Policy or Person? The Electoral Value of Programmatic Appeals and Personal Attributes in the Finnish Open-List System

Under open-list proportional representation (OLPR), the link between voters and individual representatives is more distinct and direct than under closed lists, since voters have a direct say in which candidates that become elected. But what does this direct link consist of? At a very overarching level, theories on the electoral behaviour of voters, and strategies applied by candidates can be grouped into two different categories: strategies related to the political message and strategies that revolves around the carrier of the message. While ideology and issue positions clearly belong to the first category, personal characteristics belong to the latter. The dichotomy is highly relevant from the perspective of intra-party competition, which is theorized to influence the type of cues voters apply when confronted with a highly complex choice set-up (Lau & Redlawsk 2006), and the strategies applied by candidates when competing against a high number of co-partisans (Carey & Shugart 1995). Generally, high levels of intraparty competition is expected to depress the value of the political message, and increase the currency of personalized strategies. Empirically, the electoral value of the two is however very much unexplored territory. This study sets out tackle this deficit by a systematic comparison of the electoral value of programmatic appeals and personal vote-earning attributes within the context of the Finnish system of open-list proportional. The analyses will include of over 2000 candidates nominated in the 2015 parliamentary election and is based on a unique combination of data: a database on candidates’ personal characteristics and data on programmatic appeals of candidates derived from voting aid applications.