ABSTRACT
For decades, researchers have examined people's beliefs across countries and over time using national samples of citizens. Yet, in an era when economies, societies, and policymaking have become increasingly interconnected, nation-states may no longer be the only or most relevant units of analysis for studying public opinion. To examine what people think about politics on a global scale, we develop tools for measuring public opinion that allow us to transcend national and regional boundaries. Starting with the world as the unit of analysis and humans as the relevant population, we measure and then explore patterns and trends in human preferences for democratic government and political leaders with the help of surveys collected around the world since 1994.
ABSTRACT
The paper builds upon an original pre- and post-election survey that we conducted before and after the 2015 Canadian election. Directly after Election Day, we asked Canadians for which party they voted, and whether they regret their choice. We find that 39% of them are not perfectly happy with their decision, and 4% even say that they made a bad decision. We show that the propensity to regret can be explained by a mixed-utility theory, whereby voters attempt to maximize a mixture of instrumental and expressive utilities. Our study contributes to the literatures on voting behaviour and political economy, which usually considers that voters are either instrumental or expressive, but not both at the same time.
