An Investigation of the Relationship Between Population Change and Electoral Outcomes

Abstract

Subnational elections have become increasingly important due to the growth in the number and influence of subnational governments worldwide. We still don't fully grasp how regional election results affect citizens' political support, and there isn't a systematic comparison of how election results affect citizens' happiness with democracy. In this research note, we present such a comparison by comparing the winner-loser gap in citizens' satisfaction with democracy between regional and national elections. We first demonstrate that there is a winner-loser divide in democratic satisfaction after regional elections using data from Canada, Germany, and Spain. However, compared to the national election, the regional winner-loser disparity is also much lower. The expanding topic of political demography, which examines the political ramifications of structural population change, is reviewed in this article. It emphasizes how crucial it is to combine studies from political sociology and demography in order to completely comprehend the intricate and subtle connection between political processes and demography.