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Determinants of the vote

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Determinants of the vote. Demographics, socio-economic characteristics ... Examples in US: New Deal (1930s), moral value republicans (since 1980s) ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Determinants of the vote


1
Determinants of the vote
  • Demographics, socio-economic characteristics
  • Age, gender, education, class, income
  • Social change
  • Dealignment, realignment
  • Parties/Party system
  • Ideology, loyalty
  • Strategic/tactical voting
  • Issues
  • Economic voting, retrospective voting,
    proximity/directional voting, issue ownership
  • Candidates
  • Emotions and cognitions

2
Electoral change
  • Dealignment
  • Weakening of party attachments
  • Reduced explanatory power of class, religion
  • As a result of social change since 1960s
  • Alleged consequences
  • Individualization of voting decision
  • Replacement by new value-related cleavages
  • Realignment
  • Emergence of new issues cutting across existing
    support bases for the political parties
  • Examples in US New Deal (1930s), moral value
    republicans (since 1980s)
  • Critical realignments, or issue evolution?

3
Rationality and voting
  • Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy
    (1957)
  • Utility maximisation
  • Voters electing party platform that maximises
    future utilities
  • Candidates proposing policy platform that
    maximises support
  • One-dimensional policy space
  • Economic left-right
  • Proximity voting
  • Competing for the median voter
  • Policy convergence
  • http//www.politicalcompass.org/

4
Issue voting
  • Issue voting traditionally seen as indicating the
    rational, evaluative, mature voter
  • Multi-dimensional policy spaces
  • Issue salience vs. issue positions
  • Issue ownership
  • Parties have reputations of caring more and being
    better able to handle certain issues
  • E.g. Labour better on health, Tories trusted on
    keeping taxes and inflation down
  • Valence issues
  • Some issues do not allow taking different
    positions on them
  • E.g. parties cannot campaign for more crime, more
    pollution
  • Proximity vs. directional voting

5
Economic voting
  • Economy always a (if not the) primary electoral
    issue
  • Its the Economy, stupid (slogan in Clinton
    campaign 1992)
  • Gore defeat in 2000 largely down to his
    reluctance to be associated with Clinton
    administration (hence forfeiting economy as vote
    winner)
  • Economic conditions as vote determinant
  • Indicators unemployment, inflation
  • Pocketbook voting (own economic interest)
  • Sociotropic voting (national economic
    development)
  • Retrospective voting
  • any election is a referendum on incumbent
    government
  • Economic record of outgoing government key
    criterion for retrospective evaluation
  • Incentive for governments to distribute benefits
    shortly before elections, and to make unpopular
    laws early on in parliamentary term (political
    business-cycle)

6
Emotion and cognition
  • Candidate effects on voting
  • Candidate factor often caricatured as emotional
    responses to candidate appearance hence
    seemingly less rational than issue voting
  • Psychology of candidate voting
  • Competence
  • Integrity
  • Strength of leadership
  • Social psychology of voting
  • Citizens as cognitive misers (making
    non-sophisticated political judgments despite
    limited capacity for dealing with information)
  • Using cues instead of fully informed evaluation
  • Cues ideology, perceived candidate traits

7
Strategic/tactical voting
  • Supporting a candidate/party other than ones
    sincere preference
  • Especially two-party systems (US) and/or first
    past the post electoral systems encourage
    strategic voting
  • But also lending votes from larger to smaller
    coalition partners is prevalent in proportional
    systems (especially when there is a minimum
    electoral threshold for parties)
  • Presumably highly rational approach to voting
  • Although given the low likelihood of affecting
    outcomes, what is rational about
    tactical/strategic voting?
  • Heavily based on voter perceptions about
  • Current state of public opinion
  • Electoral viability of different candidates
  • Example
  • Gore/Nader in US presidential election 2000
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