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. At the aggregate level, the distribution of partisan identification in the electorate makes it possible to calculate the normal vote. The relationship between partisan identification and voting is that the model postulates that partisan identification is the explanatory variable and that voting for the electoral choice is the explained variable. When you vote, you are taking your personal time and effort to advance the collective good, without any guarantee of personal rewardthe very heart of what it means to be altruistic. 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 economic model of the vote puts the notion of electoral choice back at the centre. Later, their analysis saw that party identification and attachment was the most common factor. Ecological regression represents one extreme: the presumption that voting behavior changes systematically across groups but only changes randomly, if at all, within groups. This electoral volatility, especially in a period of political misalignment, is becoming more and more important and is increasingly overshadowed by this type of explanation. This is linked to a decrease in class voting and a loss of traditional cleavages. There is a small bridge that is made between these two theories with Fiorina on the one hand and the Michigan model of another party that puts the concept of partisan identification at the centre and that conceives of this concept in a very different way, especially with regard to its origin. If certain conditions are present, such as good democratic functioning within the party, activists will have the opportunity to exercise "voice" and influence positions. They find that conscientious and neurotic people tend not to identify with a political party. Numerous studies examine voting behavior based on the formal theoretical predictions of the spatial utility model. In other words, the homing tendency that is the explanation that the model postulates is much less true outside the United States. 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. 0000010337 00000 n But there are studies that also show that the causal relationship goes in the other direction. Ideal point models assume that lawmakers and bills are represented as points in a latent space. Sometimes, indeed often, people combine the first two models incorporating the psycho-sociological model on the basis that the Michigan model is just an extension of the Columbia model that helps explain some things that the Columbia model cannot explain. 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. They are both proximity choices and directional choices with intensity, since there are voters who may choose intensity and others who may choose direction. 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. 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. This paper examines two models used in survey research to explain voting behavior and finds that both models may be more or less correct. (1949). 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. This model emphasizes the role of integration into social groups. offers a behavior analysis of voting behavior. 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. So, voters evaluate the positions of the parties and from these positions, this party is a left-wing party and this party is a right-wing party. Value orientations refer to materialism as well as post-materialism, among other things, cleavages but no longer from a value perspective. LAZARSFELD, PAUL F., BERNARD BERELSON, and HAZEL GAUDET. 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. There are also intermediate variables that relate to loyalties to a certain group or sense of belonging. The initial formulation of the model is based on the Downs theory in An Economic Theory of Democracy publi en 1957. This study presents an automated and accurate . In a phase of alignment, this would be the psycho-sociological model, i.e. Sociological Model (Columbia Model) Social-Psychological Model (Michigan Model) Economic / Rational Choice Model (Rochester Model) 5 Sociological Model. The spatial theory of the vote postulates that the electoral choice is made in the maximization of individual utility. Harrop, Martin, and William L. Miller. 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. 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. There are two variations. He wanted to see the role of the media in particular and also the role of opinion leaders and therefore, the influences that certain people can have in the electoral choice. 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. Hinich and Munger take up the Downs idea but turn it around a bit. How does partisan identification develop? There have been attempts to address this anomaly. There are other cleavages that cut across Republicans and Democrats that should be taken into account to explain the pattern. What we are interested in is on the demand side, how can we explain voters' electoral choice. 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. 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. We leave behind the idea of spatial theories that preferences are exogenous, that they are pre-existing and almost fixed. A lawmaker's (stochastic) voting behavior is characterized by the relationship between her position in this space and the bill's position [1 . The degree of political sophistication, political knowledge, interest in politics varies from voter to voter. is premised on the assumption that elections connect the will of the people to the actions of government. For Fiorina the voter does not do that, he will rather look at what has happened, he will also look at the state of affairs in a country, hence the importance of the economic vote in the narrower sense of the word. 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. A distinction is made between the sociological model of voting from the Columbia School, which refers to the university where this model was developed. Fiorina proposed an alternative way to explain why voters vote for one party rather than another, or a different answer to how the position of different candidate parties can be assessed. 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. startxref The system in the United States is bipartisan and the question asked was "Do you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat or otherwise? Here, preferences are endogenous and they can change. 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. There are different strategies that are studied in the literature. A representative democracy. This identification is seen as contributing to an individual's self-image. The extent to which the usefulness of voters' choices varies from candidate to candidate, but also from voter to voter. Some have criticized this model saying that it puts forward the one-dimensional image of the human being and politics, that is, that it is purely rational, hypercognitive in a way without taking into account sociological but also psychological elements. There are different types of individuals who take different kinds of shortcuts or not, who vote systematically or not, and so on. This model has given rise to the spatial theories of voting which are the dominant theories. Elections and voters: a comparative introduction. Three elements should be noted. On the other hand, women tend to have less stable partisan identification, they change more often too. A distinction can be made between the simple proximity model, which is the Downs model, and the proximity model with Grofman discounting. Applied to the electorate, this means no longer voting for one party and going to vote for another party. 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. The voters choose the candidate whose positions will match their preferences. Numerous studies have found that voting behavior and political acts can be "contagious . It is quite interesting to see the bridges that can be built between theories that may seem different. This diagram shows the process of misalignment with changes in the generational structure and changes in the social structure that create political misalignment. 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. In essence, those studies provided the core concepts and models used in contemporary voting research. Otherwise, our usefulness as voters decreases as a party moves away, i.e. The idea is that voters are not really able to really evaluate in a forward-looking way the different positions of the parties. In the sociological and psycho-sociological model, there was no place for ideology, that's another thing that counts, on the other hand, in economic theories, spatial theories and Downs' theory of the economic vote, ideology is important. Prospective voting is based on election promises and retrospective voting is based on past performance. [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. On the other hand, the intensity directional model better explains the electoral choices of candidates who are not currently in power. In other words, they propose something quite ecumenical that combines directional and proximity models. the translation of personal preference into a voluntary action designed to influence public policy The function of partisan identification is to allow the voter to face political information and to know which party to vote for. Hirschman wanted to explain what happens in organizations when they enter a situation of crisis or decline. For example, there is Lazarsfeld's theory with the idea that opinion leaders can be seen as people to whom we attribute a strong trust and maybe even an esteem in relation to the political judgment they may have and therefore, by discussing with these people, it is possible to form an electoral choice and therefore there is no need to go and pay these costs of gathering information. These spatial theories start from the assumption that there is a voter or voters who have political preferences with respect to certain issues, but completely discard the explanation of how these preferences are formed. In other words, there is the idea of utility maximization which is a key concept in rational choice theory, so the voter wants to maximize his utility and his utility is calculated according to the ratio between the cost and the benefit that can be obtained from the action, in this case going to vote (1) and going to vote for that party rather than this one (2). Economic theories of voting explain both voter turnout (1) and electoral choice (2). Does partisan identification work outside the United States? On the other hand, in rationalist approaches, shortcuts are cognitive shortcuts. Spatial theories of voting are nothing other than what we have seen so far with regard to the economic model of voting. So there are four main ways. A rather subjective and almost sentimental citizen is placed at the centre of the analysis. That is why there are many empirical analyses that are based on this model. 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. 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. The goal of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the measurement of suicide severity based on the Columbia suicide severity rating scale. The same can be said of the directional model with intensity. So, we are going to the extremes precisely because we are trying to mobilize an electorate. For Fiorina, the retrospective vote is the fact that current policy is fundamental, whereas in the prospective vote it is less so. These are some of the criticisms and limitations often made by proponents of other approaches. The directional model also provides some answers to this criticism. Comparative Political Studies, 27(2), 155189. For the sociological model we have talked about the index of political predisposition with the variables of socioeconomic, religious and spatial status. carried out by scholars at Columbia. For example, a strongly conservative voter who votes Democratic may vote Republican because he or she feels more in tune with the party. By Web: Vote-By-Mail Web Request. What we see here in relation to the sociological model and that these variables highlighted by the sociological model such as socialization, inking or social position play a role but only indirectly. European Journal of Political Research, 54(2), 197215. Finally, they can vote for the candidate who is most likely in the voters' perception to change things in a way or in a way that leaves them the most satisfied. Voters who rely on strong partisan identification do not need to go and do systematic voting or take one of the shortcuts. We must also, and above all, look at the links between types of factors. We need to find identification measures adapted to the European context, which the researchers have done. in what is commonly known as the Columbia school of thought, posited that contextual factors influence the development . the maximum utility is reached at the line level. These are voters who proceed by systematic voting. Therefore, they cannot really situate where the different parties stand. 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. In other words, party activists tend to be more extreme in their political attitudes than voters or party leaders. The concept and this theory was developed in the United States by political scientists and sociologists and initially applied to the American political system with an attachment to the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party. McElroy's connection to Vancouver didn't end there. It is no longer a question of explaining "why" people participate but "how", that is, in terms of voter turnout, what choice is made and what can explain an electoral choice. This theory is not about the formation of political preferences, they start from the idea that there are voters with certain political preferences and then these voters will look at what the offer is and will choose according to that offer. 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. This is something that remains difficult in theory, we don't know how much the voter will discount. This has created a research paradigm which is perhaps the dominant paradigm today. Directional model with intensity: Rabinowitz, Four possible answers to the question of how voters decide to vote, Unified Voting Model: Merrill and Grofman, Responses to criticisms of the proximity model, Partisan Competition Theory: Przeworski and Sprague, Relationship between voting explanatory models and realignment cycle. Finally, some studies show that high levels of education lead to weaker attachments to parties. 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. 0000001213 00000 n In order to explain this anomaly, another explanation beside the curvilinear explanation beside the directional theories of the vote, a third possibility to explain this would be to say that there are some parties that abandon the idea of maximizing the vote or electoral support in order to mobilize this electorate and for this we have to go to extremes. 2, 1957, pp. For Lazarsfeld, we think politically how we are socially, there is not really the idea of electoral choice. Voting behavior is a form of electoral behavior. Merrill, Samuel, and Bernard Grofman. This model shows that there is more than political identities, partisan identification and social inking. Voters are more interested in political results than in political programmes, and the choice is also made from this perspective. There is a small degree of complexity because one can distinguish between attitudes towards the candidate or the party, attitudes towards the policies implemented by the different parties and attitudes about the benefits that one's own group may receive from voting for one party rather than another. La dernire modification de cette page a t faite le 11 novembre 2020 00:26. In the literature, we often talk about the economic theory of voting. preferences and positions. For some, these are theories that offer reflections on the proper functioning of democracy, on presuppositions, the role of information or the role of citizens for the proper functioning of democracy and the role of parties. Property qualifications. Prospective voting says that the evaluation is based on what the parties and candidates are going to say. 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? 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. 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. In Personality traits and party identification over time published in 2014 by Bakker, Hopmann and Persson, the authors attempt to explain partisan identification. There is no real electoral choice in this type of explanation, but it is based on our insertion in a social context. Maximizing utility is done in proximity to certain issues. 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. There is a kind of heterogeneity of voters. These theories are the retrospective voting theories and the theories of ideological space. 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. It is possible to attribute some merits and some criticisms to this model at least in its initial formulation. 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. 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. The term "group" can mean different things, which can be an ethnic group or a social class. A third possible answer is that they will vote for the candidate whose political ideas are closest to their own. Even if there is still a significant effect of identification, there are other explanations and aspects to look for, particularly in terms of the issue vote and the assessments that different voters make of the issue vote. What interests us is that the idea of issue voting is fundamental to spatial theories 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. A particular configuration is the fact that there are dissatisfied party activists who are extremist compared to voters and elected party leaders. The psycho-sociological model, also known as the Michigan model, can be represented graphically or schematically. It is the state of the economy that will decide who will win the election or not. The ideological space can be defined as a left-right ideological space but can also be defined more precisely in relation to certain issues. 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, . 0000011193 00000 n One important element of this model must be highlighted in relation to the others. 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. In Person: 971 W Duval St. Ste. 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. 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. 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. Some people talk about membership voting for the first two theories and cognitive voting for the economic model of voting. In other words, there is a social type variable, a cultural type variable and a spatial type variable. There are different strategies that are put in place by voters in a conscious or unconscious way to reduce these information costs, which are all the costs associated with the fact that in order to be able to evaluate the utility income given by one party rather than another, one has to go and see, listen, hear and understand what these parties are saying. Spatial theories of ideological space across Republicans and Democrats that should be taken into account to explain what happens organizations... 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