Local voters have their reasons: Mapping voting motives in local elections in Belgium

Voting motives are one of the most studied but still much contested question in political science. There has been much less concern at the local level although two main tendencies can be discerned. Some consider local elections as second order political contests. Others emphasize place-bound patterns in voting motives. Still, more research beyond those theoretical presumptions is needed to empirically determine motives for the local vote. Therefore, this paper aims to address two questions: (RQ1) Which types of motives do voters attribute to their choice in local elections? (RQ2) What explains similarities and differences in RQ1? To answer these questions, we draw on the data of the Belgian Local Elections Study 2018 in which respondents were invited to answer an open-ended question about their voting motives for the local elections. Voting in local elections does not appear to be of second order: voters predominantly have general and specific place-bound reasons.