Three elements should be noted. This is an alternative way which is another answer to the question of how to evaluate the position of different parties and candidates. It is because we are rational, and if we are rational, rationality means maximizing our usefulness on the basis of the closeness we can have with a party. Even more plausibly, election campaigns are built around several issues. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Education, 1987. Comparative Political Studies, 27(2), 155189. WebThis voter is voting based on what is going to benefit them. Its University of Michigan authors, Angus Campbell, Philip E. While Downs said that there are parties that take positions on issues, the voter has difficulty with this inferring a position on a left-right axis. This model has given rise to the spatial theories of voting which are the dominant theories. How was that measured? The voters choose the candidate whose positions will match their preferences. There are other models and economic theories of the vote, including directional theories that have a different perspective but remain within the framework of economic theories of the vote. The basic idea is the representation of a point that is an ideal point for each voter in a hypothetical space.
One important element of this model must be highlighted in relation to the others. There are certain types of factors that influence other types of factors and that in turn influence other types of factors and that ultimately help explain the idea of the causal funnel of electoral choice. Four questions around partisan identification. The same can be said of the directional model with intensity. The original measurement was very simple being based on two questions which are a scale with a question about leadership. There is no real electoral choice in this type of explanation, but it is based on our insertion in a social context. In the retrospective model, some researchers have proposed an alternative way of viewing partisan identification as being determined by the position voters take on issues. There is a direct link between social position and voting. In this case, there may be other factors that can contribute to the voter choice; and all parties that are on the other side of the neutral point minimize the voter's utility, so the voter will not vote for that party all other things being equal. That discounting depends on where the policy is right now in relation to what the party is promising, and that is the directional element. A rather subjective and almost sentimental citizen is placed at the centre of the analysis. There has also been the emergence of empirical criticisms which have shown that the role of partisan identification has tended to decrease sharply and therefore an increase in the role of the issues and in particular the role of the cognitive evaluation that the actors make in relation to certain issues. WebVoting Behavior. Therefore, they cannot really situate where the different parties stand. Fiorina proposed the question of how to evaluate the position of different parties and candidates: how can voters know what the position of different parties is during an election campaign? Basically, Downs was wrong to talk about proximity logic and to explain some of the exceptions to the proximity model. The spatial theory of the vote postulates that the electoral choice is made in the maximization of individual utility. This refers to the Michigan model, the psycho-sociological model. It is a model that is very close to data and practice and lends itself very easily to empirical testing through measures of partisan identification and different measures of socio-demographic factors among others. xref
What is interesting is that they try to relate this to personality traits such as being open, conscientious, extroverted, pleasant and neurotic. A first criticism that has been made is that the simple proximity model gives us a misrepresentation of the psychology of voting. Three notions must be distinguished: a phase of political alignment (1), which is when there is a strengthening of partisan loyalties, i.e. Among political Below we evaluate models that use these types of measures as well. These are voters who proceed by systematic voting. Inking and the role of socialization cause individuals to form a certain partisan identification that produces certain types of political attitudes. Here, preferences are endogenous and they can change. WebA strong supporter of a party usually votes a straight party ticket. On the other hand, ideologically extreme voters try to influence party policies through party activism (voice). Prospective voting says that voters will listen to what candidates and parties have to say. On the other hand, the intensity directional model better explains the electoral choices of candidates who are not currently in power. It is a variant of the simple proximity model which remains in the idea of proximity but which adds an element which makes it possible to explain certain voting behaviours which would not be explainable by other models. The presupposition is that voter preferences are not exogenous but are endogenous - they change within the framework of an electoral process. One must assess the value of one's own participation and also assess the number of other citizens who will vote. When the voter is in the same position, i.e. There are different types of individuals who take different kinds of shortcuts or not, who vote systematically or not, and so on. IVERSEN, T. (1994). "The answer is "yes", as postulated by spatial theories, or "no", as stated by Przeworski and Sprague, for example. According to Downs, based on the prospective assessment that voters make of the position that voters have and their position on various issues, voters arrive at and operate this shortcut by situating and bringing parties back to an ideological dimension that may be a left-right dimension but may also be another one. From the point of view of parties and candidates, the economic model and in particular the model that was proposed by Downs in 1957 and which predicts a convergence of a party position towards the centre. It is a third explanation given by Przeworski and Sprague in their theory of partisan competition, also known as the theory of mobilization of the electorate. Its weak explanatory power has been criticized, and these are much more recent criticisms in the sense that we saw when we talked about class voting in particular, which from then on saw the emergence of a whole series of critics who said that all these variables of social position and anchoring in social contexts may have been explanatory of participation and voting at the time these theories emerged in the 1950s, but this may be much less true today in a phase or period of political misalignment. emotional ties between voters and parties; a phase of political misalignment (2), which may be the one we are currently in in Europe since the economic crisis, which is a weakening of partisan loyalties resulting in increased electoral volatility, i.e. WebNetworks in electoral behavior, as a part of political science, refers to the relevance of networks in forming citizens voting behavior at parliamentary, presidential or local If that is true, then if there are two parties that are equally close to our preferences, then we cannot decide. The utility function of the simple proximity model appears, i.e. The psycho-sociological model says that it is because this inking allows identification with a party which in turn influences political attitudes and therefore predispositions with regard to a given object, with regard to the candidate or the party, and this is what ultimately influences the vote. A third possible answer is that they will vote for the candidate whose political ideas are closest to their own. 0000000929 00000 n
We speak of cognitive preference between one's political preferences and the positions of the parties. It rejects the notion that voting behavior is largely determined by class affiliation or class socialization. Discounting is saying that the voter does not fully believe what the parties say. The sociological model at the theoretical level emphasizes something important that rationalist and economic theories have largely overlooked, namely, the importance of the role of social context, i.e., voters are all in social contexts and therefore not only family context but also a whole host of other social contexts. Today, there is an attempt to combine the different explanations trying to take into account, both sociological determinants but also the emotional and affective component as well as the component related to choice and calculation. The psychological and socio-economic model are strongly opposed, offering two explanations that are difficult to reconcile, even though there have been efforts to try to combine them. [10], The third model is called the economic model of the vote or the Rochester School of Economics, developed by Downs in the book An Economic Theory of Democracy published in 1957.[11]. in what is commonly known as the Columbia school of thought, posited that contextual factors influence the development of political attitudes and p. 31). startxref
Between the early 1940s and the late 1960s, four basic models of voter behavior have been proposed on which almost all studies of electoral behavior draw. They are voters who make the effort to inform themselves, to look at the proposals of the different parties and try to evaluate the different political offers. The answer to this second question will allow us to differentiate between proximity models and directional models because these two subsets of the spatial theories of voting give diametrically opposite answers to this question. Personality traits and party identification over time. This is also known as the Columbia model. Grofman's idea is to say that the voter discounts what the candidates say (discounting) based on the difference between current policy and what the party says it will do or promise. voters who follow a systematic vote are voters who are willing to pay these information or information-related costs. 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