Electoral Geography

Andrew Ellis

The electoral geography hypothesis is that electoral behavior is related to place—neighborhood, community, town or city, region, or country—and cannot entirely be explained by considering individual voters, and nonvoters, as possessing characteristics on an atomized and isolated basis. It claims that geographical and contextual effects are significant and that the process of day-to-day personal communication and social interaction in the community—or in a variety of communities—influences voting patterns. As explained by John Agnew (2002), localities are the arena for political socialization and produce the settings for much interpersonal social interaction. The general tensions within society are actualized within localities, influencing the relative weight and various meanings attached to social divisions and hence the appeal of different ideologies—which are not the same everywhere. Political movements then use geography in their search for electoral and other support, using claims relating to localities, regions, and so forth to mobilize that support. There is ...

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