Conservative Politicians and Voting on Same-sex Marriage

Kauder, Björn und Potrafke, Niklas (2019): Conservative Politicians and Voting on Same-sex Marriage. In: German Economic Review, Bd. 20, Nr. 4, E600-E617

Abstract

We examine whether conservative politicians are less likely to support same-sex marriage when they run for office in safe rather than in contested districts using new data based on a roll-call vote in the national German parliament. The results show that the margin of the majority for the incumbent in the previous election was a strong predictor for supporting same-sex marriage. When the majority increased by a 1 percentage point, the likelihood of voting in favour of same-sex marriage decreased by around 1.3 percentage points. We conjecture that politicians are election-motivated - even when submitting roll-call votes on a matter of conscience.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Volkswirtschaft
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• ISSN: 1465-6485
• Sprache: Englisch