Attitude Towards Risk-Taking and Individual Choice in the Quebec Referendum on Sovereignty

Richard Nadeau, Pierre Martin and André Blais

British Journal of Political Science, 1999, vol. 29, issue 3, 523-539

Abstract: How do people make decisions when they have to choose between unknown futures? Do they simply rely on anticipated costs and benefits or do they use some other criteria to assess their options? And what determines the criteria they use to make such decisions? This article explores the way voters take sides when they are faced with a fundamental political choice. Using data from a survey of voting intentions conducted prior to the 1995 referendum on sovereignty in Quebec, we find that attitude towards risk-taking influences political choice indirectly, as it affects the relative weights given to different decision criteria. Individuals who usually accept risk more readily tend to choose entirely on the basis of anticipated costs and benefits, but individuals who are more reluctant to take risks give almost as much weight to the perceived possibility of a ‘worst outcome’. Our analysis suggests that attitude towards risk-taking had a modest but significant impact on individual choice, and thus was a contributing factor in the outcome of the Quebec referendum.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:29:y:1999:i:03:p:523-539_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in British Journal of Political Science from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().