Electoral Geography

1.1Electoral Geography: Object of Study and Methods

Electoral geography is the study of the spatial dimension of the electoral process.

Our location contains a lot of data about us – not only about the physical coordinates of where we are, but also about our interests, values, and even political preferences. For example, information about the average cost of housing in the area where we live, or data about the stores we frequent, may say a lot about how much we earn, and therefore about our social status and likely political orientation. This kind of information is everywhere in modern society: we check in when we travel and when we stay at hotels; we create geotags when we post something to the internet; and we constantly transfer anonymous information about the location of our personal devices. Processing arrays of this information makes it possible to analyse and even predict trends in the political process. It turns out that just as the terrain can vary, that is, it can be spatially heterogenous, so too can the voting habits of the people living on it. And it also turns out that a person’s political choice is influenced, among other things, by his or her physical location. The differentiation of space based on the electoral preferences of residents is what forms the electoral space – a special layer of the earth’s surface that is the object of study of the discipline we call electoral geography.

Electoral geography stands at the intersection of the geographic and social sciences, namely: social (political) geography on the one hand, and political science, electoral sociology and election law on the other. The interdisciplinary field related to the study of electoral systems and processes is sometimes called psephology, in which case electoral geography can be seen as a science that applies geographical methods to the object of study of psephology. Just as elections are the focus of political science, electoral geography can be seen as the focus of political geography.

The key concept of geography – space – is the basic form of the existence of matter and is characterized by its physical dimensions and volume. This means that the analysis of an object in space allows us, first of all, to identify its location relative to other objects or phenomena and, secondly, to identify how this position in space affects the properties of the object itself. This method of studying an object is at the heart of the methodology of geographic science.

The object of study in electoral geography is the electoral process – the system of interactions between voters and elected representatives before, during and after elections to government bodies. The particular focus of electoral geography is the spatial dimension of the electoral process.

The spatial dimension of the electoral process is studied in one of the types of electoral space (Table 1.1):

1. 1. Electoral landscape – a projection of physical (absolute) space, the coordinate system of which corresponds to the Earth’s surface and is measured in degrees and other physical units (metres, feet, etc.);
2. 2. Electoral field – a projection of formal (relative) space, which is a mathematical abstraction, the coordinate system of which is determined by the structure of interactions of elements in space and their topological properties;
3. 3. Electoral worldview – a projection of perceptual (cognitive) space, the coordinate system of which is determined by the subjective perception of elements in space and the relationships between them. The electoral worldview is thus a spatially organized system of images, narratives, discourses, perceptions, myths, identities and other subjective points of view on the electoral process.

The three types of space were first conceptualized by the German–American philosopher Rudolf Carnap in his famous early work Der Raum (Space) (1922) [235]. Physical (absolute) space is thus a mathematical matrix in which each object is given exact geographic coordinates (latitude, longitude and elevation). In formal (relative) space, it is not the exact coordinates that are important, but the location of objects relative to each other and the relationships that result from such an arrangement. Perceptual (cognitive) space is the reflection of an object’s location in our memory and imagination. Each of these types of space represents a fundamental perspective on who shapes the world around us. Physical space is created by nature – that is, by an external force – and is thus not within our control and can only act as an explanatory force in social processes. Relative space is created by society, it is essentially the projection of society on a surface, which means that its properties are inseparable from the essence of the social order. Finally, cognitive space is a product of the individual’s subjective perception, it is unique and cannot be generalized.

To better understand this, let us compare how a subway map would look in the three types of space. In the physical (absolute) space, we see the subway lines superimposed on top of a map of the city; they are tied to specific geographic coordinates. In the formal (relative) space, the subway lines straighten out and the distance between them is standardized, since we are only concerned about how many stops we need to travel and where we need to change trains – this is the kind of map that is usually posted at subway stations and within train cars. In the perceptual (cognitive) space, subway stations are associated with local sites, our own memories of life events that took place in different parts of the city, and an idea of the distance between them. Distance is the basic parameter of analysis in space and, as such, it too can be absolute, relative and cognitive. Absolute distance is measured in universal units of measurement (degrees, metres, miles, and so on); relative distance may be measured in the number of stops, train changes, money or time spent on the journey, etc.; and cognitive distance may be measured, for example, in the number of songs you listened to or the number of pages of your book you read during your journey

The basic hypothesis of electoral geography is that the structure of space has an independent influence (that is, separate from other factors) on the electoral process and voting results.

Modern electoral geography is made up of the following key areas and subdisciplines:

• • geography of voting identifies the factors and patterns that underlie long-standing territorial differences in the political activity of voters and their voting habits by administrative and territorial unit, constituency and district, as well as the geographic favouritism and disproportionality of electoral systems – that is, the proclivity of electoral procedures to the territorial differentiation of election results [253, 480];
• • geography of representation deals with the level of representation of territories in the executive and legislative bodies of power at various levels and the negative experience of unequal and unfair distribution (malapportionment) [274, 394, 428, 446];
• • electoral limology systematizes the influence of constituency and district boundaries on election results, primarily by analysing the negative experience of moving the boundaries of electoral districts (gerrymandering), and identifies transparent and fair strategies for changing such boundaries (redistricting) [211, 224, 381];
• • geography of social cleavages deals with the territorial dimension of ideological and political splits in society as a factor in the electoral behaviour of citizens [373, 403];
• • electoral geography of parties and party systems focuses on issues of the nationalization and regionalization of parties and party systems [234];
• • electoral geography of political campaigns studies patterns in the conduct of election campaigns [335];
• • spatial modelling of voting concerns the mathematical modelling of the electoral process in an abstract space [320];
• • urban electoral geography explains the territorial patterns of the electoral process at the city and municipal level [252, 319];
• • international electoral geography is concerned with geographical patterns in the voting of countries in supranational structures (the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Labour Organization, the European Union, the Eurovision Song Contest, etc.) [204, 371];
• • critical electoral geography focuses on the factor of identity in the territorial differentiation of the electoral process among different social groups in the post-positivist paradigm (for example, feminist electoral geography [382, 452], emotional electoral geography [453], racial electoral geography, etc.).

Despite the fact that electoral geography today is divided into several independent areas of research, the key goal of the discipline is to understand the factors and patterns behind the stable electoral and geographic heterogeneity of space. Within this area of focus, the following main stages in the analysis of the electoral differentiation of space can be singled out:

1. 1. assessment and flattening out of geographic favouritism within the political system;
2. 2. quantitative and qualitative analysis of the structure of the party system, the number of segments that make it up and their relative weight;
3. 3. assessment of the degree of nationalization/regionalization of the party system and the proclivity for territorial differentiation of the parties that make up that system;
4. 4. identification of the ideological platform of the segments of the party system and linking them to the long-standing ideological and political splits in society;
5. 5. construction of a spatial voting model that reflects the configuration of political forces on the ideological spectrum and the electoral field;
6. 6. operationalization of a comparison matrix of candidates and parties based on stable segments of the electoral field (in the case of studies that cover more than one country or time period);
7. 7. assessment of the overall level of electoral-geographic segmentation of space and identification of stable clusters and anomalous territories among them;
8. 8. electoral-geographic zoning of space through the identification of spatial clusters that demonstrate a similar type of electoral behaviour;
9. 9. identification and verification of potential factors of electoral behaviour, determination of spatial differentiation of the level of their validity;
10. 10. assessment of the effects of electoral geography and the degree of electoral-geographic engineering.

It is well known that voting preferences undergo a number of systemic transformations during the electoral process, which means that the end result may differ markedly from the original intention. The key task of electoral research is thus to assess the degree to which voter intention is deformed by a system of interrelated filters: (1) deeply ingrained ideological and political divisions and the structure of the party system they mediate; (2) the course of the election campaign (including scalar effects of electoral geography); (3) the neighbourhood effect (i.e. the vector effect of electoral geography); and (4) the institutional favouritism of the electoral system (including geographic favouritism). An important task of electoral geographic analysis in this context is to explain the nature of this deformation of voter intention.

In the course of research, electoral geography relies primarily on special geographic methods: participant observation and interviews during field trips, mapping, zoning, modelling and spatial analysis.

Electoral-geographic field trips: this includes observation, collecting, digitizing, geocoding and processing primary data on election results and voting behaviour, and interviews with people involved in the electoral process (including expert interviews, focus groups, etc.).

Electoral-geographic mapping: this involves comparing voting results with the position in space of various objects (residential areas, campaigning locations, election headquarters, the homes of candidates, etc.) and phenomena (protest activity, conflicts, etc.). Plotting the objects of study on maps allows us to present the location of objects relative to each other. Then, a search is carried out to find the nearest objects to the one we are studying and patterns in their positional relationship are analysed. Finally, superimposing various thematic layers of objects on top of one of other and changing the scale of the map gives us new information about the patterns of territorial differences in voting behaviour.

Electoral-geographic zoning: the spatial differentiation of the territory according to a given feature, phenomenon or condition (usually the degree of political activity or the level of support for a particular party or candidate), its severity, and how compatible or incompatible it is with other features. The resulting parts of space (regions), or the space-time continuum (chorions), allow us to formulate certain conclusions about the structure of society and the electoral processes that take place within it.

Electoral-geographic modelling: the search for spatial links that explain the properties of objects and the nature of electoral processes. This method involves: (1) identifying key and secondary objects of the space that is being analysed, spatial dependency vectors and spatial barriers that prevent dependency; and (2) modelling schemes of interdependence of elements and levels of spatial organization.

Spatial analysis in electoral geography: assessment of global and local spatial correlation in voting behaviour; evaluation of the level of electoral-geographic segmentation of space; identifying stable spatially continual statistical clusters of similar voting behaviour; qualitative and quantitative assessment of spatial factors in the distribution of electoral phenomena.

While it is true that electoral geography leans heavily on the positivist theoretical paradigm and relies on statistical methods of processing data, in its modern interpretation it also follows a constructivist approach that opens up new ways of understanding electoral processes.

1.2Stages in the Development of Electoral Geography

The history of electoral-geographic research dates back a little over a century and can be divided into three stages: the descriptive stage (1910s–1960s), the analytical stage (1970s–2000s), and the synthetic stage (from the 2010s onwards).

The descriptive stage of the development of electoral geography (1910s–1960s) involved the collection and systematization of empirical knowledge about the territorial differentiation of electoral processes. The main achievement of this stage was formation of electoral geography as a new subject area that combines elements of social geography, political science, electoral sociology and election law to describe the influence that geography has on elections.

The French geographer André Siegfried (1875–1959) is credited with having founded and named the discipline of electoral geography (Fig. 1.1). In his 1913 book Tableau politique de la France de l’Ouest sous la Troisième République (Political Picture of Western France under the Third Republic) [461], Siegfried analyses the territorial distribution of elections in 14 departments for the period 1871–1910 and concludes that geological morphology is, indirectly, a key factor in voting behaviour in rural areas (this thesis was confirmed in a similar study carried out in 1949 in the department of Ardèche in the south of France [460]). The area of the country that is on granitic soil is sparsely populated, and most of the residents are large landowning farmers. Additionally, the role of the church as an institution of intra-communal communication is strong here. This leaning towards large landowners and the church made the local electorate more conservative and monarchist. Conversely, people in the limestone soil areas in the river basin valleys live more closely together, with a large concentration of small and medium-sized farms. Here, competition and egalitarianism develop, dependence on the church decreases and, consequently, the electorate is more like to vote liberal and republican. While many reduce Siegfried’s work to the formula “le granite vote à droite, le calcaire vote à gauche” (“granite votes right, limestone votes left”), it is noteworthy for the pioneering conceptualization of what the author called the influence of the environmental factor on political sensibilities [55]. Siegfried’s research formed the basis of the highly influential French school of electoral geography. His work would be continued (and critiqued) by such thinkers as François Goguel [303–304], Jean Billet [212], Jacqueline Beaujeu-Garnier [209], Albert Brimo [219], Lucien Gachon [294], Claude Leleu [368], and Marie-Thérèse and Alain Lancelot [361].