The basic assumption is that voters decide primarily on the basis of ideologies and not on the basis of specific positions on issues. One must take into account the heterogeneity of the electorate and how different voters may have different motivations for choosing which party or candidate to vote for. It is a very detailed literature today. In Person: 971 W Duval St. Ste. 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. There is the idea of the interaction between a political demand and a political offer proposed by the different candidates during an election or a vote. Nowadays, the internet is the most used communication environment, and therefore it becomes very important to try to determine the behavior of users regarding internet use. From that point on, there has been the development of a whole body of literature on political psychology. The organization is in crisis and no longer reflects our own needs. In the Downs-Hirschman model, the vote is spatial in the sense of proximity and preferences are exogenous; on the other hand, in the directional theories of Rabinovirz and Macdonal in particular, we remain in the idea of the exogeneity of preferences but the vote is not spatial in the sense of proximity. Downs already put ideology at the centre of his explanation. The idea is that a party is ready to lose an election in order to give itself the means to win it later by giving itself time to form an electorate. 65, no. A set of theories has given some answers. This is a fairly reasonable development, as is the discounting model, whose proximity was something reasonable and which makes the model more consistent with reality. One of the merits, which can be found in Lazarsfeld's book entitled The People's Choice published in 1944 is that this model marks a turning point in the study of political behaviour. The further a party moves in the other direction, the less likely the voter will choose it because the utility function gradually decreases. 1948, Berelson et . In this approach, it is possible to say that the voter accepts the arguments of a certain party because he or she feels close to a party and not the opposite which would be what the economic model of the vote postulates, that is to say that we listen to what the party has to say and we will choose that party because we are convinced by what that party says. If you experience any difficulty accessing any part of this website, please call (386) 758-1026 or email kbanner@votecolumbiafl.gov for further assistance. This model has given rise to the spatial theories of voting which are the dominant theories. This is linked to a decrease in class voting and a loss of traditional cleavages. The idea of the directional model, and this applies to both the simple directional model and the intensity directional model, is that voters basically cannot clearly perceive the different positions of political parties or candidates on a specific issue. This is especially important when applying this type of reasoning empirically. As this is the first model that wanted to study empirically and test hypotheses on the basis of survey data, it was necessary to develop conceptual tools, in particular the political predisposition index, which focuses on three types of social affiliations that are fundamental in this perspective to explain electoral choices, namely social status, religion and place of residence. Moreover, there are analogies that are made even explicitly with the idea of the market. They are both proximity choices and directional choices with intensity, since there are voters who may choose intensity and others who may choose direction. The basic idea is the representation of a point that is an ideal point for each voter in a hypothetical space. The initial formulation of the model is based on the Downs theory in An Economic Theory of Democracy publi en 1957. This creates a concern for circularity of reasoning. The voters have to make that assessment and then decide which one brings more income and which one we will vote for. The aspect is based on the idea that there is an information problem that represents a difficulty and costs that voters must pay to gather information and to become informed about an election. If certain conditions are present, such as good democratic functioning within the party, activists will have the opportunity to exercise "voice" and influence positions. 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. At the basis of the reflection of directional models, and in particular of directional models with intensity, there is what is called symbolic politics. This is related to its variation in space and time. [15] Then we'll look at the space theories of the vote. These authors find with panel data that among their confirmed hypotheses that extroverted people tend to have a strong and stable partisan identification. Psychological theories are based on a type of explanation that does not focus on the issues discussed during a political campaign, for example. Parties do not try to maximize the vote, but create images of society, forge identities, mobilize commitments for the future. The reference work is The Peoples Choice published in 1948 by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet. 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. Finally, some studies show that high levels of education lead to weaker attachments to parties. For most theories, and in particular Matthews' Simple Directional Model theory, the neutral point determines direction. It is possible to attribute some merits and some criticisms to this model at least in its initial formulation. There are two slightly different connotations. There have been several phases of misalignment. Video transcript. 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? Understanding voters' behavior can explain how and why decisions were made either by public decision-makers, which has been a central concern for political scientists, [1] or by the electorate. This study presents an automated and accurate . We leave behind the idea of spatial theories that preferences are exogenous, that they are pre-existing and almost fixed. 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. His conclusion is that the vote is explained both by elements of leadership, partly by an element of proximity and distance, but also, for some parties, it must also be taken into account that there are parties that act according to a mobilization of the electorate according to the approach of Przeworski and Sprague. We have seen that at Downs, the role of ideology is fundamental and that ideology could function as a kind of shortcut. These explanations are known as the Columbia Model and the Michigan Model, and describing these two . This is something that remains difficult in theory, we don't know how much the voter will discount. 0000006260 00000 n Property qualifications. Hinich and Munger take up the Downs idea but turn it around a bit. One possible strategy to reduce costs is to base oneself on ideology. 0000000929 00000 n The system in the United States is bipartisan and the question asked was "Do you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat or otherwise? In other words, party activists tend to be more extreme in their political attitudes than voters or party leaders. 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. One must assess the value of one's own participation and also assess the number of other citizens who will vote. In other words, social, spatial or group membership largely determines individual political actions. On the other hand, this is true for the directional model; they manage to perceive a policy direction. It is the state of the economy that will decide who will win the election or not. They find that partisan identification becomes more stable with age, so the older you get, the more partisan identification you have, so it's much easier to change when you're young. That is called the point of indifference. Here, preferences are endogenous and they can change. In other words, the homing tendency that is the explanation that the model postulates is much less true outside the United States. In this approach, these voters keep their partisan identification and again in the medium or long term, they will go back on the electoral choice that is identified with the partisan identification, also called the homing tendency, which is a tendency to go back on the party with which one identifies. Lazarsfeld was interested in this and simply, empirically, he found that these other factors had less explanatory weight than the factors related to political predisposition and therefore to this social inking. Fiorina's theory of retrospective voting is very simple. It was this model that proposed that abstention can be the result of a purely rational calculation. 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. This refers to the Michigan model, the psycho-sociological model. These criticisms and limitations are related to the original model. They find that conscientious and neurotic people tend not to identify with a political party. party loyalties are freed from their social base and thus these party identifications are formed and crystallized. 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. xxxiii, 178. It is in this sense that the party identification model provides an answer to this criticism that the sociological model does not highlight the mechanisms that make a certain social inking influence a certain electoral choice. %PDF-1.3 % Applied to the electorate, this means no longer voting for one party and going to vote for another party. Models of Voting Behavior Models of Voting Behavior Dr. Bradley Best Asst. The Lazarsfeld model would link membership and voting. Voters will vote for a party but that party is not necessarily the one with which they identify. There are two variations. This approach would be elitist, this assumption that voters have the ability to know what is going on which is the idea of information and this ability that voters have to look at that information and process it. This model shows that there is more than political identities, partisan identification and social inking. 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. 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. The political position of each candidate is represented in the same space, it is the interaction between supply and demand and the voter will choose the party or candidate that is closest to the voter. Many researchers have criticised the Downs proximity model in particular. By Web: Vote-By-Mail Web Request. It is a small bridge between different explanations. maximum proximity, as the party, his or her utility increases, and when the voter moves away from the party, his or her utility decreases. As far as the psycho-sociological model is concerned, it has the merit of challenging the classical theory of democracy which puts the role on the rational actor. The government is blamed for the poor state of the economy. Voters try to maximize their individual utility. These studies model individual utility from the election of a preferred party or candidate as decreasing as the alternative deviates from one's ideal point, but differ as to whether this loss should be modeled linearly or quadratically. 0000010337 00000 n There are also external factors that also need to be considered, such as the actions of the government, for example, voters are influenced by what the government has done. Pp. There are three actors at play in this theory: there are voters, candidates, and an intermediate group represented by activists who are in fact voters who become activists going to exercise "voice". In this model, there is a region of acceptability of positional extremism which is a region outside of which the intensity of the positions or the direction shown by a party cannot go because if it goes beyond that region, the voter will no longer choose that party. how does partisan identification develop? The reference work is The People's Choice published in 1948 by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet. But more generally, when there is a campaign, the issues are discussed. The strategic choices made by parties can also be explained by this model since, since this model postulates an interdependence between supply and demand, we address the demand but we can also address the supply. If that is true, then if there are two parties that are equally close to our preferences, then we cannot decide. This model of directional proximity with intensity illustrates what is called symbolic politics which is related to the problem of information. There are different types of costs that this model considers and that need to be taken into account and in particular two types of costs which are the costs of going to vote (1) but above all, there are the costs of information (2) which are the costs of obtaining this information since in this model which postulates to choose a party on the basis of an evaluation of the different propositions of information which is available, given these basic postulates, the transparency of information and therefore the costs of information are crucial. Psychology and Voting Behavior In the same years that behaviorism (of various forms) came to dominate the The spatial theory of the vote postulates that the electoral choice is made in the maximization of individual utility. Candidate choices are made towards parties or candidates who are going in the same direction as the voter, this being understood as the voters' political preferences on a given issue. On the other hand, in rationalist approaches, shortcuts are cognitive shortcuts. (Second edition.) is premised on the assumption that elections connect the will of the people to the actions of government. Several studies show that the impact of partisan identification varies greatly from one context to another. What explains historical variation in voter turnout? On the other hand, the focus is on the political goals of the voters, whereas the psychological model puts a little more emphasis on the social use of the vote. It is the idea of when does one or the other of these different theories provide a better explanation according to periods of political alignment or misalignment. trailer It is an answer that remains faithful to the postulates of Downs' theory and the proximity model. the earlier Columbia studies, the Michigan election studies were based upon national survey samples. That discounting depends on where the policy is right now in relation to what the party is promising, and that is the directional element. Symbols evoke emotions. 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. We need to find identification measures adapted to the European context, which the researchers have done. There are two important issues in relation to the spatial theory of voting. Here we see the key factors, namely electoral choice and, at the centre, the identification variable for a party, which depends on two types of factors, namely primary socialization and group membership. 0000008661 00000 n However, this is empirically incorrect. There has also been the criticism of abstention as the result of rational calculation. In spring of 2021, key people working in homelessness services in Vancouver flew to San Diego to learn about the Alpha Project's model . Direction ("Who votes for whom?") A unified theory of voting: directional and proximity spatial models. [1] The original measurement was very simple being based on two questions which are a scale with a question about leadership. There is a whole branch of the electoral literature that emphasizes government action as an essential factor in explaining the vote, and there is a contrast between a prospective vote, which is voting according to what the parties say they will do during the election campaign, and a retrospective vote, which is voting in relation to what has been done, particularly by the government, which has attributed the successes or failures of a policy. Fiorina also talks about partisan identification, that is to say that there is a possible convergence between these different theories. is partisan identification one-dimensional? 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. $2.75. 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. We have to be careful, because when we talk about political psychology, we include that, but we also include the role of cognitions and rationality. So there are four main ways. Psychological Models of American Voting Behavior* DAVID KNOKE, Indiana University ABSTRACT A path model of the presidential vote involving social variables, party identification, issue orientations, . 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. An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy. Journal of Political Economy, vol. Hirschman wanted to explain what happens in organizations when they enter a situation of crisis or decline. They try to elaborate a bit and find out empirically how this happens. 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. Numerous studies examine voting behavior based on the formal theoretical predictions of the spatial utility model. Ideology is to be understood as a way of simplifying our world in relation to the problem of information. 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. According to Fiorina, identification with a party is not necessarily the result of a long phase of socialization, but it is also the result of evaluations of a certain party, it is the fact of voting for that party that makes it possible to develop a partisan identification. This means that we are not necessarily going to listen to all the specific arguments of the different parties. Furthermore, "social characteristics determine political preferences". 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). Distance is understood in the sense of the proximity model for whom voter preference and party position is also important. We are looking at the interaction. Of course, there have been attempts to assess the explanatory power of directional models, but according to these researchers, these spatial models were designed to be purely theoretical in order to highlight on a purely theoretical level what motivations voters may have for their electoral choice. All of these factors and their relationships have to be taken into account, but at the centre is always the partisan attachment. 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. Economic theories of voting explain both voter turnout (1) and electoral choice (2). In Personality traits and party identification over time published in 2014 by Bakker, Hopmann and Persson, the authors attempt to explain partisan identification. This model of voting behavior sees the voter as thinking individual who is able to take a view on political issues and votes accordingly. The economic model has put the rational and free citizen back at the centre of attention and reflection, whereas if we push the sociological model a bit to the extreme, it puts in second place this freedom and this free will that voters can make since the psycho-sociological model tells us that voting is determined by social position, it is not really an electoral choice that we make in the end but it is simply the result of our social insertion or our attachment to a party. 0000007835 00000 n There are other cleavages that cut across Republicans and Democrats that should be taken into account to explain the pattern. Also called the Columbia model (after the university from whence came the researchers), the sociological model of voting behavior was constructed with the intention of studying the effect of media on voting choice. in what is commonly known as the Columbia school of thought, posited that contextual factors influence the development . Ecological regression represents one extreme: the presumption that voting behavior changes systematically across groups but only changes randomly, if at all, within groups. Another possible strategy is to rely on the judgment of others such as opinion leaders. In other words, the voters' political preferences on different issues, in other words, in this type of theorizing, they know very well what they want, and what is more, these positions are very fixed and present when the voter is going to have to vote. Often, in Anglo-Saxon literature, this model is referred to as the party identification model. startxref This identification with a party is inherited from the family emphasizing the role of primary socialization, it is reinforced over time including a reinforcement that is given by the very fact of voting for that party. Nevertheless, some of these spatial theories depart from this initial formulation. We must also take into account other socializing agents that can socialize us and make us develop a form of partisan identification. Elections and voters: a comparative introduction. It can be defined as lasting feelings of attachment that individuals develop towards a certain party. This article reviews the main theoretical models that explain the electoral behavior sociological model of voting behavior, psychosocial model of voting behavior and rational choice theory , stressing the continuity and theoretical complementarity between them. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 0000000636 00000 n Numerous studies have found that voting behavior and political acts can be "contagious . A distinction is made between the sociological model of voting from the Columbia School, which refers to the university where this model was developed. 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