On the other hand, the political preferences are exogenous to the political process which is the fact that when the voter goes to vote which is the moment when he or she starts to think about this election, he or she already arrives with certain fixed or prefixed political preferences. If voters, who prefer more extreme options, no longer find these options within the party they voted for, then they will look elsewhere and vote for another party. In 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 rational reading of one's own needs and the adequacy of different political offers to one's needs. How to assess the position of different parties and candidates. 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. 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. These two proximity models are opposed to two other models that are called directional models with Matthews' simple directional model but especially Rabinowitz's directional model with intensity. The idea is that the extremist attitudes of those former voters who become party activists push strategic positioning in a direction that takes them away from their constituents. Voting for a candidate from one party in one race and for the other party's candidate in another race is known as. 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. A set of theories has given some answers. It is a rather descriptive model, at least in its early stages. 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. The book's focus was sociological, mainly considering socio-demographic predictors, interpersonal influence, cross-pressures, and the effects of social groups, as well as analyzing voter activation, reinforcement, and conversion across the election year. It is an explanation that is completely outside the logic of proximity and the spatial logic of voting. For Lazarsfeld, we think politically how we are socially, there is not really the idea of electoral choice. Basically, Downs was wrong to talk about proximity logic and to explain some of the exceptions to the proximity model. There are other variants or models that try to accommodate this complexity. So there is an overestimation in this model with respect to capacity. The further a party moves in the other direction, the less likely the voter will choose it because the utility function gradually decreases. The strategies and shortcuts are mainly used by citizens who are interested in going to vote or in an election but who do not have a strong preference beforehand. Lazarsfeld's book created this research paradigm. This is the idea that gave rise to the development of directional models, which is that, according to Downs and those who have followed him, because there is transparency of information, voters can very well see what the political platforms of the parties or candidates are. Numbers abound, since we have seen that, in the end, both models systematically have a significant effect. This is central to spatial theories of voting, that is, voters vote or will vote for the candidate or party that is closest to their own positions. Prospective voting says that voters will listen to what candidates and parties have to say. There are different types of individuals who take different kinds of shortcuts or not, who vote systematically or not, and so on. There are other theories that highlight the impact of economic conditions and how voters compare different election results in their electoral choices, which refers to economic voting in the strict sense of the term. 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. This study presents an automated and accurate . There has been a lot of criticism that has allowed the idea of issue voting to develop in a rationalist context and models. It is possible to attribute some merits and some criticisms to this model at least in its initial formulation. In the psychological approach, the information problem is circumvented by the idea of the development of partisan identification, which is an emotional shortcut that voters operate. 0000008661 00000 n For the sociological model we have talked about the index of political predisposition with the variables of socioeconomic, religious and spatial status. Video transcript. 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. Nevertheless, both models may be more or less correct. 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. If you experience any difficulty accessing any part of this website, please call (386) 758-1026 or email kbanner@votecolumbiafl.gov for further assistance. In a phase of alignment, this would be the psycho-sociological model, i.e. The ideological space can be defined as a left-right ideological space but can also be defined more precisely in relation to certain issues. Voters vote for the candidate or party closest to their own position which is the proximity model. 3105. 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. An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy. Journal of Political Economy, vol. xb```f`` @f8F F'-pWs$I*Xe< *AA[;;8:::X"$C[6#,bH.vdM?2Zr@ ai,L Numerous studies examine voting behavior based on the formal theoretical predictions of the spatial utility model. . Finally, there is an instrumental approach to information and voting. The utility function of this model is modified compared to the simple model, i.e. 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. In other words, this identification is part of the self-image one can have of oneself. 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 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. They are both proximity choices and directional choices with intensity, since there are voters who may choose intensity and others who may choose direction. A rather subjective and almost sentimental citizen is placed at the centre of the analysis. These criticisms and limitations are related to the original model. We can talk about two major theories or two major models or even three models. On the other hand, ideologically extreme voters try to influence party policies through party activism (voice). The basic idea is somewhat the same, namely that it is a way that voters have at their disposal, a euristic and cognitive shortcut that voters have at their disposal to deal with the problem of complex information. These are voters who proceed by systematic voting. 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. Maximizing utility is done in proximity to certain issues. On the other hand, the intensity directional model better explains the electoral choices of candidates who are not currently in power. This is the median voter theory. "i.e., if it is proximity, it is 'yes', otherwise it is 'no' and therefore directional; 'are the preferences of the actors exogenous? Merrill and Grofman have proposed unified models that want to get out of this hyper-simplification with respect to spatial theories where one either makes a choice of possibilities or a choice of direction but evacuates any other element such as partisan identification, socialization, social inclusion, economic conditions as well as the role of opinion leaders as seen in the funnel model of Michigan theory. trailer 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. xxxiii, 178. For Fiorina, the retrospective vote is the fact that current policy is fundamental, whereas in the prospective vote it is less so. The psycho-sociological model also developed a measure called the partisan identification index, since this model wanted to be an empirical model with behaviourism and the idea of studying individual behaviours empirically with the development of national election studies and survey data to try to measure the partisan identification index. 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. This creates a concern for circularity of reasoning. Misalignment creates greater electoral volatility that creates a change in the party system that can have a feedback on the process of alignment, misalignment or realignment. A representative democracy. This table shows that for quite some time now there has been a strong decline in partisan identification. The image that an individual has of himself in this perspective is also the result of this identification. 43 17 There is a direct link between social position and voting. Curiously, the intensity directional model that adds an element to the simple directional model chronologically precedes the simple directional model. 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. . [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]. The presupposition is that voter preferences are not exogenous but are endogenous - they change within the framework of an electoral process. IVERSEN, T. (1994). Among these bridges, one of the first bridges between the psycho-sociological voting theory and the rationalist theories was made by Fiorina because he considers partisan identification to be an important element in explaining electoral choice. There is an opposite reasoning. 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. 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. The main explanatory factors have been sought in socio-economic status and socio-demographic variables such as "age," "gender," and "education. 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. There has also been the criticism of abstention as the result of rational calculation. 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. For many, voting is a civic duty. A distinction must be made between the affective vote of the psycho-sociological model and the cognitive vote of the theories of the economic model. In the spatial theories of the vote, we see the strategic link between a party's supply and a demand from voters or electors. Then they evaluate their own position in relation to the issues and they do the same operation positioning themselves on this left-right axis. The reference work is The People's Choice published in 1948 by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet. 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. Parties do not try to maximize the vote, but create images of society, forge identities, mobilize commitments for the future. In other words, in this retrospective assessment, the economic situation of the country plays a crucial role. What interests us is that the idea of issue voting is fundamental to spatial theories of voting. 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. It is multidimensional also in the bipartisan context of the United States because there are cleavages that cut across parties. When we talk about the Downs model, we also talk about the proximity model, which is the idea of a rational economic mode based on utility maximization. Psychology and Voting Behavior In the same years that behaviorism (of various forms) came to dominate the [15] Then we'll look at the space theories of the vote. In this representation, there are factors related to the cleavages, but also other factors that relate to the economic, political or social structure of a country being factors that are far removed from the electoral choice but that still exert an important effect in an indirect way the effect they have on other variables afterwards. What is partisan identification? maximum proximity, as the party, his or her utility increases, and when the voter moves away from the party, his or her utility decreases. 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. We worked with a sample of 516 Argentinean adults, aged 18 to 75. A first criticism that has been made is that the simple proximity model gives us a misrepresentation of the psychology of voting. Here, preferences are endogenous and they can change. Ecological regression represents one extreme: the presumption that voting behavior changes systematically across groups but only changes randomly, if at all, within groups. If we accept this premise, how will we position ourselves? Voting is an act of altruism. The personality model highlights the importance of childhood experiences for political behavior and belief in adulthood; the sociological model highlights the importance of primary and interest . Bakker, B. N., Hopmann, D. N., & Persson, M. (2014). the earlier Columbia studies, the Michigan election studies were based upon national survey samples. Four questions around partisan identification. Grofman introduces a central element which is the position of the status quo which is not necessarily the neutral point but the current policy. Lazarsfeld was the first to study voting behaviour empirically with survey data, based on individual data, thus differentiating himself from early studies at the aggregate level of electoral geography. If certain conditions are present, such as good democratic functioning within the party, activists will have the opportunity to exercise "voice" and influence positions. Value orientations refer to materialism as well as post-materialism, among other things, cleavages but no longer from a value perspective. Prospective voting says that the evaluation is based on what the parties and candidates are going to say. They may rely less on their partisan loyalties, so their vote may be explained less by their social base and more by their choice among an offer that is the economic model. Often, in Anglo-Saxon literature, this model is referred to as the party identification model. The basic assumption is that voters decide primarily on the basis of ideologies and not on the basis of specific positions on issues. systematic voting, i.e. The Neighborhood Model. The scientific study of voting behavior is marked by three major research schools: the sociological model, often identified as School of Columbia, with the main reference in Applied Bureau of Social Research of Columbia University, whose work begins with the publication of the book The Peoples Choice (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944) and In other words, party activists tend to be more extreme in their political attitudes than voters or party leaders. There are two variations. 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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