The idea of prospective voting is very demanding. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Symbols evoke emotions. In the literature, spatial theories of voting are often seen as one of the main developments of the last thirty years which has been precisely the development of directional models since the proximity model dates back to the 1950s. systematic voting, i.e. The theoretical criticism consists in saying that in this psychosocial approach or in this vision that the psychosocial model has of the role of political issues, the evaluation of these issues is determined by political attitudes and partisan identification. This identification is seen as contributing to an individual's self-image. In the spatial theories of the vote, we see the strategic link between a party's supply and a demand from voters or electors. Nevertheless, some of these spatial theories depart from this initial formulation. The psycho-sociological model, also known as the Michigan model, can be represented graphically or schematically. From this point of view, parties adopt political positions that maximize their electoral support, what Downs calls the median voters and the idea that parties would maximize their electoral support around the center of the political spectrum. On that basis, voters calculate the utility income of the different parties and then they look at and evaluate the partisan differential. These three models diverge in methodology and application of research, but each has provided important data regarding the factors that influence voter choice. Survey ndings on voters motivations are, in fact, broadly consistent with rational models of voting (see Section 4.3). These authors find with panel data that among their confirmed hypotheses that extroverted people tend to have a strong and stable partisan identification. 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. changes in voting behaviour from one election to the next. A third criticism of the simple proximity model is the idea of the median voter, which is the idea that all voters group around the centre, so parties, based on this observation, will maximize their electoral support at the centre, and therefore if they are rational, parties will tend to be located more at the centre. Psychological theories are based on a type of explanation that does not focus on the issues discussed during a political campaign, for example. Often, in Anglo-Saxon literature, this model is referred to as the party identification model. WebA strong supporter of a party usually votes a straight party ticket. In short, it is an explanatory model that emphasizes the role of political attitudes. This is called prospective voting because voters will listen to what the parties have to say and evaluate on the basis of that, that is, looking ahead. 0000001213 00000 n This idea of an issue was not invented by the proponents of the economic model of voting but was already present in the psycho-sociological model. This is called retrospective voting, which means that we are not looking at what the parties said in their platforms, but rather at what the parties did before. On the other hand, to explain the electoral choice, we must take into account factors that are very far from the vote theoretically, but we must also take into account the fact that there are factors that are no longer close to the electoral choice during a vote or an election. Hinich and Munger take up the Downs idea but turn it around a bit. This means that we are not necessarily going to listen to all the specific arguments of the different parties. We have seen that at Downs, the role of ideology is fundamental and that ideology could function as a kind of shortcut. This jargon comes from this type of explanation. 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. These are voters who proceed by systematic voting. More specifically, the costs that the voter has to take into account according to the different parties and candidates must be evaluated, which is the partisan differential, i.e. Webbehavior covers a large range of possible subjects of research, from the behaviors of bureaucrats and interest groups to the dealings of political terrorists. The presupposition is that voter preferences are not exogenous but are endogenous - they change within the framework of an electoral process. According to Fiorina, retrospective voting is that citizens' preferences depend not only on how close they are to the political position of a party or candidate, but also on their retrospective assessment of the performance of the ruling party or candidate. Personality traits and party identification over time. Since the idea is to calculate the costs and benefits of voting for one party rather than the other, therefore, each party brings us some utility income. This model emphasizes the role of integration into social groups. Among political it takes a political position that evokes the idea of symbolic politics in a more salient way. The psycho-sociological model has its roots in Campell's work entitled The American Voter publi en 1960. In directional models with intensity, there are models that try to show how the salience of different issues changes from one group to another, from one social group to another, or from one candidate and one party to another. the difference in the cost-benefit ratio that different parties give. These criticisms and limitations are related to the original model. Studies have shown that, for example, outside the United States, a much larger proportion of voters who change their vote also change their partisan identification. It can be defined as lasting feelings of attachment that individuals develop towards a certain party. Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there has been a strong development of directional models. If we take into account Przeworski and Sprague's idea that there can be a mobilization of the electorate in a logic of endogenous preference and non-maximization of the utility of voters. There is little room for context even though there are more recent developments that try to put the voter's freedom of choice in context. These authors proposed to say that there would be a relationship between the explanatory models of the vote and the cycle of alignment, realignment, misalignment in the sense that the sociological model would be better able to explain the vote in phases of political realignment. The vote is seen here as an instrument, that is to say, there is the idea of an instrumental vote and not an expressive one. The voters choose the candidate whose positions will match their preferences. Fiorina reverses the question, in fact, partisan identification can result from something else and it also produces electoral choices. JSTOR. A third possible answer is that they will vote for the candidate whose political ideas are closest to their own. Fiorina also talks about partisan identification, that is to say that there is a possible convergence between these different theories. Prospective voting says that voters will listen to what candidates and parties have to say. The main explanatory factors have been sought in socio-economic status and socio-demographic variables such as "age," "gender," and "education. McClung Lee, A. One important element of this model must be highlighted in relation to the others. Ideology is to be understood as a way of simplifying our world in relation to the problem of information. Prospective voting says that the evaluation is based on what the parties and candidates are going to say. In Switzerland, the idea of an issue is particularly important because there is direct democracy, which is something that by definition is based on issues. From the perspective of the issue vote, there are four main ways to explain how and why voters are going to vote a certain way and why parties are going to position themselves. He wanted to look for one thing and found something else. As part of spatial theories of the vote, some theories consider the characteristics of candidates. The degree of political sophistication, political knowledge, interest in politics varies from voter to voter. 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. There is a kind of heterogeneity of voters. A distinction can be made between the simple proximity model, which is the Downs model, and the proximity model with Grofman discounting. Voters try to maximize the usefulness of the vote, that is, they try to vote for the party that makes them more satisfied. This is especially important when applying this type of reasoning empirically. trailer When the voter is in the same position, i.e. 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. If we do not accept the idea that actors will vote according to their assessment of certain issues, to be more precise, according to their assessment of the position that the various parties have on certain issues, if we do not understand that, we cannot understand the spatial theories of voting either. WebThis article develops and tests a model of voter behavior in a primary election. This approach emphasizes a central variable which is that of partisan identification, which is a particular political attitude towards a party. On this basis, four types of voters can be identified in a simplified manner: It is possible to start from the assumption that the characteristics of these different voters are very different. The assumption is that mobilizing an electorate is done by taking clear positions and not a centrist position. The country has In this theory, we vote for specific issues that may be more or less concrete, more or less general, and which form the basis for explaining electoral behaviour. Its University of Michigan authors, Angus Campbell, Philip E. There are other models that try to relate the multiplicity of issues to an underlying ideological space, i.e., instead of looking at specific issues, everything is brought back to a left-right dimension as a shortcut, for example, and there are other theories that consider the degree of ambiguity and clarity of the candidates' positions. How does partisan identification develop? %%EOF We talk about the electoral market in the media or the electoral supply. To summarize these approaches, there are four possible answers to the question of how voters decide to vote. The original measurement was very simple being based on two questions which are a scale with a question about leadership. 43 17 This is the proximity model. On the other hand, the intensity directional model better explains the electoral choices of candidates who are not currently in power. Today, in the literature, we talk about the economic vote in a narrower and slightly different sense, namely that the electoral choice is strongly determined by the economic situation and by the policies that the government puts in place in particular to deal with situations of economic difficulty. We speak of cognitive preference between one's political preferences and the positions of the parties. Inking and the role of socialization cause individuals to form a certain partisan identification that produces certain types of political attitudes. Some parties have short-term strategies for maximizing voting and others have long-term strategies for social mobilization. Hirschman contrasts the "exit" strategy with the "voice" strategy, which is based on what he calls "loyalty", which is that one can choose not to leave but to make the organization change, to restore the balance between one's own aspirations and what the organization can offer. In a phase of alignment, this would be the psycho-sociological model, i.e. For example, a strongly conservative voter who votes Democratic may vote Republican because he or she feels more in tune with the party. This is also known as the Columbia model. There have been attempts to address this anomaly. Does partisan identification work outside the United States? There is this curvilinear disparity because the three actors position themselves differently. WebThe central concept of this model of voting behavior is partisanship, which is designed as a psychological affinity, stable and lasting relationship with a political party that does not Print. There is the important opposition between an economic vote based on a choice, which is the idea that the voter makes a real choice based on a cost-benefit calculation, a choice that is rational in the end according to Weber's typology, while the psycho-sociological vote is rather based on a concept of loyalty that often makes the opposition between choice and loyalty. Thus, voters will vote for candidates who are in the direction (1) and who are going in that direction in the most intense way (2), that is, who propose policies going in that direction in the strongest and most intense way. The initial formation of this model was very deterministic in wanting to focus on the role of social inclusion while neglecting other aspects, even though today there is increasingly a kind of ecumenical attempt to have an explanation that takes into account different aspects. In this way, parties can offer relatively extreme political platforms that are not optimal in the short term, but that generate higher levels of support in the medium and long term. This table shows that for quite some time now there has been a strong decline in partisan identification. WebIn this perspective, voting is essentially a question of attachment, identity and loyalty to a party, whereas in the rationalist approach it is mainly a question of interest, cognition and The psycho-sociological model is intended as a development that wants to respond to this criticism. The following is our summary of significant U.S. legal and regulatory developments during the first quarter of 2023 of interest to Canadian companies and their advisors. Today, when we see regression analyses of electoral choice, we will always find among the control variables social status variables, a religion variable and a variable related to place of residence. Is partisan identification one-dimensional? The idea is that it is in circles of interpersonal relations even if more modern theories of opinion leaders look at actors outside the personal circle. What interests us is that the idea of issue voting is fundamental to spatial theories of voting. In summary, it can be said that in the economic model of voting, the political preferences of voters on different issues, are clearly perceived by the voters themselves which is the idea that the voter must assess his own interest, he must clearly perceive what are the political preferences of voters. For Iversen, distance is also important. This model has given rise to the spatial theories of voting which are the dominant theories. What voters perceive are directional signals, that is, voters perceive that some parties are going in one direction and other parties are going in another direction on certain issues. 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. This model predicts a convergence of party program positions around two distinct positions, there are two types of convergence. The concept and measurement of partisan identification as conceived by these researchers as applying to the bipartite system and therefore needs to be adapted to fit the multiparty and European system. 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