5 Topics for Research on Elections and Voters’ Behaviour

India is the largest democratic country in the world. What it means is we select the chief of an individual state and the prime leader of the country via public elections or general elections. And all of that happens in different years. This has given an opportunity to many psephologists and budding researchers to study elections, voting patterns and the mood of the citizens during election seasons.

Here are some potential research topics that you may find interesting:

1. Preference to vote for a particular candidate

You can examine if the citizens are blindly following their local constituency candidate or are they actually listening or attending the campaigns and then making their decision. Are candidates promising and following the statements written in the party manifesto? If not, does this affect the voting preference criteria of Indian citizens while voting?

2. Factors determining stickiness towards a particular political party

You can study every citizen’s knowledge and awareness of a particular political party or candidate. Are they aware of the historical achievements, failures or controversies associated with that party? What are the factors involved which determine favoritism or hatred towards a particular party.

3. Role of Fake News associated with a candidate in decision-making

You can explore whether the netizens are able to identify a particular piece of news as fake or not. What is the role of social media in spreading fake news and to what extent? Whether it affects the decision-making process of the voters or not?

4. Role of political advertising in the success or failure of a party

You can test whether the political advertisements used by the parties are conveying the right message, are they reaching to the right audience, are voters able to connect themselves with that particular party, and what is the recall value of those political advertisements. You can also explore the effectiveness of various mediums used to run political advertisements.

5. Role of maintaining social media image of a party or a candidate

You can compare the online/social media images of various political candidates and parties by presenting various scenarios to the local voters/netizens. You may ask voters/netizens to compare the images of various political candidates and parties. Ask them who could be the game changer for their constituency and their reasons for the same.

How online survey software can enable political researchers

India stays busy with multiple elections. The upcoming general elections has opened multiple opportunities for researchers in India and the world alike. However, researchers still find it challenging when it comes to the smooth execution of a research objective. Authentic data collection is the top headache for most of them.

Online survey software like ThinkSurvey maintain audience panel with various demographics as per the interests and requirements of the researchers. Researchers can simply create the questionnaire online, and float it to the participants, collect the responses and run their analysis.