavior fits the Eastern European case and what makes individuals respectively to vote/ vote for new party or not vote.

According to the results from the study the above stated issues were evaluated and the overall outcomes show very positive trend in respect to the perceived attitudes towards ethnic minority parties. Further we also argued that respondents’ attitudes were captured well based on the predictive model of voter’s choice behavior and the same applies to the issues related to the political environment. It was also confirmed that most respondents vote out of conviction and believe that voting is their democratic obligation; while the not voting group presented the misbelieve in affecting the outcome of elections as their main reason for not voting. At the same time the group responded negatively to the statement that a reason for not voting is because it is not a democratic obligation, which as we argue could lead to change of the behavior of the not- voters if alteration of their environment occurs. The last part of the result’s analysis was the two hypotheses testing. Though we failed to find enough statistical evidence to support the claims that there is a gender differentiation in respect to the five key dimensions of the predictive model of voting choice behavior, or that the need for a new political party can be explained in terms of trust and satisfaction with the political environment, we argued that our results must be taken cautiously since change in the sample size might influence the results.

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Furthermore based on findings from the survey and the statistical information we gained, we examined the options for implication of that knowledge with marketing techniques in practice. We proposed how these same results may be applied during the strategic level for planning of a political campaign. A combination of the market positioning of a political party with the Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning approach was argued to add positive advantage against the political rivals on the market and further we also argued that the combination of the two marketing approaches would also help with establishing the long-term relationship between political parties/candidates and their electorate.

We conclude the research part of this thesis with further discussion of the limitations concerning the sample size, methods and the applied analytical techniques. We also proposed a framework for further research in political marketing in Eastern European context.

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Table of Contents

ABSTRACT 2

1. INTRODUCTION 6

1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT 8 1.2 BACKGROUND INFORMATION 9 1.3 DELIMITATIONS 12

2. LITERATURE REVIEW 13

2.1 A PREDICTIVE MODEL OF VOTER BEHAVIOR 14 2.2 SUPPORTING LITERATURE FOR VOTER BEHAVIOR 15 2.2.1”WHY DO YOU VOTE AND VOTE AS YOU DO?” 16 2.2.2 “POLITICAL TRUST, SATISFACTION AND VOTER TURNOUT” 17 2.3 RESEARCH DESIGN 19 2.4 HYPOTHESIS 20

3. METHOD 20

3.1 METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION AND DESIGN 21 3.2 ITEMS DESIGN AND PURPOSE 22 3.3 RESPONDENTS 24

4. RESULTS 26

4.1 FINDINGS 26 4.2 ONE-WAY MANOVA AND ANOVA ANALYSES 28 4.3 LINEAR REGRESSION 29

5. ANALYSIS 31

5.1 VOTING AND VOTING FOR A NEW PARTY 31 5.2 NOT VOTING 32 5.3 MINORITIES 33 5.4 MANOVA/ ANOVA ANALYSES AND NEWMAN’S MODEL 33 5.5 MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS 36 5.6 CONCLUSION OF THE SURVEY 37

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6. IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH 39

6.0.1 CONSUMERS VERSUS VOTERS 39 6.0.2 MARKETS AND POLITICAL MARKETS- STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS 40 6.0.3 SEGMENTATION, TARGETING, POSITIONING (STP) 43 6.1 LIMITATIONS 45 6.2 PROPOSITION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 46

7. CONCLUSION 48

7.1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 50

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY 51

9. APPENDICES 53

9.1 APPENDIX A 53 9.2 APPENDIX B 60 9.3 APPENDIX C 67 9.4 APPENDIX D 74 9.5 APPENDIX E 81 9.6 APPENDIX F 93

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1. Introduction “Democracy in any country or environment thrives on

constructive criticism, differing opinions, competition and

alternative policy choices… Political practices and developments

in any country have weighty implications for the stability of the

country, the security of investments and general business

prospects. Political stability is a key factor in the conduciveness of

an environment for business activities” (Osuagwu, 2008)

In order to be able to access and fully comprehend the relationship between marketing and

politics we turn to the field of political marketing. As argued by Osuagwu political stability is a

first degree inflator for positive development of business activities and such stability is based on

the elected political parties/candidates to government. Consequently political marketing is a

valuable source of information, the use of which should bring political organization and

candidates upfront their competitors while building a successful campaign for the elections. As

pointed out by Butler and Collins (1994) “marketers have developed a body of knowledge and

technical expertise directly related to the analysis and persuasion of large groups of people,

their discipline can contribute to an understanding of politics”. We have chosen to concentrate

on the subject of political marketing also due to the fact that this field is still going through its

development phase. As discussed by Smith and Hirst (2001) there has been an increase in the

research and development of practical and theoretical tools for that field. Perhaps we could also

argue that too much attention is spent on its commercial (primarily tactical and communicating)

side (Butler and Collins, 1996) even though other aspects should also be thoroughly investigated.

However, as the need for more managerial applications in the field is growing, our interest shifts

also to areas where political marketing in general has not been applied to such extend as in

Western Europe and the United States of America. Namely our interest is in the application of

political marketing in Eastern Europe. As described by Odescalhi (in Newman, 1999) most of the

techniques which are applied by Western political consultants should not be taken for granted

when used in Eastern Europe. Though his work was carried out in the early 1990’s and much has

changed since then due to technological development, the ghost of the decades of communistic

rule can be traced in the psyche of the older citizens in that region. As he points out that is “one

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of the greatest challenges facing a western political consultant when entering the politician fray

of an emerging democracy” (Odescalhi in Newman, 1999:587-588).

But before turning to the Eastern European context of our work we would like to begin by

answering the question: what is political marketing? And why is it important to study it. Political

marketing has been defined by Osuagwu (2008) as:

“The application of marketing concepts, principles and approaches in political

issues by persons, groups, organizations and nations.”

Recent trends in the development of the relative importance of that field in the USA have shown

that it is immensely rising. As stated by Kotler and Kotler (in Newman, 1999) “the making of

successful candidates and causes, is a major growth industry affecting virtually every citizen and

institution”. In 1996 more than $894 million were spent for the presidential elections that same

year. With that said the importance of political marketing should not be underestimated. And that

growing industry also requires constant development in the field as already discussed.

Furthermore, political marketing helps candidates and political organization to gain knowledge

and understanding of their markets and what exactly voters seek in return for their votes.

Moreover political organizations and candidates must realize that recent trends show that the

electorate becomes more heterogeneous and that leads voters’ choice to be based on something

more than just the appeal of the candidate or issue orientation left alone (Kotler and Kotler in

Newman, 1999).

Here we should point out that this topic has been selected due to great personal interest to the

field of political marketing by the author. Through the time spent on formulation of the objective

of this thesis a check was carried out within ASB’s library archives. It revealed that there are not

any previous theses written in the area of political marketing or political marketing in Eastern

European context. That gave us confidence to work with a topic which is somehow unique. At

the same time it also implied that there might be difficulties and problems arising during the

writing process of this thesis. These issues will be addressed in the delimitation section which

follows at the end of this chapter.

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1.1 Problem Statement Throughout the following paper attention is going to be paid on the strategic processes for

development of political campaigns by parties for government elections in Eastern Europe. This

has been decided based on the belief that the election of a party is the preceding step for any

political decisions and actions taken later on. The Election Day is the most crucial moment since

people’s judgment decides what is going to happen in the following years. And as already

pointed out political stability is crucial factor for the development of the business area. The

objectives of this research thesis will be concentrated on the effects of the political marketing in

regard to the average person, which leads to the formulation of the problem statement as:

What factors influence the political choice behavior of the East European citizen when voting for

a political party on the elections for new democratic government?

There are going to be three main research questions:

Why people vote for new parties?

What is the role of minorities?

How does the “average Joe” looks at politics?

When stating “new party” in the context of this research paper it is meant any political party

which has been formed or transformed in the period 1999 till nowadays- 2011. This definition is

administrated from the author of this thesis and it is to be used in its context only. Further

question as to how an average person perceives and evaluates a political platform, or how they

make a choice between party A and party B etc., why they may prefer to vote for a new political

party instead of a well known one, why may people refuse to go and vote and what is the role of

minorities in the voting and election processes, should be investigated and will be the main part

of the paper. A self- administrated questionnaire will be used as a mean for data collection and

statistic analysis and definitions will be provided where necessary. Based on the results a

proposition for the strategic managerial application of the findings will be provided.

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1.2 Background information The country chosen to be the ground for the progress of the thesis is Bulgaria. Situated in the

South-Eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula, this country is a typical example of the continuing

transformation and development of democracy on a post communist ground.

Bulgaria became an independent state in 1908 after being under the rule of the Ottoman Empire

and since 1989 is a parliamentary democracy. The constitution of the country was adopted on

July 12, 1991. Its administrative divisions are 28, Sofia being the capital region of the country.

The suffrage in Bulgaria is universal and it is acquired at the age of 18 years.

The branches of the system of the country are three.

• The Executive power- held by the president (chief of state); the prime minister - head of

the government; and the cabinet or also called Council of Ministers.

• The Judicial power is based on a three-tiered system.

• The Legislative power is concentrated in the hands of the unicameral national assembly

(Narodno Subranie), which has 240 seats and which members are elected through a

mixed electoral system for a 4 year term.

The distribution of the seats in the national assembly is a combination between the classic

proportional and the majority representation system. That would mean that 209 out of the 240

seats for members of parliament (MPs) in the Bulgarian national assembly are allocated based on

the classic system, and the reminder 31 (which equals the number of districts in the country) are

distributed according to the majority system. Parties and coalitions must win a minimum 4% of

the national vote in order to enter parliament. After words the allocation of the seats is done

proportionally to the number of votes they have collected from each of their particular electoral

districts. The votes of the parties that did not pass the 4% barrier to enter the parliament are then

distributed to other parties using the method of the smallest residue (www.parliament.bg,

Accessed on 26/02/2011).

The parliament selects and dismisses government ministers, including the prime minister,

exercises control over the government, and sanctions deployment of troops abroad. It is

responsible for enactment of laws, approval of the budget, scheduling of presidential elections,

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declaration of war, and ratification of international treaties and agreements (www.state.gov,

Accessed 26/02/2011).

To provide a better understanding as to the devised problem statement and research questions, an

example of two national elections from the past 11 years will be presented. The reason for

choosing the past 11 years is that in the time between 1989 and 2001 the political scene was in a

strong polarization between the anti-communist right and ex-communist left. The disappointment

from the low performance of the government and political actors and the continuing insecurity

due to coping issues with the rise of crime and the unemployment prepared the space for new

actors to come (Genov, 2003).

NDSV - Natzionalno Dvijenie Simeon Vtori (National Movement Simeon the Second) is a

liberal centrist party founded in 2001 by the last tsar of the country Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha.

He was dethroned and banished when only 9 years old (in 1946) (www.slava.bg, Accessed

15/02/2011), and spent most of his life away from the country. He was also chairman of the party

until 2009 and active figure in the marketing campaign for the elections in 2001 and 2005. The

young party gathered under its wings mainly specialist and professionals from different sectors-

something unusual and new for Bulgaria.

As to the platform used by the party it could be divided in two main parts- market and non-

market propositions (www.mediatimesreview.com, Accessed 16/02/2011).

Some of the market pledges:

• maintenance of the currency board

• zero budget deficit

• introduction of the “one counter” service by the administration

• no subsidies for the country’s monopolistic organizations

• lower taxes as to the salaries and health insurances

Some of the non-market pledges were:

• increase of the minimal monthly wage

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• active control of the foreign debt of the country

• new and strengthened measures and regulations over the usage of water resources

• the building of priority projects

• new health programs financed from the national budget

The first appearance of the party in the official elections held the same year was with a stunning

success. On the 17th of June 2001 the party won the national elections for the 39th parliament of

Bulgaria with 42.74%, or a total of 120 out of the 240 seats in the parliament (www.events.bg,

Accessed 15/02/2011). The government was formed as a coalition with the support of DPS-

Movement for Rights and Freedoms- also a liberal centrist party (www.dps.bg, Accessed

18/02/2011) and single members of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (which officially stayed in

opposition) and Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha became the new Bulgarian prime minister.

At the end of the mandate most of the important pledges from the platform raised by NDSV were

not delivered (www.mediatimesreview.com, Accessed 16/02/2011):

• zero budget deficit

• introduction of the “one counter” service by the administration

• no subsidies for the country’s monopolistic organizations

• zero rate for reinvestments of profits

• fast and transparent privatization

• liberalization, deregulation and removal of the existing monopoles

• increased speed of the judicial procedures

• fiscal decentralization

The second example of a new party being elected and forming a government is GERB. Grazdani

za Evropeisko Razvitie na Bulgaria (Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria) was

founded officially on the 3rd of December 2006 (www.gerb.bg , Accessed 20/02/2011). GERB’s

informal leader Mr. Boyko Borisov, and Mayor of the capital Sofia at the time, announced that

the political platform is distinctly centre-right conservative, founded on (www.dnevnik.bg,

Accessed 20/02/2011):

• Promoting family values to tackle social malaise

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• Decrease of 5% in health insurance payment by citizens

• Increase in the social help for pensioners above the age of 75

• Privatization of hospitals and other health centers

• Reforms in the educational system

• Investment in the agricultural sector

• Simpler tax system

• Tax reduction for investors in energy-saving technologies

• Continue the work with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for revival of the

economy

• Fighting crime and corruption

• Justice being the highest valued instance and independence of the judicial system

• Jail for all found guilty of embezzling European Union funds

• Bringing accountability to the government

The results from the July 5, 2009 general election gave 39.72% of the votes to GERB, thus

winning the elections for the 41st national assembly with total voter turnout 60.20% or a total of

116 seats in the parliament. Boiko Borissov became the new prime minister of Bulgaria and

marginal government was founded with the support of the Blue Coalition, ATAKA, and RZS.

The government is still under its normal term of ruling as to the moment of writing of this thesis.

1.3 Delimitations For the purposes of this research thesis the use of literature from the field of pure politics and

political studies will be kept to a minimum, so we could limit the possibility of going beyond of

the framework of political marketing. No comparison with particular Western democratic

country will be provided since this is believed also to exceed the scope of this thesis. When

considering the implications of the results of the conducted self-administrated survey, these

implications will be limited to the strategic level of preparation of a political campaign. That

implies that topics of actual campaigning, ethics, messages and other advertising and branding

issues will not be covered in this research paper. Also when further referring to “Eastern Europe”

and “Eastern European citizen/s” unless explained differently we would be meaning “Bulgaria”

and “Bulgarian” since this is going to be the basis for the distribution of the self-administrated

survey (more about that in chapter 3-Method).

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2. Literature review “Voters and consumers are the same, rational persons: but the considerations that drive them in

the market place where their choices are decisive are not the same as the considerations that

drive them in the ballot-box” (Brennan, 2008). In his article he argues that, opposite to the

accepted by most of public choice theorists, homo economicus will not act the same way in

politics as in the commercial market place. He opposes the relative price logic and psychology,

arguing that two different sets of motivators drive human behavior when it comes to purchasing

a product or casting a vote. The “instrumental” considerations regard that the person who casts

the vote increases the probability of a specific outcome that is secured by that individual’s vote,

and if it was possible the desired outcome to be achieved without that person’s vote it would

have given the same outcome to that individual. The “intrinsic” considerations are in play in

voting, thus meaning that voting depends on that individual, and failure to vote would provide a

utility loss to that individual. Set of reasons are provided for that discussion, and the basic

conclusion to be derived is that as homo economicus exists on the market, while homo politicus

exists as an expressed behavior when it comes to voting practices, and that it is more likely

individual to be driven of combination of “instrumental” and “intrinsic” considerations, but they

vary in their degree of influence for each different individual.

Keeping this in mind the next step will be to provide a model which will be used to analyze and

answer the research question of this thesis. But what kind of model can be used to provide true

information about people’s motivators when it comes to voting? To think that a human behavior

can be explained with a single equation is not good enough, or as John Bartle argues “Most

models assume that voting behavior can be summarized by a single additive equation. There are

good reasons, however, for believing that some voters place more weight on some considerations

than others or use different decision rules. In both cases, a single additive equation will produce

misleading accounts of the causal processes” (Bartle, 2005). He suggests that voter’s behavior is

rather heterogeneous compared to most of the existing models, which are homogenous. That is

no matter how alike people are voting behavior is much more complex than previously supposed.

Based on the argumentation from above we believe that a reasonable model should account for

differences on the individual level, and would like to use Bruce Newman’s “Predictive Model of

Voter Behavior”. In the context of this thesis it is “what makes people vote for a new party”

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which will be the main subject of investigation. After the collection of respondents’ answers to

the questionnaire, the statistical analysis will provide an image of what factors does influence

Eastern European’s choice to vote for a new political party.

2.1 A Predictive Model of Voter Behavior The Predictive Model of Voter Behavior was first developed in 1981 by B. Newman and

subsequently tested on several elections in the United States. The model incorporates a wide

range of cognitive beliefs in regard with the voter’s self, the influence from other individuals in

his/her social environment, past voting behavior, political affiliation, marketing method such as

the power of word-of-mouth communication, the mass media. The model was developed on the

basis that, just as consumers express their preferences towards maximizing their value when

purchasing a product from the marketplace, the voters express their preferences towards a

political party and/or candidate casting their vote based on the perceived value offered by the

candidates. The main proposition of that model is that a combination of one or more out of the

five suggested key domains indeed drive voter’s behavior (Newman, in Newman 1999:260).

• The Political Issues domain represents the course and set of actions that the candidate

promotes and promises to perform if designated to office. Based on the model voters will

be more likely to cast their vote for the figure which promises to work for the

development of the area of their personal interest/concern.

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• The Social Imagery domain represents the connection between the candidates in question

with other important figures from the society. These might be famous athletes, actors etc.

whose support to the given candidate will most likely make them more appealing to the

voters. That domain can be very powerful instrument in the hands of candidates since

they have the opportunity to build a specific image of themselves and use it to attract

voters from the specific group the candidate is trying to connect to.

• The Candidate Personality domain, though similar to the previously described social

imagery, it is different in the sense that the candidate stresses on his/her own abilities and

personal traits, thus persuading again the image that voter’s carry in their minds. Previous

experience, problem-solution knowledge, sense of security, patriotism etc. can and are

used by the runners for the office.

• The Situational Contingency domain represents the different strategies candidates

develop and use in such way that they make voters believe that “hypothetical event” will

occur and after this event occurrence the voter is going to change the direction of his/her

voting. The technique is often used by opponents in an effort to get voters to switch their

loyalty from their first preferred candidate.

• The Epistemic Value domain is the last part of the model. It corresponds to voters’

feelings such as curiosity or novelty which could lead them to casting their vote for a

candidate who can be seen as different, new, presenting something fresh and

unconventional compared with the rest of the candidates.

To adapt that base model to the main research question a great attention will be paid to

exploration the combination of the five key dimensions, which should help identify the voting

practices in Eastern Europe. Also a set of other literature will be brought to your attention which

will hopefully provide new points of view and help for the better understanding of Eastern

European voters.

2.2 Supporting Literature for Voter Behavior Many studies and researches have been conducted throughout the world in search for the reasons

for voter’s behavior. In this section two other papers will be presented and used to support the

Model of Voting Behavior, to bring new insights to the subject studied and later be part of the

discussion for the findings of our study. Both papers are based on Western democracies- namely

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the collective of all EU member states (in 2002-2003) and Sweden which makes them coincides

well with the behavioral model presented previously.

2.2.1”Why Do You Vote And Vote As You Do?” The study was conducted in Sweden by Frederik Carlsson and Olof Johansson-Stenman. The

research design represented a collection of two separate surveyed areas investigated by the

authors. The first part was conducted in 2002. The first survey was sent to randomly selected

number of individuals in Sweden, and it was focused on “why people vote and inquired about

how bad is not to vote”. The second survey was conducted in 2004, mailed again to randomly

selected individuals and “included specific questions on why people vote as they do”. The

response rate for Survey 1 was 56% and for Survey 2- 45%. The two surveys were focused on

the seven political parties in Sweden and for measuring the average support to each party official

opinion poll’s data were used. The Swedish political area constitutes of two distinctive groups,

namely the Left and the Right. Some of the main problems experienced by the research team

were the differences occurring between their sample and the official opinion polls, these were

more likely due to issues with the representativity of their sample.

The results of Survey 1 showed that there are three main motives for people in Sweden to vote:

1. because they want to affect the outcome

2. because they want to express their political views

3. because it is a democratic obligation to vote

The results also showed that there is no significant reason to believe that there is a fundamental

difference between the reasoning of right and left wing supporters. On the individual level was

found that elderly citizens and women feel stronger that it is a democratic obligation to vote.

Also people who voted for a party that most likely will not be elected for the government were

lead by the expressive motive. Based on sex difference women were found to feel more strongly

towards motives one and three compared to men, and on age level older people were found to

consider all three reasons with higher importance than young people. The group which stated

that they will not vote, will vote blank or that they have no opinion considered each of the three

motives to be less important than the rest of the respondents.

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Survey 2 was conducted to help better understanding of the controversial motive of why people

vote as they do. There were two main hypotheses:

1. Out of self-interest, or

2. Out of conviction- people vote in the interest of the society (sociotropic voting

hypotheses)

Here it is important to note that possible biases were on the way (such as self-signaling reasons,

group identity affecting the individual’s behavior etc.). That led the authors also to ask about

“respondent’s beliefs regarding why others vote as they do”. The results showed that people

make clear distinction between theirs and others’ motives for voting. In general people believe

that they vote less selfishly than do others, which confirms the hypotheses that people want to

have a good impression of them. Still, it was found that in both cases individuals vote because of

self-interest and also out of conviction. Differences were also found between the different

parties’ supporters. Right-wing supporters were found to vote more out of self-interest compared

to left-wingers who voted most out of conviction. Older people were also found to vote mostly

out of conviction, while people with at least on child and females are most likely to state that

they vote out of self-interest.

Survey 2 also included questions in help of clarifying how strong social norms influence voters’

behavior. How bad it is to vote selfishly or not vote at all, showed that almost 80% consider it

unethical or very unethical not to vote because it takes too much effort. The same view is

supported by more left-wing voters than right wing voters. The majority also feel that is

unethical to vote out of self-interest, although not as unethical as not voting at all. Right-wing

supporters found it less unethical to vote selfishly; older people (60 and above) and females

consider not voting or voting selfishly much more unethical than younger people and men. Slight

relation based on income suggested that, the higher the income, the stronger feeling for not

voting being unethical.

2.2.2 “Political trust, Satisfaction and Voter Turnout” Kimmo Grönlund and Maija Setälä in 2007 conducted a study which was to assess how citizen’s

evaluation of political system and its actors affect their propensity to vote. The empirical

evidence was collected on the basis of the first European Social Survey which was collected

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simultaneously in 22 countries in 2002-2003. The authors suggested the following four

hypotheses:

1. Trust in parliament and satisfaction with democracies increases the likelihood of voting

2. Satisfaction may be regarded as an indicator of feelings towards policy outputs and

increases the likelihood of voting

3. Trust in political actors has a small affect on increased likelihood of voting, compared to

1 and 2

4. Trust in the incumbent government does not increase the likelihood of voting

Political trust has to do with the normative expectations towards political system and actors, and

the differentiation between democratic system and political actors is due to the belief that in

representative democracy incumbent politicians can be replaced at elections.

The research showed that there is probable connection between nation’s democratic tradition and

voter turnout. Main differences were detected between countries with proportional systems and

all others, also mainly voters in proportional systems turn out more than voters in electoral

systems (countries were voting is compulsory were excluded from the research on national

level). The analysis of the data showed that on macro (national) level thereof the satisfaction and

trust measures used, indeed affect the voter turnout, thus hypotheses one, two and four gaining

hold of the initial results. Next step was taken towards findings for the micro (individual) level.

Several tests were conducted and the final and most extensive one, found that age and party

identification are the most important independent variables. Also trust explained in terms of

political efficacy, trusts in political actors, satisfaction and education were found to increase the

propensity for a higher voter turn-out. The model predicted correctly 81.6% of voting, but it was

also argued that in practice it will probably over predict actual turning out and under predict

abstaining rates (only 12.5% of the abstainers were correctly predicted by the model, compared

to 98.3% of the voters). This is argued to be due to data used in the modeling process- skewed in

distribution because of over reported voting. To test the validity of that model separate

regression analyses were conducted for each of the 20 countries included in the study. In 11

countries was confirmed that trust in parliament increases the voter turn-out, trust in politicians

and satisfaction with how democracy works were found also to have their importance but not as

extensive. Party identification, education and age were confirmed being very significant

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determinants for voting turn in all countries as well. The sum up based on the four hypotheses

presented in the beginning showed that:

1. Is verified (with few exceptions within countries)

2. Is verified at the macro-level, but not convincingly at the micro-level

3. Not verified in its original form, but rephrased as “Voters perception that politicians

fulfill the expectation of responsiveness increases the likelihood of voting”

4. Gained support at macro-level, but was not possible to be tested on micro-level with the

available data

Here is important to note that in the second subsection following, the hypotheses are developed

also on the base of the findings of Daniel Odescalchi (in Newman; 1999), which were presented

in the introduction part of this bachelor thesis. A brief reminder- Mr. Odescalchi was in Hungary

(early 1990’s) trying to help local democrats to develop their campaign. He met great challenges

in regard of people’s perception as to what democracy actually meant. Despite the purely bad

infrastructure and bad telecommunication system, his biggest problems were the candidates and

regular people he had to work with. Candidates did not want to participate in the media

campaigns (Odescalchi in Newman; 1999:597), and they did not think that is important even to

meet with their electorate after the actual elections- they claimed that people will be disappointed

if they have done that, because it will make them feel as the communism has never left their

society (Odescalchi in Newman; 1999:590). Another problem was also that there was no real

policy development as to taxes, education, health etc. In relation to the 5 key dimensions of the

Newman’s model one can argue that Eastern European voters from the early 1990’s had a

completely different reasoning as to why they voted and also candidates themselves were not

good fit of that model.

2.3 Research Design This study is a descriptive, quantitative study because it is concerned with what influences

Bulgarian voters to participate in elections and cast their vote for a political party’s candidate and

because it will be conducted to establish whether there is similarity between the political choice

behavior of individuals from Eastern and such behaviors and the explaining them models which

were previously previewed and discussed in the section “Literature review”. A questionnaire will

be used as a method of collecting the empirical data. The items comprising the questionnaire will

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be based on the previously reviewed studies in order to replicate them and see if the results will

comply with the findings from Western democracies.

2.4 Hypothesis Based on the reviewed literature and in order to answer the three research questions the

following hypotheses were constructed. It is to examine whether or not the motivators discussed

above and Newman’s model do in fact are good descriptive measures of the behavior that leads

Eastern-European individuals to the ballot-box:

H₁: The political choice behavior of the Eastern-European voter is

determined by his gender and his attitude towards “political issues”,

“social imagery”, “candidate’s personality”, “situational contingency”

and “epistemic value”.

H₂: The need for a new political party on the Bulgarian political scene

can be explained by the attitudes of the voter’ towards “trust in the

parliament”, “trust in the incumbent government”, “satisfaction with

democracies” and “satisfaction with political output”.

3. Method This chapter offers a description of the methods used for the development of the questionnaire,

the collection of the data, following subsections with the respondents’ responses and their

analysis, and finally concluding with the discussion and interpretation of these same results.

To analyze the collected data, it will be processed using the statistical analysis tool SPSS. A

number of different primarily tests will be carried upfront to the main analyses. The purpose is to

secure that as many, as possible of the assumptions and criteria’s will be satisfied. After

concluding the preliminary tests, the analyses will be carried on in order to test the above stated

hypotheses.

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3.1 Method of data collection and design In the preparation faze of this thesis a decision was to be made. It concerned the type of the

research to be carried out, namely qualitative or quantitative. Since the objective of this work is

to explore the individual’s preferences and attitudes towards the political choice they make, it

was decided that using quantitative research method will be more suitable, because:

• It is easier to carry out in terms geographic coverage

• It is low-cost

• More objective- providing observed effects, without researcher’s influence

• It is suitable for statistical analysis of the responses received, since responses are number-

based

• Rapid data collection (Blumberg, 2008)

Problems can occur due to the fact that it is more generalizable in terms of the interpretation of

the results from the sample to the whole population. It is also known that participants would

probably refuse to participate in a study that is too long and/or complex (Keller; 2006:144); the

response rate will be lower etc., which implies that the information that is requested by the

researcher often is not in large amounts or exploring the subject matter too deeply. When

constructing the items of the survey they should be formulated precisely and very clear to avoid

misinterpretation by the respondents since the researcher cannot intervene during the filling-out

process (Blumberg, 2008:298-299).

The study was structured as self-administrated survey, which was available online, through a

service called Obsurvey. That gave the respondents the opportunity to decide when it was most

convenient for them to access it. That approach was chosen also because it was low-cost, it was

fast and secure- a single link was distributed to the targeted group via e-mail and with the use of

the social network Facebook. Since the topic of the survey was concerned with the political

beliefs of the participants their anonymity was also secured with this type of survey tool.

A lot of time was spend in order to assure that the survey is going to be as short as possible, that

the items will be straightforward and thus easy to understand and answer (Blumberg 2008:447).

This was also necessary in order to prevent the respondents of taking too much time thinking

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about how precisely to answer the different items, so the collected data can be validated

(Blumberg, 2008:298).

Another consideration was also the language to be used for the questionnaire. The original

survey was developed in English, and then translated into Bulgarian. This was done very

carefully so misinterpretations are kept to the minimum and formulations keep their meaning in

both versions.

To reduce non-response error follow-up messages and reminders were in use. This was preferred

to using gift/money certificates since as argued by Blumberg “Larger sums bring in added

response, but at a cost that may exceed the value of the added information” (2008:300).

The survey’s responses were collected through 6 day period. The goal was to receive between 50

(as minimum) and 100 responses in order to be able to generate a sufficient basis for the analysis.

3.2 Items design and purpose The items of the survey were built in line with the three research questions of the thesis, the

design and formulation were based on the recommendations of Keller (2006:144) and Blumberg

(2008:297-300). As already discussed some of the questions were replicated from the studies

reviewed in the literature section of this thesis.

Total of 11 question groups were imposed- 9 of which, concentrated to evaluate the respondents’

opinion in politics, and their attitude towards different political considerations. The last two

items were to collect simple demographic information such as the gender and age of the

respondent.

Most of the items were constructed as statements, which answers were developed on the basis of

the Likert scale. Likert scale was chosen as it is very convenient and often used measuring tool,

if the purpose of the item is to evaluate the degree to which an individual may agree or disagree

(and the similar) with a statement (Blumberg, 2008:446). The scale used was with six points,

which implies that the middle category stating that the individual has no opinion was removed.

That was done with the purpose to force the respondent to state an opinion. Though this can be

argued to have limited the scope of truthfulness as to the answers received, it has been concluded

by the author that it will increase the probability of collecting useful data. It was also assumed

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that most people do have some attitudes towards politics, and given that all respondents have

received brief introduction as to what the survey is all about, the individuals with no opinion on

the matter would not fill it in.

The first question of the survey was used as a barrier- depending on the answer the respondents

gave; they were transferred to two different parts of the survey. The question was “If today there

were elections, who would you vote for?” using multiple choice single-response scale. This scale

was chosen since it provided multiple options (in this case all the parties currently presented in

the incumbent government) but only one answer was sought (Blumberg; 2008:464-465).

If the respondent selected any of the stated parties, or that he preferred not to answer to this

question, he was shown the rest of the so called “voting” groups of items. If he chose “not to

vote” he was send to evaluate the three items of why he would not vote, and then directly to the

demographic items in the end of the survey. This technique was selected after the pre-launched

tests of the survey. A few respondents that first filled-in the survey suggested that for a person

who states that he will vote it is bizarre to evaluate reasons for not voting.

Here it is important to note that from all the parties represented in the first “barrier” question,

only two were not recently formed ones, namely DPS and The greens. The rest were recently

(following the definition provided already in the introduction of this thesis) formed or

transformed. For the purpose of this thesis even the parties that have gone through some

transformation, were labeled as newly formed, since the transformation involved more than just

change in the name of the party.

The groups of items concerned with the “voting” statements that were to be evaluated, were

related directly to the three research questions of the study. It included total of 7 question groups

or 20 statements (items). The different items were to assess the attitudes and different factors that

were expected to drive individual’s voting choice behavior in general as suggested by the

reviewed literature, and also in the manner of that work, towards new parties at the same time.

• 5 statements were used to assess the applicability of the Newman’s model;

• 4 statements were used to review the applicability of the findings of the trust and

satisfaction research carried by ;

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• Again 4 items were constructed in order to study the attitudes towards ethnic minority

parties;

• Another 4 replicated items from the study of Carlsson and Johansson-Stenman; 2010)

were imposed in order to evaluate the attitudes of the respondents towards reason to vote

and also why people vote as they do;

• The mirrored version of the three items investigating the reasons to vote was used in

order to assess the reasons for not voting (part of the survey shown only to the

respondents that stated they would not vote to the first “barrier” question);

• One item was used to measure how negatively people perceive others who refuse to cast

their vote on Election Day;

• The last two items asked directly whether or not there is need for new political party and

whether or not the respondents would vote for it if such was formed today.

The complete questionnaire, in English and Bulgarian, you can find in Appendix A and B

respectively.

3.3 Respondents All respondents were Bulgarian citizens. That was necessary given that the topic of this very

thesis was concentrated precisely on investigating the political choice behavior and different

attitudes that are hold by Eastern European citizens. More specifically Bulgaria was chosen

because it represents well the integration and adaptation of democracy after the end of the

communism era in the region, and because the author is well familiar with the political

environment of the country.

The collected data was gathered from Bulgarian citizens currently situated in Denmark, Bulgaria

and few other European countries. Most of the respondents from Denmark were situated in

Aarhus and other cities of the Jutland region. The respondents from Bulgaria were mainly from

the capital city of Sofia. However specific information as to geographic location was not

collected with the survey, since it was believed that the samples will be too dispersed to give a

reliable data for a statistical analysis.

As already stated the survey was available online over 6 days period as shown on the graph

below:

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Figure2: Total number of responses collected, shown per day (exported from www.obsurvey.com)

An attempt was made to gather sample mainly from young individuals, on age between 20 and

30 years. However no special selection criterion was used to the responses received when

working with the data. The reason for this attempt was the belief that individuals who do not

carry too many reminiscences from the communistic period of the country, would probably hold

different attitudes in relation to democracies compared with older generations.

Out of 120 sent surveys, 87 were returned which corresponds to 72.5%1 as response rate. Out of

the 87 surveys, 53 were from type one evaluating “voting” behavior and attitudes and 24 were

representing the second type representing the “not voting” behavior. Taking into account the

total of 87 responses collected only 75 were completed to the end which lowers the response rate

to 62.5%. Accordingly the final sample constitutes of 58.7% women and 41.3% men. Since

respondents were asked to self fill-in their age, here the responses will be presented in groups

and the percentage rate will be stated on the bases of the 75 completed surveys: 61.33% were

under 25 years old; 26.66% were between 25 and 34 years old; 4% were between 35 and 44

years old; 1.33% were between 45 and 54 years old and 6.66% fell in the group 55 to 64 years

old. No responses were received from individuals of 65 years and above. Table 1 represents an

overview of the collected demographic information:

1 Calculation: 87/(120/100)=87/1.2=72.5%

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Gender Male

Female

41.3%

58.7%

Age

< 25

25-34

35-44

45-54

55-64

>65

61.33%

26.66%

4.00%

1.33%

6.66%

0.00%

Table 1: Demographic information for 75 respondents which completed the survey (own fabrication)

4. Results As mentioned previously the collected data from the questionnaire is to be analyzed using the

statistical program SPSS. The objective of this thesis is to examine the political choice behavior

of Eastern-European voters. Three research questions were posed and based on them several

hypotheses were developed, as stated in the previous section. The decision which items to be

used in the following analysis and precisely which tests to be carried out was taken cautiously.

The following came as an outcome. Three sub-sections will summarize the results of the

descriptive statistics from the questionnaire, and each of the hypotheses tests that were

conducted. The next section will present analytical discussion based on the findings shown in the

following three sub-sections.

4.1 Findings To evaluate the results from the questionnaire (the complete report of the survey can be found in

English and Bulgarian, Appendix C and D respectively) in a more simple fashion, only the

percentage responses will be presented here. In the following section “Analysis” these numbers

will be interpreted together with the SPSS results from the tested hypotheses.

As already shown, the questionnaire had nine main question groups, most of which formulated as

statements, which the respondent had to evaluate. The results show that 27.6% of them will not

vote if there were elections today, and when asked to evaluate three different reasons as to why

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they would not vote, the main reasons were because people do not believe they can affect the

outcome (50,5%) and because they do not have political views to express (50%).

The respondents who answered that they would vote, no matter which party they marked, had to

answer series of other questions. These statements were related with Newman’s five key

dimensions, there were replicated items from the study conducted in Finland, which presented

the topics of why people vote and vote as they do, and also from the study that was to explore the

affect of trust and satisfaction in terms of voter’s turn out. The main tendency shows that

respondents do believe they can affect the outcome by voting-80%, and they also do believe that

it is their democratic obligation to vote- 63%. Also when asked to evaluate the negativity of not

casting a vote 93% responded being negative to extremely negative. Evaluating their reasons to

vote as they do it was found that people believe they vote out of conviction (75%).

Some of the most interesting items were the ones related to the beliefs of people in connection

with ethnic minority political organizations. Since the second research question was to explore

particularly that area, the responses were found quite interesting. Four items were used to

measure the attitudes of people who stated they will vote, and the following was discovered:

• Approximately 74% agree with the statement that socio-political organization

representing and protecting the rights of ethnic minorities are good for the society.

• Approximately 68% agree that political organization with such characteristics help the

integration processes.

• Approximately 50% agree that they would vote for political organization of this type, no

matter their ethnicity if they represent their political views better than any other party.

• Approximately 60% disagree with the statement that they would not vote for a political

party of this type.

The other quite interesting result was on the last item, which posted the statements that there is

need for a new political organization on the Bulgarian political scene and if there was formed

such new party today whether people would vote for it. The replies were quite interesting:

69.7% stated that they agree and there is need for a new political party, but only 22.7% stated

they would actually cast a vote for this hypothetical new party!

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4.2 One-way MANOVA and ANOVA analyses In order to test whether or not Newman’s model is applicable, hence has significant explanatory

power over the political choice behavior of Bulgarian voters, a MANOVA test was to be carried

out. Independent variable is “gender” and the dependent variables were the five key dimensions

of the model. It is important to note that the MANOVA test was chosen over individual

univariate ANOVA analyses since it was a better fit for investigating H₁: “The political choice

behavior of the Eastern-European voter is determined by his gender and his attitude towards

political issues, social imagery, candidate’s personality, situational contingency and epistemic

value”. Thus investigating the combined power of the five dimensions is representing the parts of

a cohesive theme and makes MANOVA a better choice for a test statistic. The test also provides

information about the effect of the IV’s on the DV’s in a collective and separate manner. The

first step was to conduct a preliminary analysis and check the assumptions for the test. When

checking for the normality assumption three of the five dependent variables were discovered to

be positively skewed to an extent that led to their transformation, so they could be assumed to

have restored their normality. Next, the correlation matrix showed that not all variables are

extremely correlated or uncorrelated which satisfied the assumption for multicollinearity and

singularity (the complete output of the tests you can find in Appendix E).

The one-way multivariate analysis of variance showed a significance level of 0.715 for each test,

with a ρ<0.05, thus concluding that “gender” has no significant effect on the five different

dimensions related to the political choice behavior model as explained by Newman. Wilk’s λ

which is a common statistical tool for measurement of overall significance has a value of 0.939

which indicates that there is frail between-groups dispersion. Levene’s test showed that the error

variance of the dependent variable is equal across all groups- lowest score was 0.08 which is

well above the 0.05 level, thus confirming equality of variance among groups. The test of

between-subject effects also confirmed that the five dependent variables were not affected by the

“gender” variable. The ρ-values were ranging between 0.271- the lowest score which was for

“feelings such as novelty etc.” and 0.943- the highest score for “relationship with others”.

To follow-up the results separate one-way ANOVA analyses were carried out testing each of the

dependent variables separately in relation to the independent variable “gender”. First the

dependent variable “political issues” was tested and the result showed that there is no significant

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statistical evidence to confirm H₁ at the 0.05 level – F (1, 49) =0.071, ρ-value= 0.791. Next we

tested “social imagery”, using the same parameters the result was F (1, 49) = 0.005 and ρ-value=

0.943. Table 2, below, gathered the results:

Dependent variable , name Test statistic value,

α = 0.05 Ρ-value Confirm/Reject H₁

Political issues F (1,49)= 0.071 0.791 Reject

Social imagery F (1,49)= 0.005 0.943 Reject

Candidate’s personality F (1,49)= 0.034 0.854 Reject

Situational contingency F (1,49)= 0.868 0.356 Reject

Epistemic value F (1,49)= 1.239 0.271 Reject Table 2: Summary of the results from 5 individual one-way ANOVA analyses (own fabrication)

4.3 Linear Regression Consecutively to test the second hypothesis postulated in this thesis a regression analysis was

performed. A regression model is based on the assumption that a single dependent, also called

predicted, variable can be explained by the linear relationship with one or more independent, or

predictor, variables (Wooldridge; 2009:68-72). In our case the predicted variable is “need for

new party” and the predictor variables are “trust in the parliament”, “trust in the incumbent

government”, “satisfaction with democracy” and “satisfaction with policy output”, so the model

can be stated in the following manner:

Y (Neednewparty) = β₀ + β₁trust_par + β₂trust_ig + β₃ satis_demo + β₄ satis_po + ε

But before testing and considering the validity of the model, a check of the assumptions has to be

carried out. To test the normality of the variables graphics as well as descriptive statistic were

obtained and a test for normality was used. All these measures showed that the four predictor

variables are not following normal distribution and were to be transformed. For the

transformation their square root was used. That helped in affecting the values of the kurtosis and

the skewness, so we assumed that the variables are now satisfying the normality assumption,

though still the total sample size (n=51) is something we should keep in mind when interpreting

the results.

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Next we tested the assumption for Homoskedasticity: var(εi) =σ² for all і. In the table below you

can find the corresponding standard errors output from an OLS and Robust test estimation of the

regression model. We conclude that since there is almost no virtual difference between the two,

the assumption is fulfilled.

B Std. error (OLS) HRSE (Robust)

Intercept 3.5330 0.9270 0.78540

Trust in parliament 0.2820 0.5310 0.55430

Trust in incumbent government 0.8820 0.5740 0.62180

Satisfaction with democracy -0.0120 0.7930 0.73420

Satisfaction with political output -0.8060 0.8340 0.81180 Table 3: Comparison of standard error terms (own fabrication)

To check for multicollinearity problems we looked at the variance inflation factor (V.I.F.) and

tolerance statistics, and following the rule of thumb (VIF bigger than 5 is a sign for a

multicollinearity problems) we concluded that this is not our case- all VIFs were between 1.2 and

2.8). After all the preliminary tests were carried, we concluded that the model is approximately

satisfying the design criteria and we can continue with the interpretation of the results.

Model Summaryb

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate

1 ,242ª 0,059 -0,023 1,425

a. Predictors: (Constant), sq_trustincgov, sq_trustpar, sq_satdemo, sq_satpolout

b. Dependent variable: there is need for a new party on the BG political scene

Table 4: Model Summary from Linear Regression, exported from SPSS

As it can be seen from the output in table 4, our model does not have enough explanatory power

given an adjusted R square of -0.023 and, ρ-value of 0.585. If we were to exclude the most

insignificant terms from the model and attempt to correct it that would leave us with none of the

currently used predictor variables. The conclusion is that we reject H₂, confirming that in terms

of trust and satisfaction with the political environment we cannot explain the need for a new

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party on the Bulgarian political scene. The full output of the preliminary tests and the linear

regression can be found in Appendix F.

However a question rises “how and why do we get a negative adjusted R²”? The adjusted R² by

definition is used to “take into account the sample size and the number of independent

variables” so it can check if the unadjusted R² is indeed showing its true correlation strength or it

is unrealistically high given the used sample size n and the number of predictor variables k.

Given that the sample size n is significantly larger than the value of k, the R² and its adjusted

value will be similar, thus no false results will be obtained (Keller; 2006:632-633).

Nevertheless the sample size used for the linear regression model is not sufficiently big enough-

only 51 so that might be attributed to allow for the negative value of the adjusted R². Additional

argumentation on that subject will follow in the sub-section which will present the discussion of

the linear regression results.

5. Analysis The following paragraphs will discuss the findings from the results of the questionnaire and the

two SPSS analyses that were carried out to test the postulated hypotheses.

5.1 Voting and voting for a new party The first item in the questionnaire had the purposes of evaluating the current voting behaviors

shared by the respondents. As seen from the report (Appendix C and D) everyone who stated that

they will vote chose a newly formed party. The operational definition for newly formed party

was one that was formed in the past 12 years as stated in the introduction part of this thesis.

Furthermore, most of the respondents felt secure in their beliefs that voting is important and that

this is related strongly to their conviction as part of their democratic obligations and also the

members of the society who ignored their right to vote were perceived in a negative fashion. All

that is extremely consistent based also on the findings of Frederik Carlsson and Olof Johansson-

Stenman (2004), which showed similar trends in the Swedish case. However one main difference

was the fact that in the current survey individuals were asked to state why they themselves vote

as they do (in comparison in the original study the question was “why do you think others vote as

they do”). Keeping in mind the possibility individuals tend to answer in a fashion that allows

them to present a better self-image, we decided to let respondents state their own beliefs for their

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actions. The results were acceptable with an average of 3.9 out of 6. In this case a six would

imply that a respondent will vote “completely out of conviction”, which we believe generates the

most positive self-image. However we can argue that in this case the respondents show a

moderate degree of “self-imaging”, thus no matter of the change in the formulation of the

question we believe that our results do confirm the previous findings.

At this point it is important to think of the sample chosen- more than three-fourths of the

respondents were in the age group 20-28. That means that most of the respondents have grown

up in an environment much different of the one shared by older members of the society, who

have lived during the communist times. That would imply that with increasing the age span of

the respondents certain changes may occur in the voting choices stated in that current study.

Perhaps older respondents would express even stronger feeling towards such terms as

“democratic obligation”, “political views” and “political outcome”. Consequently such topics

should continuously be investigated.

5.2 Not Voting The answers that stated refusal to vote were also quite interesting. As it was seen from the

individually screened responses a mixed group through the age groups stated they would not

exercise their right to vote if there were elections today. Still quite a number of this responses

belonged to much older people than the general young group targeted by the study. This can be

related to the fact that in the past as in most communistic states, Bulgaria was also one with

voting practices assured by the law. That implies that these negative responses might attribute

simply to people who choose not to vote as an alternative they were not given in the past.

The three statements which were to be evaluated were a “mirrored” version of the three

statements evaluated by the “to vote” individuals. The main reasons for not casting a vote were

found to be the disbelief in affecting the outcome and partly because of no political views to be

expressed. The strongest reaction though was upon the last statement “I would not vote because I

am not obligated to vote” 54,2% of the respondents selected “strongly disagree”. This is an

interesting finding, it shows that even the individuals who state they would not vote, do consider

at least partly that voting is fairly obligatory. Perhaps the individuals would reconsider their not-

voting action if there was a political organization to express their views, in which case these

same individuals might shift and become voters. Similar attitudes were previously described and

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discussed by public choice theorists, who argued that individuals expressing such “instrumental”

reasons would probably change their behavior if there is possibility for “improvement” of the

final outcome ( Brennan; 2008). In this case “improvement” and “outcome” were used as terms

which again depend completely on the meaning that the individual entails them.

5.3 Minorities The attitudes towards ethnic socio-political organizations were found to be quite positive as seen

from the results. The four items that investigated that topic were self-administrated by the author

based on readings on that subject (Gocheva, 1993), and given the scope of the examined

literature, unfortunately no research on this subject was found to enable a comparison. That is the

reason for no assessment made with similar works. To further interpret the results would perhaps

be too ambiguous, but if following straightforward logic, we could state that these results are

indeed a positive trend between youngsters in the society, and that no matter of the origin of a

political organization, again it is more important what ideas it does represent.

The attitudes towards the role that an ethnic political organization has in relation to their role in

the society and the various influences of them to the integration processes of the minority groups

in that same society were measured on the Likert scale. Respondents were asked to describe to

what degree they agree with the formulated statements and then to evaluate whether or not they

would vote for an ethnic political organization of the later represents their interests better than

any other party. The results showed that respondents felt quite positive in their overall evaluation

of the positive role that such organizations have for the society-approximately 74% agreed with

the statement. It was also found that respondents felt that this type of organization do ease the

integration processes (app. 70%) and also most of them stated that they would vote for a political

organization no matter of what ethnic group it officially represents ( app. 50%). This findings do

coincides well with the work of Gocheva, who pointed out that it is unique and very positive

trend not seen in another European country, and yet another proof of the model for ethnic

cooperation adopted in the country.

5.4 MANOVA/ ANOVA analyses and Newman’s model As shown in Table 2 the five dependent variables were not affected by respondents’ gender. A

brief discussion over each of the five variables will follow. Next discussion of the finding from

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the linear regression will be held and the chapter will be concluded with a more general debate of

the analytical subject.

The first dependent variable was “political issues” and as already demonstrated it had no

statistically significant relationship with voting decision making based on the gender of the

respondents to the questionnaire. Nevertheless 78% of the respondents rated it as important

factor of the final decision they take when choosing who to vote for. That view is also supported

by the findings of Brennan who argues that political candidates will offer such policies to their

voters, so the last will feel “prone to cheer for” and such policies will often be related to popular

values shared by the electorate (Brennan, 2008).

The second relationship investigated in the analyses was between “gender” and “social

imagery”. Once again it was shown that gender differences were not significant to explain

voter’s behavior. But it is important also to recall that approximately 50% of the respondents to

the questionnaire rated “The relationship between candidate and other important figures from the

society” as important to extremely important. As argued by Newman (in Newman; 1999:261)

this domain has an important role in voter’s perception for the candidate and it could be used to

manipulate the image of that candidate in voter’s mind.

The third dependent variable was “candidate’s personality”. The general attitude of the

respondents showed that 87% do find important, what is the personality of the leading candidate

of the party, they will vote for. Though still no significant difference was found on the base of

gender differentiation, a campaign should be led by the most positively appealing person

available. As discussed by Brennan (2008) “in the expressive picture, by contrast (with homo

economicus one), candidates’ personal characteristics and the rhetoric they use have an

independent role: voters may vote for a candidate because they like her or find her appealing in

some way…they would be behaving in a manner that is entirely consistent with the requirements

of individual rationality”.

The fourth dependent variable was “situational contingency” or “the ability of a candidate to

deal with unexpected events” which was rated as extremely important by as much as 48.1% of

the respondents and another 46% stated it is important to very important. Though still no

significant difference was found between male and female voters, that was the first variable that

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registered a somehow bigger relation in general with the independent variable “gender”- a ρ-

value of 0.356, meaning that there is simply too weak relationship between the two in the carried

out analyses but that may change given changes are carried out. This could mean that political

candidates may stumble upon even bigger differences in the attitudes between male and female

electorate given how highly important the issue has been rated.

The fifth and last dependent variable was “epistemic value” and here again we have a similar

case to the relationship between “gender” and “situational contingency”. An even lower ρ-value

refers to increased relation between voters’ gender and the decision making process for casting a

vote, though not strong enough to support the H₁. One should keep in mind that the potential

voters do feel positive towards candidates who may represent fresh and new ideas in comparison

to the rest (approximately 70% of the respondents), and further investigation could show whether

men or women are more sensitive to that subject. As argued by Newman (in Newman; 1999)

most people who put a high weight on that domain are also more likely to vote for a candidate

because they want to see a new face in the parliament or even because they grew tired of the

previously elected candidate/s.

Based on the presented results from the two variance analyses we conclude that the Newman’s

model for political choice behavior cannot explain the differences occurring in the voting

activities of male and female Bulgarians. There are few possible explanations for this fact. As it

was already described in the section “Literature review” Bruce Newman first developed the

model in the 1981 which is 30 years ago, and for these past 30 years world economics, life,

politics and almost every other aspect that influence human’s behavior in general has changed.

So time span is something that should not be underestimated and disregarded in relation to this

thesis. Another consideration is the place where the model was developed- that is the US.

The USA was formed and developed as country precisely based on the principles of democracy

and freedom, implicating that the democratic traditions had developed and grew over time span

of approximately 200 years. Comparing that fact with a country from Eastern Europe, such as

Bulgaria, which has a democratic history of just 21 years and probably quite different

understanding of the definition of democracy, there is no wonder that the model might not have

the same explanatory power as in the US case. As it was seen in the results from the

questionnaire the five dimensions did capture the attitudes of Bulgarian voters, but the analyses

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showed that they are not significant enough to explain the total combination of components

which lead to the final decision for which party to vote.

The final consideration has to do with the sample itself. The respondents were selected mainly

from the youngest group of voters e.g. between the ages of 20 and 28. That means that most of

the data was collected on the bases of knowledge of people who might not have sufficient

knowledge in politics in general, who might have voted only once in their life prior to the filling

the questionnaire. Keeping all this in mind the final result is in favor of supporting the null

hypotheses and further investigation on the topic will be a good way to revise that subject in the

future.

5.5 Multiple Regression Analysis Given the completed model it was found that none of the four items concerned with trust and

satisfaction were able to predict the need for a new party on the Bulgarian political scene and

thus the second hypotheses was not confirmed. However when looking at the standardized

coefficients and their respective t-statistic and significance (Appendix F) it can be suggested that

some of the variables may actually do influence the dependent variable, but again given the

sample size such relationship could not be confirmed at this point of the research. Such

independent variables are “satisfaction with democracy” and “trust in the incumbent

government” having respectively ρ-values of 0.131 and 0.339. Perhaps with increasing the

sample size and obtaining also a sample which includes individuals with different status in the

society (not only primarily young students as it is the current case) the findings might gain

different outlook.

The other two independent variables used in the analysis were “satisfaction with political

output” and “trust in the parliament as institution” and their respective ρ-values 0.598 and

0.988. Again to validate such findings a change of the sample technique and respectively the

sample size would help.

These same four items presented in the survey show a very good acceptance by the respondents-

all four were found to be from important to very important influential factors with an average of

at least 60% each.

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The last important topic to be covered in the analysis of the linear regression is the already

discussed negative adjusted R squared. As it was shown in table the value for that statistic is -

0.023 which is not an expected result, given that the value of the adjusted R² falls in the region

between 0 and 1. The purpose of using the adjusted R² and not just the R² is that the later does

not take into account the relationship between sample size and degrees of freedom thus it can

provide wrong evidence for existing linear relationship between the variables in the model

(Keller, 2006). After additional research on the subject it was found that the adjusted R² may

obtain a value smaller than zero if the achieved R² is smaller than what you would have expected

to be by chance (http://www.mathforum.org, accessed 20/04/2011), or put in other words the

unadjusted R² showed that there was a small linear relationship between the used variables, and

that was just a “coincidence” which was detected by its adjusted value. That “coincidence” was

bigger than the value of the unadjusted R² and that led the adjusted R squared to obtain a value

smaller than 0. This means that the predictor variables used in the model do not predict the

dependent variable/ does not have a linear relationship in the formulated model. This could also

be confirmed by the value of the F-statistic and the overall significance of the model. As know, a

large value of F implies that the model has a good fit and most of the variation in the dependent

variable can be explained by the variation of the independent variables (Keller, 2006:634) and in

this case, as seen from the output presented in Appendix, this value was only 0.717 and its

significance was 0.585.

5.6 Conclusion of the survey The aim of the survey was to help identify various factors that might influence the decision

making process that determines the political choice made by Eastern European voters. Bruce

Newman’s “Predictive Model of Voter Behavior” was used as main inspiration source together

with various other literature sources discussed in the literature section of this thesis. Moreover

we formulated two working hypotheses which were to explore whether there was a relationship

in respect to gender and the five key dimensions of the predictive model by Newman, and

whether there was a relationship between the trust and satisfaction factors with political

environment and the need for formation of a new political party.

It was found that the main group of respondents who completed the survey would choose to vote

for a new party. Individuals who stated they will vote responded that the main reason to do so is

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“out of conviction” and because they perceived it as a democratic obligation. This confirmed

with similar attitudes presented in the work of Frederik Carlsson and Olof Johansson-Stenman

(2004), although respondents to the survey were asked to self-evaluate their reasons as to “why

they vote the way they do”, as opposed to the suggestion of the earlier research.

When the three items related to the not voting intention were evaluated, it was demonstrated that

people considered “no effect on the outcome” as one of the strongest estimators of their attitude

followed by refusal to vote because of “no political views to be expressed”. The last statement

produced intriguing results, showing that more than half of the individuals strongly disagreed

that they would not vote because they are not obligated. A proposition was made that perhaps

non-voters are possessors of sets of “instrumental” considerations and that a change in

circumstances may lead to change in their decision not to cast a vote (Brennan; 2008).

The attitudes towards minorities were found to be quite positive. It was found that individuals do

perceive brightly the presence of political organizations representing the ethnic minorities and

that also helps for integration processes to take place. Also a stable portion of the respondents

supported the statement that their voting choice would not be as dependent on the factor what

ethnicity a party represents, as to the fact of the ideas and propositions that carry. Previous

exploration of that subject was found to shape the same proposal, though from a more historical

point of view (Gocheva, 1993). A future research concentrated on the attitudes towards ethnic

minority political organization may provide interesting insights on subject.

When conducting the MANOVA analyses on the five key dimensions of the Predictive Model of

Voter Behavior against the gender of respondents, it was found that there was not enough

statistical evidence to confirm the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the five

independent variables in regard to “gender”. However as most of the findings are believed to still

answer the propositions made by B. Newman (1999) and Brennan (2008) further exploration

specifically concentrated on the diversification and increase of the sample would be desirable,

keeping in mind that there might be differences between the democracy adopted in Eastern

Europe and the one from the USA.

Last a multiple regression analysis was carried out in order to test the second hypothesis that

“need for a new party” can be predicted given the attitudes of the respondents towards the items

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related to trust and satisfaction with the political environment. Though there was no statistical

evidence for such relationship to exist it was argued that perhaps the sample size was not big

enough to confirm such hypothesis, and that a subsequent study may reveal a different

perspective with such focus.

The overall conclusion is believed to be that the research provided interesting and valuable

results. Even though the two hypotheses failed to be proven, the selected items did help in

answering the research questions thus providing better understanding of what attitudes drive the

political choice of young Bulgarian voters. However it will be ambiguous to state that all the

aspects were taken into consideration and that a single model can be built to explain the behavior

that drives voters to the ballot-box. As anticipated the results were not perfectly coinciding with

the conclusions of the previously discussed research material, but the question of culture and

historical differences may prove to explain for the divergence. In the next section these findings

will be applied with political marketing theory in order to describe how they can be used by

political candidates when building their campaigns.

6. Implications, Limitations and Future Research In this final chapter of the thesis the aspects of application of the survey findings, limitations and

proposition for a future research will be discussed. We will begin with a discussion concentrated

on the differences and/or similarities between voters and consumers. Next we will turn to

markets and political markets, concluding with propositions how different strategic analyses can

be used together with Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning (STP) approach.

6.0.1 Consumers versus Voters To first consider marketing models and theory we should conclude how much of a difference

there is between the marketing of a product/service and politics. To do so we must start with

answering the question: “Are consumers and voters the same?”. Brennan (2008) argues that

consumers and voters do have different behavior drivers in regard to purchase of a product and

the choice between political candidates, but they are the same rational individual. Another view

is that consumers and voters are seen as individuals receiving information and possibly looking

for it, then evaluating it and making decision based on it (Newman, 1999), thus the similarity

between the two processes seems consistent. A maybe more balanced view stipulates that voters

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and consumers are exhibiting the same analogy when viewed on a macro-level, but going

towards micro the differences between these two entities deepen (Peng and Hackley, 2009). For

the purposes of this thesis we will assume that consumers and voters are the same rational

individuals, who receive and collect information before making any choice or decision, no matter

what is the object of this final process. We will also assume that from a macro point of view,

believing that there are going to be differences from one person to another if a more detailed

research is conducted.

6.0.2 Markets and Political Markets- Strategic considerations Since we assumed that consumers and voters are the same, with differences primarily in their

buying/voting behavior drivers, we should consider whether or not marketing of

products/services and political parties is the same, or they differ in some aspects. The operational

definition for marketing presented by Kotler (2009) is to satisfy different needs and wants of the

consumers through an exchange process, thus the market is the place where the exchange is

made. To accept this view and apply it to politics one must realize that though the goals of a

public company and a political party might be narrow, in the context of selling product- an item,

a candidate, a program etc. – the marketing mix for the political company is much more

complicated. In contrast with a traditional marketing, voters has a specific date limit to which

they have to make a final choice, and this choice is not based on prices which can be compared

physically, thus implying that the voter has to live with the final choice made not only by himself

but also of the rest of the individuals in the society (Schweiger and Adami, in Newman,

1999:347) - a major difference with the traditional marketing of a chocolate bar for example.

However when keeping in mind these differences in applying marketing theory to social science

such as politics the result should be well integrated and working operational definitions in regard

to the field of political marketing. The first step taken in this direction is to consider how we

could integrate strategic considerations in the planning processes of the political campaigns

(Butler and Collins, 1996).

As in marketing in political marketing one must define the degree of development of the market

in which is to operate. It is assumed that most of the Western European political markets can be

described as mature; however since this thesis deals with post-communistic states in Eastern

Europe the market can be described as new, due to discontinuity with the past regime (Butler and

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Collins, 1996). Next we must consider the available market positions as suggested by Kotler

(2009) - leader, challenger, follower and nicher, which model is argued to have a good

application for the political market, since this type of market is operated by smaller number of

participants, compared to commercial markets (Butler and Collins, 1996). To summaries the

possible positions and their characteristics and strategic directions, the following table 5 was

adopted from Butler and Collins (1996). In the last column you can see the approximate

positioning of Bulgarian parties based on the results from the first question of the survey.

Position Characteristics Strategic directions Example

Leader -Highest share

-Acknowledged orientation point

-Continuous attack

-Expand total market

-Expand share

-Defend share

GERB

Challenger -Chosen to depose the leader

-May be several challengers

-Attack leader

-Attack similar competitors

-Attack smaller competitors

Blue Coalition;

Coalition for Bulgaria

Follower -Purposeful concentration on

target market

-Imitative rather than innovative

-Local/regional strengths

-Broad Line

-Clone

-Imitate

-Adapt

Law, Order, Justice;

NDSV

Nicher -Leader in narrowly defined

market or niche

-Specialist appeal

-Create niche

-Expand niche

-Defend niche

The greens;

ATAKA

Table 5: Market positions, characteristics and strategic directions with examples (Adopted from Butler and Collins,

1996).

Market leader in this case would be GERB, and this is the case not only based on the responses

to the survey but also in the currently ruling government. As such the party represents the biggest

voter share on the market, and as such is under continuous attack from the Challengers. For the

leader first priority in politics at least must be defending and expanding of its shares, since it is

very difficult to find wholly new markets to which to expand.

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The two coalitions- Blue and for Bulgaria ones represent the challengers category based on the

responses of the survey, (note: in the current incumbent government there are other political

parties which could be included in this category, however to keep things simple we kept only

parties who respondents state they would vote for and the rest we excluded from the example list

of table). The challengers’ role is to try and depose the leader, both in commercial markets and

political ones. In our case Coalition for Bulgaria is an active player on the Bulgarian market,

with strong support mainly from elderly citizens, while the Blue coalition attracts and unites the

democratic voters.

Follower is said to be “broad-based market participant, whose purposeful concentration is on

looking after the long-term interests of its customers, as opposed to focusing on a special or

narrow range of issues” (Butler and Collins, 1996). NDSV and Law, Order, Justice are good

examples to this position. NDSV, previously leading two subsequent governments (2001-2009)

has now lost much of its shine and supporters, a performance that poor that on the last elections

in 2009 was left out of the parliament. Law, Order, Justice on the other hand is a relatively new

and small political party with stable position on the market.

The last position is that of the nicher. To succeed as such, the political party must use well

defined and targeted segments, and then defend and expand them and hence the niche. It is

argued that in mature markets niche strategy is applied due to severe competition (Butler and

Collins, 1996). In the Bulgarian case however niches are mainly related to not widely popular or

even extreme programs. ATAKA was considered as a nicher, concentrated on targeting extreme

nationalists while The Greens are targeting environmentalist voters. Both parties are gaining

small support considering the total market size.

To conclude the discussion of strategic marketing we reviewed definitions of marketing and

defined the market stages in East and West Europe; we presented the four possible positions on

the market with their characteristics and possible strategic directions; finally we connected the

theory with the results of the collected data from the first question of the survey. As a result we

find it very reasonable to argue that a good analysis of the listed strategic concerns should be

taken into account when pursuing a political campaign in order to achieve the goal of more

plausible outcome.

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6.0.3 Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning (STP) When considering the strategic marketing of a political campaigning we cannot ignore the value

that is gained by careful and educated application of the STP approach. This view is supported

by Smith and Hirst (2001) who state that if the strategic era is to be embraced in politics,

increase in the development of strategic segmentation techniques will be required, and parties

looking for long-term competitive advantage over their opponents should develop a well

organized tactical segmentation.

Strategic segmentation of a market requires knowledge as to what are the different levels and

how they can be measured effectively, so later targeting the most attractive segments can take

place. This implies a long-term customer/voter focus and that is the reason to require the

integration of STP activities (Kotler, 2009). There are four known segmentation methods-

demographic and geographic (mainly used in the past) and behavioral and

psychographic/attitudinal bases gaining popularity in recent years (Smith and Hirst, 2001).

Consequently we should answer the question “How we can apply strategic segmentation to the

political filed?” That can be done by gaining knowledge of the currently existing segments based

on appropriate criteria. After evaluation of all segments, the most attractive one should be

targeted, perhaps paying less attention to the very small or contrasting one. To be able to position

effectively in the targeted segment, an increased comprehension must be gained so the

developing of programs and messages can reach the related and most resonating segments

(Smith and Hirst, 2001). Figure 3 represents the three stages of the STP approach in relation to

political market segmentation.

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Figure 3: A strategic process for segmenting political markets: the STP approach (adopted from Smith and Hirst,

2001)

The methodology available for the different segmentation methods is two types- namely “a

priori” and “post hoc”. Using “a priori” implies that the researcher decides the forming of the

segments before the research is conducted, and the opposite applies to the “post hoc”. To employ

the “post hoc” methodology the researcher makes use of statistical analyses in order to compare

the respondents groups.

After the research is conducted and the data is segmented one must decide which segments

should be targeted. The requirements for effective segmentation, as argued in theory, stipulate

that for segment to be considered “good” must be measurable, substantial, accessible,

differentiable and actionable (Kotler, 2009).

The first two measures- size and accessibility- can be easily accessed. Different statistical

options such as clusters can be used to consider the sizes and the development of media and

technology eases the distribution of political messages. The substantiality measure can be

accessed depending on the political party’s preferences as to how big the “big” must be in order

to be interested in targeting that segment. The most problematic measures, considered by

theorists, are the differentiable and actionable ones. That is the segments must be different

enough on important issues so they can be distinguished successfully and that must allow for

action such as consistent program to be constructed (Smith and Hirst, 2001).

•Identify bases for segmenting electorate

•Develop profiles of resulting political segments

Stage I-Segmentation

•Develop measures of political segment attractivness

•Select the target political segment(s)

Stage II-Targeting

•Develop positioning for each political segment targeted

•Develop appropriate marketing mix for each targeted political segment

Stage III-Positioning

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According to the presented theoretical framework for any party to succeed on elections as for a

company on the commercial market, a clear and well defined strategy should be implied. Such

strategy should be based on number of factors, such as the size of the party, what are the aims

they want to achieve, are these aims possible given the political environment they operate and

compete in. Historical givens and structure of the party are pointed also as important when a

decision-making process is to be implied (Smith and Hirst, 2001). Then when the political

organization has a clear view as to where it is positioned on the market, a research exploring the

attitudes and behavior of the electorate should be conducted. Based on its results a clear

segmentation should take place. By clear it is meant one that is using appropriate criteria,

resonating with the wants of the party. Selecting the most attractable segments follows, and the

process is completed by positioning in the right segments. Based on the targeted segments the

positioning is achieved by developing a message which echoes the inner beliefs of the targeted

groups of voters. Such message, as argued, should be modified in connection with differentiable

segments that are important to the party, but also for a success that message should be well

defined considering the long-term relationship between a party and its supporters (Butler and

Collins, 1996; Smith and Hirst, 2001).

6.1 Limitations As suggested by Blumberg (2008) the most often discussed limitations in scientific papers are

namely “the used sample, the used measurements and the used analyses techniques”. We have

already turned to the issue of the sample in use, so no further discussion will be brought up at

this point. To summarize we argued that the sample was too small, only 51 complete respondents

questionnaires of the “voting” items, and the possible biasness of the data since it was collected

mainly from young adults who may not have developed their political knowledge to the point as

for example older respondents. The other issue with the data collected from these respondents

was that of its skewness, which implied transformation in order to restore partly the normal

distribution of the data and proceed with the statistical analyses.

In terms of the used measurements we should discuss the questionnaire itself. As we began the

work on its construction it was decided only limited number of questions to be used. However

these questions did not cover a broad range of topics which could be relevant to the general are

studied. They were limited in sense to just give a start in investigating the political attitudes and

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behavior drivers held by Eastern European voters. Further much more should be done in the area

of the relationship with ethnic minority parties, and as presented people in Eastern Europe do

tend to vote for considerably young parties as opposed to the Western Europe trends. Also these

two areas were not studied too widely in general and it was problematic to find literature which

to be used for better understanding of the results. We believe that these areas should be studied

carefully, and that could help enrich the field of political marketing considerably. Further we also

account for possible misinterpretations due to the translation of the survey from English to

Bulgarian and back. However careful this was processed the author of this thesis is not a

professional translator. Also no help was given in clarifying possible questions raised from the

respondents since the survey was delivered through an on-line service provider. The pre-test of

the survey concerned with flows in the understanding of the items, show only a few problems

which later were liquidated.

The last point in our discussion so far, is the used analyses. Two different statistical techniques

were selected- a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and a multiple regression

analysis. The follow up of the MANOVA results was conducted through the use of five separate

analyses of variance. These techniques were selected based on the sample size, which was not

significant enough to carry more complex analyses. We chose MANOVA analyses since we

expected some gender differences to account for the attitudes expressed by the respondents

towards the five dimensions described by the model of B. Newman. We also chose the

regression analysis because we wanted to explore whether the highly supported “need for new

party” can be explained the attitudes towards trust and satisfaction with the political

environment. As seen both hypotheses were rejected at the level of our analyses, which points

that the sample perhaps is indeed the flow, and the research should be extended so that flow

could be eliminated.

The next section will discuss the proposition for future research where all the above stated issues

will be taken into account.

6.2 Proposition for further research If further research concerned with the political choice behavior in Eastern Europe is to be

conducted we believe that it should start from scratch. That implies that first there is need for

understanding of the mindset of the general population. Including historical and cultural

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understanding is a mild stone for development of the political marketing in the region. Then

further research with the use of the knowledge systems developed in West Europe and the USA

should be applied, but not directly- they should grasp precisely the differences occurring in

Eastern European voters. If that is done, we believe, it will be possible to develop a survey which

will hold the right combination of silent beliefs and attitudes causing the expressed voters’

choice. With such survey and strategic knowledge about where they stand on the market, it will

also be possible for the political parties to segment their electorate and later target and position

themselves successfully. That is- a careful consideration of the background in which political

organizations operate combined with post-hoc techniques of the STP approach is to give positive

results in the development of a political campaign.

We also would like to propose further exploration of the not voting behavior expressed by

individuals. As argued in literature “young” democratic states have lower voting activities in

comparison with “old” ones (Grönlund and Setälä, 2007). It could be valuable insight if the

reasons for such behavior are discovered. Also that may help political parties and candidates to

actually increase their total market if the big not voting group is influenced in a manner so they

change their negative perception over the power they hold in elections.

Here is the place to suggest that further research should also be extensively concentrated on the

issue of ethics when preparing a political campaign. Politics is a very sensitive subject matter

with an impact on every single individual’s life. Even though this thesis is not going to explore

the use of messages and actual campaigning, we cannot pass over the moral and ethic

considerations that should be taken into account during the positioning phase of the STP

approach. As argued in theory marketing is being perceived as unethical in regard to politics, and

if a campaign strategy is to be developed it should address the moral concerns of spectators and

participants (Butler and Collins, 1996). The following list of propositions will summarize the

presented discussion:

• Complete background information as to historical and cultural traditions, relevant to the

fields of politics and marketing

• Political and marketing specialists from both East Europe and Western democracies,

which are to work with the background information, in order to create a relevant survey

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• The research itself must be developed in such way that it addresses the ethical

considerations of the parties involved

• The research itself must be distributed to as random and big sample of respondents as

possible in order for the data to be valid and to minimize biases

• The research should explore the “why” aspect of the not voting behavior expressed by

individuals

7. Conclusion The goal of this thesis was to explore the political choice behavior in Eastern European context

and link it with marketing on the strategic level for building a campaign. The mean for data

collection was the use of self administrated survey. The respondents of the survey were divided

in two groups. The first group represented the “voting” population- all individuals who stated

they will vote fell into this group. The second group “not voting” population represented the rest

of the respondents- thus the individuals who state they would not vote if there were elections in

this moment.

When evaluating the results of the voting group responses, we found that the Predictive Model of

Voter Behavior by B. Newman is applicable in Eastern European terms. We were able to

establish also that most of the respondents believe they vote out of their conviction and that

voting is accepted as democratic obligation. Important sub-group of items was to help in

bringing clarity over the perception towards ethnic minority parties. We discovered that there

was a good acceptance for their existence by the respondents, and also it was shown that people

do believe in the positive trends in integration due to the existence of ethnic minority parties.

The second group of respondents stated as their main reason for not voting “no effect on the

outcome”, followed by “no political views to express”. However there was evidence that

individuals that do not vote do accept voting as a democratic obligation and it was suggested that

perhaps change in the environment may influence them to vote (Brennan, 2008). We proposed

that a further research may explore why such large percentage of individuals do not want to

exercise their right to vote. This proposition was also made since the objective of this thesis was

to find out why people actually vote and what the factors that influence their choice behavior are.

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The two proposed hypotheses were tested using statistical analyses and the tool SPSS. However

we were not able to establish statistically significant evidence in order to support them. The

MANOVA analysis failed to confirm a difference on the basis of gender when evaluating

respondents’ feelings towards the Predictive Model of Voter Behavior. The multiple regression

analysis failed to confirm the second hypothesis that the need for a new political party can be

explained in terms of trust and satisfaction with the political environment. However we argued

that these results, though final for this thesis, should not be taken lightly, since change in the

sample size used might influence them in the future. The overall experience from the survey and

analyses was satisfactory since we believe we managed to answer the research questions thus

providing better understanding of the factors influencing the voter behavior in East European

terms.

In the last chapter of this thesis we presented some marketing theories bend to meet the political

sciences. The result was a discussion over the use of strategic market positioning combined with

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning approach in order to develop tactical campaign for a

political organization. It was shown; with examples from the responses to the survey, what is the

political market segmentation for the Bulgarian parties, what were the characteristics of each

position (leader, challenger, follower and nicher) and what are the strategic options and threads

for them. Later in the discussion we argued that if this knowledge is combined with the STP

approach in selection of the electorate, positive results should follow for the political

organization/candidate.

Last but not least we presented the limitations in regard to the sample in use, methods in use and

analyses in use of this thesis. This was followed by a proposition for a further research. We

argued that a greater and randomized sample combined with thorough background information in

regard with East European behavior and mind-setting, should provide valuable base for

development of a research tool to be used for that region. We believe that such tool should

address the ethical considerations of individuals involved with politics and should be able to

evaluate their attitudes and behaviors. We also argued that attention should be paid to further

exploration of the factors influencing the not voting behavior expressed by a big percentage of

the respondents and noted also in scientific literature.

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7.1 Acknowledgements We would like to thank our advisor Robert P. Ormrod for the incredible guidance and all the

priceless comments he gave us in the process of writhing this thesis.

Furthermore we would like to thank the beta testers and respondents who spared their time in

order to fill in our survey.

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Genov, N. (2003). Understanding Politics in Bulgaria. Aarhus University, Department of Political Science. Aarhus: Demstar.

Gocheva, P. (1993). DPS: In shadows and light- unspoken. Sofia: Impres.

Grönlund, K., & Setälä, M. (2007). Political Trust, Satisfaction and Voter Turnout. Comparative European Politics , 5, 400-422.

Keller, G. (2006). Statistics for Management and Economics (7th ed.). Duxbury: Thomson Learning.

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Kotler, P., & Kotler, N. (1999). Political Marketing: Generating Effective Candidates, Campaigns and Causes. In B. I. Newman, Handbook of Political Marketing (pp. 3-18). London: Sage Publications, Inc.

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Newman, B. I. (1999). A Predictive Model of Voter Behavior: The Repositioning of Bill Clinton. In B. I. Newman, Handbook of Political Marketing (pp. 259-282). London: Sage Publications, Inc.

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Odescalchi, D. (1999). Democracy and Elections in the New East Central Europe. In B. I. Newman, Handbook of Political Marketing (pp. 587-603). London: Sage Publications, Inc.

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Osuagwu, L. (2008). Political marketing: conceptualisation, dimensions and research agenda. Marketing Intelligence & Planning , 29 (7), 793-810.

Peng, N., & Hackley, C. (2009). Are voters, consumers? A qualitative exploration of the voter-consumer analogy in political marketing. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal , 12 (2), 171-186.

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Schweiger, G., & Adami, M. (1999). The Nonverbal Image of Politicians and Political Parties. In B. I. Newman, Handbook of Political Marketing (pp. 347-364). London: Sage Publications, Inc.

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9. Appendices

9.1 Appendix A Questionnaire:

Question 1: If there were elections today, who would you vote for: (only 1 possible answer)

Question 2: Why would you vote?

I would vote because I want to affect the outcome

I would vote because I want to express my political views

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I would vote because it is democratic obligation to vote

Question 3: Why would you vote as you do?

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Question 4: To what extent do you agree with the following statements?

I would not vote because I cannot affect the outcome

I would not vote because I do not want/have political views to express

I would not vote because I am not obligated to vote

Question 5: How do you evaluate not voting?

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Question 6: To what extent do you consider the importance of the following factors and the

degree to which they motivate your vote?

Political issues (such as the platform/political pledges the candidate promotes)

The relationship of the candidate with other important figures of the society

The candidate’s personality

The ability of the candidate to deal with unexpected (hypothetical) events

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Feelings such as curiosity and novelty the desire to choose someone different and new

representing fresh ideas.

Question 7: To what extent do you consider the importance of the following factors and

their influence over your motivation to vote?

Trust in the parliament (as an institution)

Trust in the incumbent government

Satisfaction with democracy

Satisfaction with policy output

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Question 8: To what extent do you agree with the following statements?

It is good for the society to have a socio-political organization that represents and protects the

rights of the different ethnic groups

Political organization with such functions eases the integration processes

I would vote for such political party, no matter my ethnicity if they represent my political views

better than other party

I would not vote for such political party

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Question 9: To what extent do you agree with the following statements?

There is need for a new political party on the Bulgarian Political scene

If today is formed such new party I will vote for it

Question 10: What is your gender?

Question 11: What is your age? Please fill in yourself

Thank you for filling out this Questionnaire.

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9.2 Appendix B Анкета:

Поведенчески фактори, определящи политическия избор на източноевропейския

гласоподавател

1) Ако днес се провеждаха парламентарни избори, за кого бихте гласували?

2) До каква степен сте съгласни с долупосочените твърдения?

Бих гласувал, защото искам да повлияя на крайният резлутат

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Бих гласувал, защото искам да изявя политическите си убеждения

Бих гласувал, защото е мое демократично задължение

3) Защо бихте гласували по начина, който заявихте?

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4) До каква степен сте съгласни с долу-посочените твърдения?

Не бих гласувал, защото не мога да повлияя на резултата

Не бих гласувал , защото не искам/нямам политически възгледи които да изява

Не бих гласувал, защото не съм задължен да упражня правото си на вот.

5) Как бихте определили отказа за гласуване, като цяло?

6) До колко важни смятате са долупосочените твърдения и степента до която те Ви

мотиварат да гласувате?

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Политически въпроси (например платформата/обещанията издигнати от кандидата)

Връзката на кандидата с други светски личности от обществото

Личността на кандидата

Способността на кандидата за справяне с неочаквани събития

Чувства като любопитство и новаторство, желание за различна личност представяща

свежи идеи

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7) До колко важни смятате са долупосочените твърдения и степента до която те Ви

мотиварат да гласувате?

Доверие в парламента, като институция

Доверие в управляващото правителство

Удовлетворение с демократичните процеси

Удовлетворение с политическите резултати на правителството

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8) До каква степен сте съгласни с всяко едно от посочените твърдения?

Добре е за едно общество да има социално-политическа организация, която да

представлява и опазва правата на различните етнически групи

Политически организации с такъв характер, спомагат за улесняването на интеграционните

процеси

Бих гласувал за такава политическа организация, независимо от етническата ми

принадлежност, стига да предствлява интересите ми по-добре от която и да е друга партия

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Не бих гласувал за политическа организация с такъв характер

9) Моля отбележете до каква степен сте съгласни със следните твърдения:

Има нужда от нова политическа организация, на бълграската политическа сцена

Ако днес бъде сформирана нова партия, бих гласувал за нея

10) Моля попълнете вашият пол:

11) Моля попълнете вашата възраст:

______________________________________________________________________________

Благодарим Ви за участието в това допитване.

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9.3 Appendix C Results from the survey- English version

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9.4 Appendix D Results from the survey- Bulgarian version

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9.5 Appendix E Preliminary tests of variables for performing one-way MANOVA analysis

Interpretation of the abbreviations of the six variables:

“newmans model one”=dimension:”political issues”

“newmans model two”=dimension:”social imagery”

“reflNEWMAN3”= transformed with reflection; dimension:”candidate’s personality”

“reflNEWMAN4”= transformed with reflection; dimension:”situational contingency”

“reflNEWMAN5”= transformed with reflection; dimension:”epistemic value”

“gender of respondents”=”gender”

Furthermore figures 1 to 6 represent the histograms for the same six variables.

Statistics

newmans

model one

newmans

model two

gender of

respondents reflNEWMAN5 reflNEWMAN4 reflNEWMAN3

N Valid 51 51 51 51 51 51

Missing 0 0 0 0 0 0

Mean 4,08 3,53 1,57 ,5356 ,6830 ,6118

Std. Deviation 1,339 1,376 ,500 ,31833 ,31092 ,31385

Variance 1,794 1,894 ,250 ,101 ,097 ,099

Skewness -,772 -,040 -,286 ,629 -,059 ,314

Std. Error of Skewness ,333 ,333 ,333 ,333 ,333 ,333

Kurtosis ,474 -,371 -1,998 -1,307 -1,831 -1,682

Std. Error of Kurtosis ,656 ,656 ,656 ,656 ,656 ,656 Table 1. Summary of descriptive statistics for the six variables

Page 82 of 98

Figure 1. Histogram for variable “newmans model one”

Figure 2. Histogram for variable “newmans model two”

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Figure 3. Histogram for variable “reflNEWMAN3”

Figure 4. Histogram for variable “reflNEWMAN4”

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Figure 5. Histogram for variable “reflNEWMAN5”

Figure 6. Histogram for variable “gender of respondents”

Page 85 of 98

Correlations

newmans

model

one

newmans

model

two

gender of

respondents reflNEWMAN5 reflNEWMAN4 reflNEWMAN3

newmans

model one

Pearson

Correlation

1 ,465** -,038 ,161 ,277* ,296*

Sig. (2-

tailed) ,001 ,791 ,260 ,049 ,035

N 51 51 51 51 51 51

newmans

model two

Pearson

Correlation

,465** 1 -,010 ,209 ,143 ,188

Sig. (2-

tailed)

,001 ,943 ,142 ,317 ,186

N 51 51 51 51 51 51

gender of

respondents

Pearson

Correlation

-,038 -,010 1 ,157 ,132 -,026

Sig. (2-

tailed)

,791 ,943 ,271 ,356 ,854

N 51 51 51 51 51 51

reflNEWMAN5 Pearson

Correlation

,161 ,209 ,157 1 ,435** ,508**

Sig. (2-

tailed)

,260 ,142 ,271 ,001 ,000

N 51 51 51 51 51 51

reflNEWMAN4 Pearson

Correlation

,277* ,143 ,132 ,435** 1 ,538**

Sig. (2-

tailed)

,049 ,317 ,356 ,001 ,000

N 51 51 51 51 51 51

reflNEWMAN3 Pearson

Correlation

,296* ,188 -,026 ,508** ,538** 1

Sig. (2-

tailed)

,035 ,186 ,854 ,000 ,000

N 51 51 51 51 51 51

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Table 2.

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One-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA)

We conducted the one-way MANOVA analysis in order to test the postulated first hypothesis:

H₁: “The political choice behavior of the Eastern-European voter is determined by his gender and his attitude towards political issues, social imagery, candidate’s personality, situational contingency and epistemic value”

Variables Entered/Removedb

Model

Variables Entered

Variables

Removed Method

dimension0

1 reflNEWMAN3, newmans model two, newmans model one, reflNEWMAN5,

reflNEWMAN4a

. Enter

a. All requested variables entered.

b. Dependent Variable: gender of respondents

Table 3.

Model Summaryb

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate

dimension0

1 ,246a ,061 -,044 ,511

a. Predictors: (Constant), reflNEWMAN3, newmans model two, newmans model one, reflNEWMAN5,

reflNEWMAN4

b. Dependent Variable: gender of respondents

Table 4.

ANOVAb

Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

1 Regression ,758 5 ,152 ,580 ,715a

Residual 11,752 45 ,261

Total 12,510 50

a. Predictors: (Constant), reflNEWMAN3, newmans model two, newmans model one, reflNEWMAN5,

reflNEWMAN4

b. Dependent Variable: gender of respondents

Table 5.

Page 87 of 98

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients

t Sig. B Std. Error Beta

1 (Constant) 1,507 ,272 5,545 ,000

newmans model one -,019 ,064 -,051 -,299 ,766

newmans model two -,005 ,060 -,014 -,085 ,932

reflNEWMAN5 ,307 ,274 ,196 1,123 ,267

reflNEWMAN4 ,274 ,286 ,170 ,957 ,344

reflNEWMAN3 -,318 ,298 -,200 -1,070 ,290

a. Dependent Variable: gender of respondents

Table 6.

Residuals Statisticsa

Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation N

Predicted Value 1,36 1,92 1,57 ,123 51

Std. Predicted Value -1,706 2,887 ,000 1,000 51

Standard Error of Predicted

Value

,092 ,309 ,168 ,051 51

Adjusted Predicted Value 1,24 1,93 1,56 ,141 51

Residual -,809 ,575 ,000 ,485 51

Std. Residual -1,583 1,126 ,000 ,949 51

Stud. Residual -1,700 1,280 ,004 1,008 51

Deleted Residual -,934 ,763 ,004 ,549 51

Stud. Deleted Residual -1,738 1,290 ,001 1,011 51

Mahal. Distance ,657 17,327 4,902 3,736 51

Cook's Distance ,002 ,107 ,023 ,023 51

Centered Leverage Value ,013 ,347 ,098 ,075 51

a. Dependent Variable: gender of respondents

Table 7.

One-way MANOVA analysis

Between-Subjects Factors

Value Label N

gender of respondents 1 Male 22

2 Female 29

Table 8.

Box’s Test of Equality of Covariance Matricesa

Box’s M 23,757

F 1,404

df1 15

df2 8186,702

Sig. ,135

Tests the null hypothesis that the observed covariance matrices of the dependent variables are equal across

groups.

a. Design: Intercept + Gender

Table 9.

Multivariate Testsc

Effect

Value F

Hypothesis

df

Error

df Sig.

Partial Eta

Squared

Noncent.

Parameter

Observed

Powerb

Intercept Pillai’s Trace ,929 118,449a 5,000 45,000 ,000 ,929 592,247 1,000

Wilks’

Lambda

,071 118,449a 5,000 45,000 ,000 ,929 592,247 1,000

Hotelling’s

Trace

13,161 118,449a 5,000 45,000 ,000 ,929 592,247 1,000

Roy’s Largest

Root

13,161 118,449a 5,000 45,000 ,000 ,929 592,247 1,000

Gender Pillai’s Trace ,061 ,580a 5,000 45,000 ,715 ,061 2,901 ,194

Wilks’

Lambda

,939 ,580a 5,000 45,000 ,715 ,061 2,901 ,194

Hotelling’s

Trace

,064 ,580a 5,000 45,000 ,715 ,061 2,901 ,194

Roy’s Largest

Root

,064 ,580a 5,000 45,000 ,715 ,061 2,901 ,194

a. Exact statistic

b. Computed using alpha = ,05

c. Design: Intercept + Gender

Table 10.

Page 89 of 98

Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variancesa

F df1 df2 Sig.

newmans model one ,939 1 49 ,337

newmans model two ,814 1 49 ,371

reflNEWMAN5 1,097 1 49 ,300

reflNEWMAN4 3,198 1 49 ,080

reflNEWMAN3 ,571 1 49 ,453

Tests the null hypothesis that the error variance of the dependent variable is equal across groups.

a. Design: Intercept + Gender

Table 11.

Univariate ANOVA analyses

In order to follow up the results of the MANOVA analysis, a series of five univariate

ANOVA analyses were carried out in order to test each of the independent variables against

the dependent variable “gender of respondents”The first test was “newmans model one” and

“gender”

Descriptives

newmans model one

Std. Deviation Std. Error

95% Confidence Interval for Mean Between-

Component

Variance Lower Bound Upper Bound

Model Fixed Effects 1,352 ,189 3,70 4,46

Random Effects ,189a 1,67a 6,48a -,068

a. Warning: Between-component variance is negative. It was replaced by 0.0 in computing this random effects

measure.

Table 12.

Test of Homogeneity of Variances

newmans model one

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

,939 1 49 ,337

Table 13.

ANOVA

newmans model one

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups ,130 1 ,130 ,071 ,791

Within Groups 89,556 49 1,828 Total 89,686 50

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Table 14. Second univariate ANOVA analysis was to test “newmans model two” and “gender”

Descriptives

newmans model two

Std. Deviation Std. Error

95% Confidence Interval for Mean Between-

Component

Variance Lower Bound Upper Bound

Model Fixed Effects 1,390 ,195 3,14 3,92

Random Effects ,195a 1,06a 6,00a -,077

a. Warning: Between-component variance is negative. It was replaced by 0.0 in computing this random effects

measure.

Table 15.

Test of Homogeneity of Variances

newmans model two

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

,814 1 49 ,371

Table 16.

ANOVA

newmans model two

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups ,010 1 ,010 ,005 ,943

Within Groups 94,696 49 1,933 Total 94,706 50

Table 17.

The third univariate ANOVA analysis tested “reflNEWMAN3” and “gender”

Descriptives

reflNEWMAN3

Std. Deviation Std. Error

95% Confidence Interval for Mean Between-

Component

Variance Lower Bound Upper Bound

Model Fixed Effects ,31693 ,04438 ,5226 ,7009

Random Effects ,04438a ,0479a 1,1756a -,00388

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Descriptives

reflNEWMAN3

Std. Deviation Std. Error

95% Confidence Interval for Mean Between-

Component

Variance Lower Bound Upper Bound

Model Fixed Effects ,31693 ,04438 ,5226 ,7009

Random Effects ,04438a ,0479a 1,1756a -,00388

a. Warning: Between-component variance is negative. It was replaced by 0.0 in computing this random effects

measure.

Table 18.

Test of Homogeneity of Variances

reflNEWMAN3

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

,571 1 49 ,453

Table 19.

ANOVA

reflNEWMAN3

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups ,003 1 ,003 ,034 ,854

Within Groups 4,922 49 ,100 Total 4,925 50

Table 20.

Fourth univariate ANOVA analysis tested “reflNEWMAN4”

Descriptives

reflNEWMAN4

Std. Deviation Std. Error

95% Confidence Interval for Mean Between-

Component

Variance Lower Bound Upper Bound

Model Fixed Effects ,31133 ,04360 ,5954 ,7706

Random Effects ,04360a ,1291a 1,2369a -,00051

a. Warning: Between-component variance is negative. It was replaced by 0.0 in computing this random effects

measure.

Table 21.

Test of Homogeneity of Variances

reflNEWMAN4

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Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

3,198 1 49 ,080

Table 22.

ANOVA

reflNEWMAN4

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups ,084 1 ,084 ,868 ,356

Within Groups 4,749 49 ,097 Total 4,834 50

Table 23. The fifth univariate ANOVA analysis tested “reflNEWMAN5” and “gender”

Descriptives

reflNEWMAN5

Std. Deviation Std. Error

95% Confidence Interval for Mean Between-

Component

Variance Lower Bound Upper Bound

Model Fixed Effects ,31757 ,04447 ,4463 ,6250

Random Effects ,04968 -,0957 1,1669 ,00096

Table 24.

Test of Homogeneity of Variances

reflNEWMAN5

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

1,097 1 49 ,300

Table 25.

ANOVA

reflNEWMAN5

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups ,125 1 ,125 1,239 ,271

Within Groups 4,942 49 ,101 Total 5,067 50

Table 26.

Page 93 of 98

9.6 Appendix F The multiple regression analysis was conducted in order to test the second hypothesis we proposed: H₂: The need for a new political party on the Bulgarian political scene can be explained by the attitudes of the voter’ towards “trust in the parliament”, “trust in the incumbent government”, “satisfaction with democracies” and “satisfaction with political output”. Here you will find the outputs from the preliminary tests, the regression and the test of the proposed linear model. Interpretation of the abbreviations used for variable names: “sqsatpolout”=transformed using squared approach” trust in the parliament as an institution” “sqsatdemo”= transformed using squared approach” trust in the incumbent government” “sqtrustpar”= transformed using squared approach” satisfaction with democracy” “sqtrustincgov”= transformed using squared approach” satisfaction with political output” Preliminary tests

Statistics

trust in the

parliament as

an institution

trust in the

incumbent

government

satisfaction with

democracy

satisfaction with

political output

N Valid 51 51 51 51

Missing 0 0 0 0

Mean 4,22 4,69 4,39 4,63

Median 4,00 5,00 4,00 5,00

Variance 1,893 1,580 2,123 1,878

Skewness -,406 -,819 -,646 -,933

Std. Error of Skewness ,333 ,333 ,333 ,333

Kurtosis -,354 ,272 -,200 ,453

Std. Error of Kurtosis ,656 ,656 ,656 ,656

Minimum 1 1 1 1

Maximum 6 6 6 6

Table 27. Before transformation of the variables.

Statistics

sq_satpolout sq_satdemo sq_trustpar sq_trustincgov

N Valid 51 51 51 51

Missing 0 0 0 0

Mean 1,4796 1,5513 1,6144 1,4671

Median 1,4142 1,7321 1,7321 1,4142

Variance ,187 ,205 ,182 ,165

Skewness ,431 ,187 -,078 ,350

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Std. Error of Skewness ,333 ,333 ,333 ,333

Kurtosis -,659 -,959 -,829 -,766

Std. Error of Kurtosis ,656 ,656 ,656 ,656

Minimum 1,00 1,00 1,00 1,00

Maximum 2,45 2,45 2,45 2,45

Table 28. After transformation of the variables using the squared approach.

Correlations

sq_satpolout sq_satdemo sq_trustpar sq_trustincgov

there is

need for a

new party

on the BG

political

sciene

sq_satpolout Pearson

Correlation

1 ,288* ,470** ,419** ,069

Sig. (2-tailed) ,041 ,001 ,002 ,630

N 51 51 51 51 51

sq_satdemo Pearson

Correlation

,288* 1 ,579** ,610** ,165

Sig. (2-tailed) ,041 ,000 ,000 ,247

N 51 51 51 51 51

sq_trustpar Pearson

Correlation

,470** ,579** 1 ,777** ,021

Sig. (2-tailed) ,001 ,000 ,000 ,882

N 51 51 51 51 51

sq_trustincgov Pearson

Correlation

,419** ,610** ,777** 1 -,025

Sig. (2-tailed) ,002 ,000 ,000 ,860

N 51 51 51 51 51

there is need for a

new party on the BG

political sciene

Pearson

Correlation

,069 ,165 ,021 -,025 1

Sig. (2-tailed) ,630 ,247 ,882 ,860

N 51 51 51 51 51

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 29.

Page 95 of 98

Regression

Variables Entered/Removedb

Model Variables Entered Variables Removed Method

dimension0

1 sq_trustincgov, sq_satpolout, sq_satdemo, sq_trustpara . Enter

a. All requested variables entered.

b. Dependent Variable: there is need for a new party on the BG political sciene

Table 30.

Model Summaryb

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate

dimension0

1 ,242a ,059 -,023 1,425

a. Predictors: (Constant), sq_trustincgov, sq_satpolout, sq_satdemo, sq_trustpar

b. Dependent Variable: there is need for a new party on the BG political sciene

Table 31.

ANOVAb

Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

1 Regression 5,825 4 1,456 ,717 ,585a

Residual 93,469 46 2,032

Total 99,294 50

a. Predictors: (Constant), sq_trustincgov, sq_satpolout, sq_satdemo, sq_trustpar

b. Dependent Variable: there is need for a new party on the BG political sciene

Table 32.

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized

Coefficients

Standardized

Coefficients

t Sig.

Collinearity Statistics

B Std. Error Beta Tolerance VIF

1 (Constant) 3,533 ,927 3,809 ,000

sq_satpolout ,282 ,531 ,086 ,530 ,598 ,772 1,295

sq_satdemo ,882 ,574 ,284 1,537 ,131 ,600 1,666

sq_trustpar -,012 ,793 -,004 -,015 ,988 ,355 2,814

sq_trustincgov -,806 ,834 -,232 -,965 ,339 ,355 2,819

a. Dependent Variable: there is need for a new party on the BG political sciene

Table 33.

Collinearity Diagnosticsa

Model Dimensio Eigenvalu Conditio Variance Proportions

Page 96 of 98

n e n Index (Constant

)

sq_satpolou

t

sq_satdem

o

sq_trustpa

r

sq_trustincgo

v

dimension

0

1

dimension1

1 4,858 1,000 ,00 ,00 ,00 ,00 ,00

2 ,059 9,086 ,03 ,59 ,22 ,01 ,03

3 ,038 11,297 ,77 ,11 ,05 ,07 ,09

4 ,031 12,593 ,20 ,28 ,72 ,09 ,10

5 ,015 18,209 ,00 ,01 ,00 ,83 ,78

a. Dependent Variable: there is need for a new party on the BG political sciene

Table 34.

Residuals Statisticsa

Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation N

Predicted Value 3,28 4,97 4,12 ,341 51

Std. Predicted Value -2,450 2,498 ,000 1,000 51

Standard Error of Predicted

Value

,236 ,746 ,430 ,119 51

Adjusted Predicted Value 3,50 4,96 4,10 ,364 51

Residual -3,521 2,256 ,000 1,367 51

Std. Residual -2,470 1,583 ,000 ,959 51

Stud. Residual -2,608 1,654 ,006 1,016 51

Deleted Residual -3,926 2,464 ,020 1,538 51

Stud. Deleted Residual -2,794 1,687 ,004 1,036 51

Mahal. Distance ,387 12,728 3,922 2,789 51

Cook’s Distance ,000 ,156 ,026 ,038 51

Centered Leverage Value ,008 ,255 ,078 ,056 51

a. Dependent Variable: there is need for a new party on the BG political sciene

Table 35.

Page 97 of 98

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

Page 98 of 98

Test of the linear model

Y (Neednewparty) = β₀ + β₁trust_par + β₂trust_ig + β₃ satis_demo + β₄ satis_po + ε

Goodness of Fitb

Value df Value/df

Deviance 93,469 46 2,032

Scaled Deviance 51,000 46 Pearson Chi-Square 93,469 46 2,032

Scaled Pearson Chi-Square 51,000 46 Log Likelihooda -87,814 Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) 187,628 Finite Sample Corrected AIC (AICC) 189,537 Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) 199,219 Consistent AIC (CAIC) 205,219

Dependent Variable: there is need for a new party on the BG political sciene

Model: (Intercept), sq_satpolout, sq_satdemo, sq_trustpar, sq_trustincgov

a. The full log likelihood function is displayed and used in computing information criteria.

b. Information criteria are in small-is-better form.

Table 36

Parameter Estimates

Parameter

B Std. Error

95% Wald Confidence Interval Hypothesis Test

Lower Upper

Wald Chi-

Square df Sig.

(Intercept) 3,533 ,7854 1,993 5,072 20,232 1 ,000

sq_satpolout ,282 ,5543 -,805 1,368 ,258 1 ,611

sq_satdemo ,882 ,6218 -,336 2,101 2,014 1 ,156

sq_trustpar -,012 ,7342 -1,451 1,427 ,000 1 ,987

sq_trustincgov -,806 ,8118 -2,397 ,785 ,985 1 ,321

(Scale) 1,833a ,3629 1,243 2,702

Dependent Variable: there is need for a new party on the BG political sciene

Model: (Intercept), sq_satpolout, sq_satdemo, sq_trustpar, sq_trustincgov

a. Maximum likelihood estimate.

Table 37.