Attitudes to Leadership and Voting: Finding the Efficient Frontier

Winning elections is essentially a matter of translating the attitudes of voters into votes. While there is a vast literature in political science, in particular in election studies, on the effectiveness of political campaigns in driving voter choice, we know very little, if anything, about the efficiency with which the inputs (voter attitudes) to the political process are converted into outputs (vote support). This article uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to examine the efficiency with which Australian political leaders and parties have, over the past three decades, converted voter attitudes (approval and disapproval) toward Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders into votes (both for their own, and for their opponents’ parties). The results of the DEA analysis and associated modelling find marked differences in the political efficiency of recent Australian political leaders. Prime Ministers Hawke and Keating had superior political efficiency in converting attitudes to political leaders into votes, while Prime Ministers Howard and Rudd were relatively less efficient in doing so.