The De- and Re-Chancellorisation of Voting Behaviour in German Bundestag Elections

The Development of the Electoral Impact of Chancellor Preference between 1991 and 2021

Abstract

The personalisation of voting behaviour is a much debated research topic. For Germany, personalisation has usually been studied with respect to the chancellor candidates. Therefore, these studies examine what we call “chancellorisation” of voting behaviour (and not personalisation in a broader sense). The empirical evidence is rather mixed: Most of the studies do not find an increasing effect of chancellor candidates. In this paper, we argue in favour of a “de-chancellorisation” taking place. In recent decades, voter support for the SPD and the CDU/CSU has declined markedly, yet these were the only parties nominating chancellor candidates until 2021. For the electorate as a whole, chancellor candidates should become ever less important for the voting decisions. This trend should be halted with the nomination of a chancellor candidate by the Greens in 2021. Our empirical analysis, based on the German Forsa-Bus from 1991 to 2021, confirms these expectations.