Faith and vote: the logic of catholic electoral behaviour in lithuania

Faith and Vote: the Logic of Catholic Electoral Behaviour in Lithuania For decades, political scientists have been trying to explain how people decide to vote in elections. In order to answer this question, a number of theories have been developed and a lot of research has been done, but the discussion in this sphere does not stop. Lithuanian voters' internal voting logic is often inconsistent with one or another voting theory, which hinders a better understanding of Lithuanian voters and their behaviour. In order to solve this problem, it was decided to investigate the internal voting logic of individual social groups, hoping that this would help to better understand the differences between Lithuanian voters and the picture of voting logic, therefore the largest religious group in Lithuania – Catholics will be studied in this work. The role of the Church and of Christians in political life has often been highlighted by political scientists as one of the important social factors that can explain the human vote or even the peripetics of the party system. Often, in the US and Europe, Christian votes are different from other religious groups and the remaining voters. Significant differences between religious groups make it possible to assume that Christians not only vote differently, but also have their own intrinsic voting logic. According to the Lithuanian and foreign scientists’ studies, a theoretical framework was developed and hypotheses were formulated. Therefore, seven hypotheses are examined in the paper: a study investigates if there are statistically significant links between Catholicism and party identification, electoral volatility, vote choice and moral values. On the basis of the theoretical framework, an analysis model explaining Catholicism effects on electoral behaviour was designed. Data used in the study were collected after the 2016 parliamentary elections. The model allows the study to confirm five hypotheses: practicing Catholics are more likely to identify with one of the parties, older Catholics are more likely to identify with a party than younger Catholics, practising Catholics are more likely to vote for a Christian party, Catholics are more active during elections and Catholics are less likely to take place in electoral volatility. Other hypothesis had to be rejected: Catholics do not differ significantly according to the moral values, even those Catholics who are more interested in politics. Data presented in this study show that the theory of party identity (Campbell et al.) has the best chances of explaining Catholics and their electoral behaviour. Rational voting theory promoted by Anthony Downs hardly explains the catholic electoral behaviour or does not explain it at all (depending on the different issues). Results of this work strengthen and extend Lithuanian scientists previously performed studies in electoral behaviour field. Fact that the majority of practicing Catholics in Lithuania does not support catholic parties is the most interesting discovery, however, this finding was not sufficiently analysed and only a couple theories to explain this was provided. A closer look at this phenomenon could be a work of future studies of electoral behaviour. Main difficulties faced during the preparation of this study were all data-related. First of all, representative survey data that were used as in this study features did not include many non-Catholic persons and because of that statistically significant comparisons were impossible to make sometimes. The second problem was a big number of people who identify as a Catholics but do not have any more serious relationship with this religion. A different survey could solve this problem – more non-Catholics and representatives from different religious groups should be included in this survey in order to analyse differences between Catholics and other religious groups/atheists more specifically