This is especially important when applying this type of reasoning empirically. If that is true, then if there are two parties that are equally close to our preferences, then we cannot decide. This refers to the Michigan model, the psycho-sociological model. There is also a literature on whether certain parties have certain issues, which voters believe are the parties that are better able to deal with a certain issue. 0000010337 00000 n Iversena proposed a way of classifying the different explanatory theories of voting that allow to add a very important element that has been neglected until now. The cause-and-effect relationship is reversed, according to some who argue that this is a problem at the empirical level when we want to study the effect of partisan identification on electoral choice because there is a problem of endogeneity; we no longer know what explains what. IVERSEN, T. (1994). 0000000016 00000 n 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. Downs already put ideology at the centre of his explanation. Apart from the combined models, it can be thought that different models may explain differently according to historical moments and phases of a process of political alignment and misalignment just as models may better explain certain types of candidates or according to the profile and type of voters. . These are possible answers more to justify and account for this anomaly. [14] They try to answer the question of how partisan identification is developing and how partisan identification has weakened because they look at the stability over time of partisan identification. party loyalties are freed from their social base and thus these party identifications are formed and crystallized. does partisan identification work outside the United States? The simple proximity model is that the voter will vote for the party or parties that are in the same direction. Voters who want their ballot mailed to an address that is not their address on record will be required to submit their request in writing. The curve instead of the simple proximity model, or obviously the maximization from the parties' point of view of electoral support, lies in the precise proximity between voters' preferences and the parties' political programs on certain issues, in this case this remains true but with a lag that is determined by discounting from a given status quo. The role of the centrality of partisan identification has been criticized, especially today, because partisan identification plays a role that is still important but much less important than it used to be and may be much less important than some researchers within this paradigm have postulated. 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 advantage of the intensity directional model is that it goes in a more intense direction, i.e. 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. . The degree of political sophistication, political knowledge, interest in politics varies from voter to voter. However, this is empirically incorrect. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 261(1), 194194. Finally, some studies show that high levels of education lead to weaker attachments to parties. 1948, Berelson et . 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. These are voters who proceed by systematic voting. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. The organization is in crisis and no longer reflects our own needs. The choice can be made according to different criteria, but they start from the assumption that there are these voters who arrive in an electoral process that refers to the idea of the hexogeneity of voters' preferences. There may be one that is at the centre, but there are also others that are discussed. The basic assumption is that voters decide primarily on the basis of ideologies and not on the basis of specific positions on issues. 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. The Peoples Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. Thus, they were well suited not only to develop and test theories of voting behavior, but also to provide an historical record of the considerations shaping the outcomes of specific national elections. On that basis, voters calculate the utility income of the different parties and then they look at and evaluate the partisan differential. models of voting behavior -the columbia school (1940s) -the Michigan school (1950s) the columbia school -1940s -social determinism -voter brand loyalty (party id) -selective perception/projection -minimal campaign effect -cross-pressures -high interest+low partisanship are rare minimal campaign effect . 1.2 Psychology and behavior 9 1.3 Voting behavior and action 13 1.4 Strategies of explanation 14 1.5 Research questions and outline 16 2 The empirical analysis of voting action 19 2.1 Introduction 21 2.2 The Wrzburg school 21 2.3 Lazarsfeld and the empirical analysis of action 23 2.4 The Columbia approach to voting action 26 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. Thus, the interpretation of differences in voting behaviour from one group to another is to be sought in the position of the group in society and in the way its relations with parties have developed. It is multidimensional also in the bipartisan context of the United States because there are cleavages that cut across parties. The presupposition for spatial theories of voting has already been mentioned, namely the stake vote. 135150. The influence of friends refers to opinion leaders and circles of friends. Several studies show that the impact of partisan identification varies greatly from one context to another. A third possible answer is that they will vote for the candidate whose political ideas are closest to their own. It is quite interesting to see the bridges that can be built between theories that may seem different. All of these factors and their relationships have to be taken into account, but at the centre is always the partisan attachment. This jargon comes from this type of explanation. Comparative Political Studies, 27(2), 155189. 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. 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. systematic voting, i.e. 0000001213 00000 n Some have another way of talking about convergences and showing how the theories explaining the vote can be reconciled with the process of political misalignment. In other words, they are voters who are not prepared to pay all these costs and therefore want to reduce or improve the cost-benefit ratio which is the basis of this electoral choice by reducing the costs and the benefit will remain unchanged. Voting is an act of altruism. Political scientists have defined several models of voter behavior in an attempt to explain the different motivations of voters: Rational choice theory describes someone voting in their best interest, supporting the candidate whose platform will give them the most favorable outcomes. Ecological regression represents one extreme: the presumption that voting behavior changes systematically across groups but only changes randomly, if at all, within groups. Prospective voting is the one that has been postulated by Downs and by all other researchers who work in proximity models but also in two-way models. It is the state of the economy that will decide who will win the election or not. 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. xb```f`` @f8F F'-pWs$I*Xe< *AA[;;8:::X"$C[6#,bH.vdM?2Zr@ ai,L Another possible strategy is to rely on the judgment of others such as opinion leaders. This approach has often been criticized as a static approach since socio-economic or even socio-demographic characteristics do not change in the short term and yet the vote increasingly changes in the short term, what is called in electoral volatility, i.e. A second possible answer is that they will vote for the candidate who belongs to the party with which they identify. Voters have knowledge of the ideological positions of parties or candidates on one or more ideological dimensions and they use this knowledge to assess the political positions of these parties or candidates on specific issues. The economic model makes predictions and tries to explain both the participation but also, and above all, the direction of the vote, which is the electoral choice. Print. According to them, it is necessary to combine different types of explanations and in particular, in the electoral choice, the components related to proximity, leadership, and also the rather "intensity" leadership, all of which play a significant role in the positioning of candidates and parties. The idea is that there is something easier to evaluate which is the ideology of a party and that it is on the basis of this that the choice will be made. 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. They are both proximity choices and directional choices with intensity, since there are voters who may choose intensity and others who may choose direction. Contenu disponible en Franais Contenido disponible en espaol Contenuto disponibile in italiano, The distinction between the three main explanatory models of voting is often found. xref We leave behind the idea of spatial theories that preferences are exogenous, that they are pre-existing and almost fixed. Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there has been a strong development of directional models. Video transcript. 0 If we take into account Przeworski and Sprague's idea that preferences are exogenous and not endogenous, it is possible to create a typology as Iversen did. While in the United States, several studies have shown that partisan identification is an important explanatory power on electoral choice, in other contexts this is less true. Is partisan identification one-dimensional? Many researchers have criticised the Downs proximity model in particular. This table shows that for quite some time now there has been a strong decline in partisan identification. 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. Fiorina reverses the question, in fact, partisan identification can result from something else and it also produces electoral choices. This is called the proximity model. how does partisan identification develop? social determinism Political Behaviour: Historical and methodological benchmarks, The structural foundations of political behaviour, The cultural basis of political behaviour, PEOPLE'S CHOICE: how the voter makes up his mind in a presidential campaign, https://doi.org/10.1177/000271624926100137, https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414094027002001, https://baripedia.org/index.php?title=Theoretical_models_of_voting_behaviour&oldid=49464, Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). For Lazarsfeld, we think politically how we are socially, there is not really the idea of electoral choice. This model explains for Downs why we abstain. Does partisan identification work outside the United States? This approach emphasizes a central variable which is that of partisan identification, which is a particular political attitude towards a party. There are other variants or models that try to accommodate this complexity. The external factors would be the factors that, in the basic theory of the psycho-sociological approach, it would seem that this is what can do but if we have a certain partisan attachment to vote for another party because we are influenced by one or other of these factors but, basically, we keep our partisan attachment and the next time when these factors change, we return to the normal vote corresponding to the partisan attachment. The psycho-sociological model initiated the national election studies and created a research paradigm that remains one of the two dominant research paradigms today and ultimately contributed to the creation of electoral psychology. This model shows that there is more than political identities, partisan identification and social inking. Certain developments in the theory of the psycho-sociological model have in fact provided answers to these criticisms. 59 0 obj <>stream The third criterion is rationality, which is that based on the theory of rational choice, voters mobilize the limited means at their disposal to achieve their goals, so they will choose the alternative among the political offer that costs them the least and brings them the greatest possible benefit. 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. For example, a strongly conservative voter who votes Democratic may vote Republican because he or she feels more in tune with the party. It is a very detailed literature today. This economic theory of the vote, this rationalist theory, has a great advantage over the other models, which is that it does not only focus on voters, that is to say, it does not only focus on political demand, but it also looks at supply and especially at the interaction between supply and demand. Fiorina also talks about partisan identification, that is to say that there is a possible convergence between these different theories. It is an explanation that is completely outside the logic of proximity and the spatial logic of voting. The reference work is The Peoples Choice published in 1948 by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet. Regarding the causal ambiguity, there are also critics who say that this approach is very strongly correlational in the sense that it looks for correlations between certain social variables and electoral choices, but the approach does not explain why this variable approach really has a role and therefore what are the causal mechanisms that lead from insertion, positions, social predispositions to electoral choice. Hinich and Munger take up the Downs idea but turn it around a bit. It is an answer that remains faithful to the postulates of Downs' theory and the proximity model. Sociological Model (Columbia Model) Social-Psychological Model (Michigan Model) Economic / Rational Choice Model (Rochester Model) 5 Sociological Model. This model of voting behavior sees the voter as thinking individual who is able to take a view on political issues and votes accordingly. A distinction is made between the sociological model of voting from the Columbia School, which refers to the university where this model was developed. In other words, they propose something quite ecumenical that combines directional and proximity models. Furthermore, "social characteristics determine political preferences". These authors find with panel data that among their confirmed hypotheses that extroverted people tend to have a strong and stable partisan identification. As part of spatial theories of the vote, some theories consider the characteristics of candidates. Suicide is a global public health problem. Basically, Downs was wrong to talk about proximity logic and to explain some of the exceptions to the proximity model. [15] Then we'll look at the space theories of the vote. There is this curvilinear disparity because the three actors position themselves differently. The same can be said of the directional model with intensity. 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