Economic Determinants Underlying Voting Behaviour of Different Socio-Economic Background with Special Reference to Tamil Nadu Voters

Abstract

The major question that remains is whether people have risen above from their association with social and cultural priorities or are driven by the economic interest like employment, income redistribution, equality and others. The basic assumption underlying every economic model is rationality and selfish motives that lead to final equilibrium, similarly when it comes to voting behaviour individual voters tend to be self- driven and weigh the best among all the alternatives available thus maximising their utility. But when individuals are driven by self- interest, they tend to associate themselves with identity factor, that’s where the problem arises. This gives an incentive to the politicians to engage in identity politics and gain popularity by triggering identity in political arena, thus, dampening the motivation for economic policy Gaikwad (2018). Thus, the study tries to analyse the attitude and response in terms of votes division of individuals based on economic issues and religious cleavages. Multinomial Logistic Regression was used because the primary data collected is totally nominal in nature. Hence, relationship between unemployment variable and education and income parameters were considered. The Pseudo R Square greater than 0.5 which indicates a good model fit. In case of willingness to change party, voters who do not identify themselves with any particular party do change their preference.