Moreover, there are analogies that are made even explicitly with the idea of the market. There is a whole literature on opinion formation, quite consensually, that says that citizens have a limited capacity to process information. Four questions around partisan identification. Applied to the electorate, this means no longer voting for one party and going to vote for another party. Property qualifications. 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. LAZARSFELD, PAUL F., BERNARD BERELSON, and HAZEL GAUDET. The second criterion is subjectivity, which is that voters calculate the costs and benefits of voting subjectively, so they make an assessment of the costs and benefits. Other researchers have tried to propose combined models that combine different explanations. Psychological theories are based on a type of explanation that does not focus on the issues discussed during a political campaign, for example. 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. 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 government is blamed for the poor state of the economy. 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. 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. Much of the work in electoral behaviour draws on this thinking. is partisan identification one-dimensional? Rationalist theories and spatial models of the vote have had the very beneficial relationship of putting precisely the free choice of voters at the centre of analyses. 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. 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. [8][9], The second very important model is the psycho-sociological model, also known as the partisan identification model or Michigan School model, developed by Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes in Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes, among others in The American Voter published in 1960. This approach emphasizes a central variable which is that of partisan identification, which is a particular political attitude towards a party. 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. 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 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. The initial research saw three major factors to voting behaviour: Personal identification with one of the political parties, concern with issues of national government policy and personal attraction to the presidential candidates. It is a rather descriptive model, at least in its early stages. 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". 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. If that is true, then if there are two parties that are equally close to our preferences, then we cannot decide. Four landmark studies connected with the presidential elections of 1940, 1948, 1952, and 1956 mark the establishment of scholarly survey-based research on voting behavior (Rossi 1959). For Iversen, distance is also important. But more generally, when there is a campaign, the issues are discussed. Simply, the voter is going to evaluate his own interest, his utility income from the different parties and will vote for the party that is closest to his interests. In this model, importance is given to primary socialization. In other words, in this retrospective assessment, the economic situation of the country plays a crucial role. There is in fact the idea that the choices and preferences of voters in the centre will cause the parties, since they are aiming in this model, to try to maximize their electoral support. 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. 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. So there is an overestimation in this model with respect to capacity. Certain developments in the theory of the psycho-sociological model have in fact provided answers to these criticisms. 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 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. An important factor is the role of political campaigns in influencing the vote. Grofman introduces a central element which is the position of the status quo which is not necessarily the neutral point but the current policy. One must assess the value of one's own participation and also assess the number of other citizens who will vote. 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. There is also the economic vote, which is the role of the economy. The psycho-sociological model has its roots in Campell's work entitled The American Voter publi en 1960. trailer Several studies show that the impact of partisan identification varies greatly from one context to another. 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. However, this is empirically incorrect. We can talk about two major theories or two major models or even three models. 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. This is the median voter theory. 65, no. From that point on, there has been the development of a whole body of literature on political psychology. 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. The fit of a measurement model that differentiates between the various degrees of suicidal severity was verified. For many, voting is a civic duty. 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. 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. The utility function of the simple proximity model appears, i.e. Downs, Anthony. The Columbia County Supervisor of Elections strives to provide reasonable accomodations to help people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to participate on our website. It is interesting to know that Lazarsfeld, when he began his studies with survey data, especially in an electoral district in New York State, was looking for something other than the role of social factors. This model emphasizes the role of integration into social groups. It rejects the notion that voting behavior is largely determined by class affiliation or class socialization. A distinction is made between the sociological model of voting from the Columbia School, which refers to the university where this model was developed. The reference work is The People's Choice published in 1948 by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet. In prospective voting, Grofman said that the position of current policy is also important because the prospective assessment that one can make as a voter of the parties' political platforms also depends on current policy. 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. The ideological space can be defined as a left-right ideological space but can also be defined more precisely in relation to certain issues. Three Models of Voting Behavior. 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. A lawmaker's (stochastic) voting behavior is characterized by the relationship between her position in this space and the bill's position [1 . a new model of legislative behavior that captures when and how lawmakers vote differently than expected. The psycho-sociological model, also known as the Michigan model, can be represented graphically or schematically. 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. Various explanations have been offered over the roughly 70-year history of voting behavior research, but two explanations in particular have garnered the most attention and generated the most debate in the literature on voting behavior. Finally, there is an instrumental approach to information and voting. The term "group" can mean different things, which can be an ethnic group or a social class. 5. 0 In other words, there is a social type variable, a cultural type variable and a spatial type variable. Although the models rely on the same data they make radically different predictions about the political future. There have been attempts to address this anomaly. 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. On the other hand, this is true for the directional model; they manage to perceive a policy direction. This creates a concern for circularity of reasoning. It also proposes a reconceptualization of the concept of partisanship in order to integrate all relevant contributions of the . 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. This is more related to the retrospective vote. This table shows that for quite some time now there has been a strong decline in partisan identification. 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. It is a variant of the simple proximity model which remains in the idea of proximity but which adds an element which makes it possible to explain certain voting behaviours which would not be explainable by other models. The political consciousness of individuals is based on social experiences and has little weight outside these experiences. and voters who choose to use euristic shortcuts to solve the information problem. At the basis of the reflection of directional models, and in particular of directional models with intensity, there is what is called symbolic politics. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 261(1), 194194. $2.75. 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. 0000001124 00000 n One can draw a kind of parallel with a loss of importance of the strength of partisan identification and also of the explanatory power of partisan identification. The first question is how to assess the position of the different parties and candidates, since we start from the idea of projecting voters' political preferences and party projections onto a map. Often, in Anglo-Saxon literature, this model is referred to as the party identification model. 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. Psychology and Voting Behavior In the same years that behaviorism (of various forms) came to dominate the If certain conditions are present, such as good democratic functioning within the party, activists will have the opportunity to exercise "voice" and influence positions. Prospective voting is based on election promises and retrospective voting is based on past performance. As for the intensity model, they manage to perceive something more, that is to say, not only a direction but an intensity through which a political party defends certain positions and goes in certain political directions. 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. There may be a vote that is different from partisan identification, but in the medium to long term, partisan identification should strengthen. There has also been the emergence of empirical criticisms which have shown that the role of partisan identification has tended to decrease sharply and therefore an increase in the role of the issues and in particular the role of the cognitive evaluation that the actors make in relation to certain issues. Later, their analysis saw that party identification and attachment was the most common factor. Voters calculate the cost of voting. Some parties have short-term strategies for maximizing voting and others have long-term strategies for social mobilization. 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 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. These authors find with panel data that among their confirmed hypotheses that extroverted people tend to have a strong and stable partisan identification. . Another strategy is the so-called "shortcut" that voters take within the rationalist framework of voting, since they are confronted with the problem of information and have to choose on the basis of this information. We are looking at the interaction. 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. 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? This model relies heavily on the ability of voters to assess and calculate their own interests and all the costs associated with the action of going to the polls. 0000011193 00000 n It is possible to create a typology that distinguishes between four approaches crossing two important and crucial elements: "is voting spatial? There is no real electoral choice in this type of explanation, but it is based on our insertion in a social context. Professor Political Science Buena Vista University Two basic concerns: Turnout ("Who votes?") Key questions: What are the characteristics and attitudes of voters vs. nonvoters? 102 Lake City, FL 32055 OR 17579 SW State Road 47 Fort White, FL 32038. It has often been emphasized that this model and approach raises more questions than answers. The same can be said of the directional model with intensity. The idea was that there were two possible responses that are put in place by members of that organization: one of "exit", to withdraw, to go to another organization. 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. It is necessary to distinguish between two types of voters and to make a distinction between a literature that has become increasingly important in recent years on opinion formation in an election or voting context. as a party's position moves away from our political preferences. 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. 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 These are voters who proceed by systematic voting. European Journal of Political Research, 54(2), 197215. How to assess the position of different parties and candidates. The role of the media and campaigns simplifies information by summarizing it. How does partisan identification develop? 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