The impact of the personalization by gender on the electoral volatility: The Belgian elections of 2014

In the end of the 20th century, the media-revolution, the rising of many non-political actors and the noneffectiveness and the hardness of traditional parties powered a new electoral behavior named the volatility. The new volatile elector is characterized by a decline in classic partisanship paired to a new electoral personalized calculation, constructed on preferential vote and candidate’s personal dimension. The link between volatility and personalization is clear: electorates who vote after candidate’s personal settings are more likely to be volatile. However, personalization may encompass a variety of personal determinants and until now, the weight of gender have always been neglected by the literature. Thereby, the study investigates how the personalization, focusing on its gender branch, can affect the volatile voting behavior during the Belgian elections of 2014. On one side, the personalization by gender encompass a shared-membership to a gender group between an elector and a candidate. However, results show that belonging to the same gender group isn’t an enough pertinent motivation to make voters be more volatile. Yet, in situation where women balance between candidates with the same ideas, they would prefer to support the female candidate instead of a man. In this precise circumstance solely, the personalization through the gender-identity rises the volatility. On the other side, personalization by gender concerns voters influenced by candidate’s positions on gendered concerns. With regard to the results, this assumption is partially refused. The propensity that the gendered-issue personalization increases one’s volatile behavior is directly linked to the gender of the elector. Indeed, while women adjust their vote due to candidates’ standings on women’s issues, men are strongly less exposed to gender-issue’s influence.