Contextual effects on the vote in Germany: A multilevel analysis

This paper addresses the old topic of contextual effects on voting behaviour. Current multilevel analysis techniques provide a powerful tool to (re-)examine such regional influ-ences on individual voting decisions. We apply multilevel analysis to German electoral data. Our results prove evidence of two contextual effects. The unemployment level of the district has a positive effect on SPD support, which confirms the local equivalent of the economic vote model. Furthermore the global strength of a party in a district has a positive effect on the individual decision to support that party. This is a confirmation of what has been labelled as breakage. Both effects demonstrate the continuing impact of the locality on individual vote preferences in Germany.