Mapping electoral behaviour in Greece before and after Covid-19: A Comparative analysis for first time voter

The proposed paper is a comparative analysis on the youth electoral behavior in the election of 2019 and 2023 in Greece. The study presents the results of an extended survey to young people who are preparing to vote for the first time. The survey of 2019 produced significant findings on the behavior of youth regarding their attitudes towards elections (Panagiotidou, Chadjipadelis, 2021) and the same survey is being repeated in Spring 2023. The sample consists of almost 4.000 students in the universities of Thessaloniki Greece. More specifically, the study aims to investigate the views, attitudes, and values of young people in Greece using a multivariate data analysis in two steps synthesizing the Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) AND Factorial Correspondence Analysis (AFC) (Benzecri, 1974). Moreover, the research highlights how youth understand the concept of democracy, which forms their “democratic self” and how their “moral self” and their moral values (Taylor, 1991) are constructed with the use of symbolic representation (Marangudakis, Chadjipadelis and Panagiotidou, 2021). Furthermore, their political and electoral behavior is analyzed on the basis of political mobilization, political interest, being informed about politics and demographics which are jointly analyzed in order t gain insights on the political behavior profiles of young voters. The main research output is a map representing the political behavior of young first-time voters. Additionally, a conjoint analysis is applied to identify the most important factors which determine their vote. The study results contribute to the voting behavior literature by revealing contemporary young voters’ typologies, visualizing political competition and dynamics of political behavior, and highlighting emerging important factors which affect voting choice. In a comparative perspective the new study brings forward how the electoral behavior of youth has changes since 2019, taking into account the intermediate events of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis and the effect that this may have on the moral self or the democratic self of young people but also to their voting criteria, their willingness to participate in the elections and other variables for their political behavior. The methodology of this joint behavioral map for these two elections will visualize any variation in youth behavior in these two elections in Greece contributing to the comparative analysis of the phenomenon.