Party policy equilibrium for alternative spatial voting models: An application to the Norwegian Storting

Abstract In recent years a lively debate has emerged concerning the empirical status of the traditional proximity spatial model versus a directional model of voter choice. The central reason for this scholarly interest concerns these models' contrasting implications for parties' policy positioning, with the directional model motivating parties to present extreme policies, but the proximity model promoting centrist positions. To this point, however, there exist no studies that compute parties' optimal strategies in historical elections, for these competing models. This article addresses this issue, by examining party policy strategies in a multiparty electorate for three different vote models: (a) the proximity model, (b) a directional model (c) a mixed model which combines proximity and directional components. Each model incorporates past voting history and the random effects of unmeasured variables. Using parameter estimates derived from analyses of survey data from the 1989 Norwegian Election Study we compute — for each of these vote models — the configuration of party policy positions that maximize each party's vote share in relation to those of the other parties. We find that for each model, such a vote–maximizing configuration exists, but — for the proximity model — represents an unrealistic, tightly clustered array. A mixed proximity–directional model, however, provides by far the most convincing account of parties' actual policy strategies with regard to dispersion and vote share.     

Multiparty electoral competition in the Netherlands and Germany: A model based on multinomial probit

A typical assumption of electoral models of party competition is that parties adopt policy positions so as to maximize expected vote share. Here we use Euro-barometer survey data and European elite-study data from 1979 for the Netherlands and Germany to construct a stochastic model of voter response, based on multinomial probit estimation. For each of these countries, we estimate a pure spatial electoral voting model and a joint spatial model. The latter model also includes individual voter and demographic characteristics. The pure spatial models for the two countries quite accurately described the electoral response as a stochastic function of party positions. We use these models to perform a thought experiment so as to estimate the expected vote maximizing party positions. We go on to propose a model of internal party decision-making based both on pre-election electoral estimation and post-election coalition bargaining. This model suggests why the various parties in the period in question did not adopt vote maximizing positions. We argue that maximizing expected vote will not, in general, be a rational party strategy in multiparty political systems which are based on proportional representation.     

Leaders, voters and activists in the elections in Great Britain 2005 and 2010

Discussion of the relationship between parties and the electorate is often based on the notion of partisan constituencies, that parties adopt policy positions that correspond to the average position of the party supporters. In contrast, the Downsian “spatial model” assumes that parties are purely opportunistic and maneuver to gain as many votes as possible. A third, more empirical model, based on the early work of Stokes, assumes that voter choice is based on the evaluation of each of the party leader’s competence or ability to deliver policy success. Such an evaluation can be provided by individual voter overall assessment in terms of the leaders’ character traits.This paper attempts to relate these three classes of models by examining the elections in Great Britain in 2005 and 2010. Using the British Election Study, we construct spatial models of these elections in Great Britain as well as in the three regions of England, Scotland and Wales. The models incorporate the electoral perceptions of character traits. We compare the equilibrium vote maximizing positions with the partisan positions, estimated by taking the mean of each of the parties voters’ preferred positions. We define an equilibrium to be a stable attractor if the vote share at the equilibrium exceeds the share at the partisan position by a significant proportion (determined by the implicit error of the stochastic model). We infer that none of the equilibria are stable attractors, and suggest that the partisan positions are also preferred by the party activists, the key supporters of each party.     

When do parties emphasise extreme positions? How strategic incentives for policy differentiation influence issue importance

Parties have an incentive to take up extreme positions in order to achieve policy differentiation and issue ownership, and it would make sense for a party to stress these positions as well. These incentives are not the same for all issues and all parties but may be modified by other strategic conditions: party size, party system size, positional distinctiveness and systemic salience. Using manifesto‐based measures of salience and expert assessments of party positions, the findings in this article are that parties emphasise extreme positions if, first, they are relatively small in terms of vote share; second, the extreme position is distinctive from those of other parties; and third, other parties fail to emphasise the issue. These findings have consequences for our understanding of party strategies, party competition and the radicalisation of political debates.     

Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives under Different Electoral Systems

In a seminal article, Cox (1990) suggested that electoral systems with larger district magnitudes provide incentives for parties to advocate more extreme policy positions. In this article, we put this proposition to the test. Informed by recent advances in spatial models of party competition, we introduce a design that embeds the effect of electoral rules in the utility function of voters. We then estimate the equilibrium location of parties as the weight voters attach to the expected distribution of seats and votes changes. Our model predicts that electoral rules affect large and small parties in different ways. We find centripetal effects only for parties that are favorably biased by electoral rules. By contrast, smaller parties see their vote share decline and are pushed toward more extreme equilibrium positions. Evidence from 13 parliamentary democracies supports model predictions. Along with testing the incentives provided by electoral rules, results carry implications for the strategies of vote‐maximizing parties and for the role of small parties in multiparty competition.     

Congruence between voters and parties: The role of party-level issue salience

The level of congruence between parties and their voters can vary greatly from one policy issue to another, which raises questions regarding the effectiveness of political representation. We seek to explain variation in party–voter congruence across issues and parties. We focus on the hypotheses that (1) average proximity between the positions of voters and the party they vote for will be highest on the issues that the party emphasises in the election campaign and that (2) this relationship will be stronger for niche parties. We test these hypotheses using data on the policy preferences of voters, party positions, party attention profiles and salience on concrete policy issues in four countries: The Netherlands, Ireland, Germany and Sweden. Overall, we find that voter–party proximity tends to be higher on issues that the party emphasises. As these are the issues where parties typically have the greatest policy impact, this implies that the quality of representation is highest where it matters most. There is some limited evidence that the positive relationship between issue salience and proximity is stronger for niche parties. In sum, the quality of policy representation varies strongly with party-level issue salience and to a lesser extent with the type of political party.     

Mass Media and Party Divergence in Multiparty Systems

Does the mass media affect the dispersion of the policy positions of political parties? In this article it is argued that the mass media polarize parties' policy positions because vote‐seeking strategies are more viable if party policy positions are clearly communicated to the electorate and because a vote‐seeking strategy corresponds with parties taking a distinct policy position away from the median. Hence, the main hypothesis is that party policy position dispersion is larger with more mass media penetration. In order to test this argument, a novel dataset on party positions and mass media penetration in 267 Danish municipalities in 2004 is utilized and a new measure of the dispersion of policy positions in multiparty systems is constructed. The analysis corroborates the article's main hypothesis.     

Issues,the Spatial Theory of Voting,and British General Elections: A Comparison of Proximity and Directional Models

Competing spatial models of voter choiceare compared in the context ofparliamentary representatives selectedthrough single-member district, pluralityelections where party platforms areemphasized over individual candidates.Respondents of the 1987, 1992, and 1997British general election surveys ratepolitical parties on a series of issuescales. Ordered logistic regressions ofparty evaluations under proximity,directional, and mixed models reveal thatthe classic spatial model and thedirectional model perform equally well.Differences center on perceptions of thestatus quo, as voters appear to evaluatethe incumbent party (here, theConservatives) slightly differently thanminority parties (Labour and the LiberalDemocrats). The proximity model worksbetter for voter evaluations of governingparties while the directional model workswell for opposition parties.     

Measuring “Correct Voting” Using Comparative Manifestos Project Data

The extent to which citizens vote in accordance with their own principles and priorities has been proposed as an important measure of a democracy's health. This article introduces a new method of evaluating the ability of individuals to vote for the political party with policy positions closest to their own – to vote “correctly”. Following Lau and Redlawsk (1997), a “correct vote” is defined as the vote choice individuals would make under conditions of perfect information. In other words, a vote is “correct” if it is cast for the party that a voter should vote for, based upon a fully informed comparison of his or her policy positions with those of the parties contesting an election. Voters' policy preferences are estimated here using election study data, and the positions of parties are derived through data from the Comparative Manifestos Project. For illustrative purposes, this new method is applied to the 2004 Canadian federal election. Correct voting rates are calculated by comparing voter and party positions in seven dimensions of political competition, accounting for the relative importance of each dimension. While this study's data are exclusively Canadian, the approach introduced is applicable to other settings.     

Moderat bevorzugt, extrem gewählt. Zum Zusammenhang von Präferenz und Wahlentscheidung in räumlichen Modellen sachfragenorientierten Wählens

This article demonstrates, on the basis of survey data from the 2005 German national election, that voters often systematically choose more extreme parties than warranted by their own preferences. Estimation of Grofman’s (1985) spatial discounting model reveals that party preference and vote decision follow different utility functions. Preferences turn out to be purely proximity driven, i. e. voters prefer parties with positions close to their own. Moving from preference to the vote of the top-ranked alternative, a devaluation of party positions and a significant shift in voter utility towards more extreme parties is observed. These results show that voter behaviour may change, even though voter preferences remain unchanged. Results also suggest that the remarkable success of FDP and Linke in the 2005 election is more likely due to shifting behaviour by moderate voters rather than to sweeping changes in the German electorate’s preferences toward welfare policy.     

The effects of party mobilisation strategies on the vote: The PSOE and the PP in the 1996 Spanish election

Abstract.  In this article, the author analyses the impact of parties' mobilisation strategies at the district level on their vote share in the Spanish 1996 general elections. In order to do this, the author has estimated a multilevel model to test the impact of aggregate mobilisation variables at the district level controlling for voters' individual characteristics. The efforts made by the two main Spanish parties increased their share of the vote. Moreover, their strategies seem to be more efficient for some profiles of voters than for others. The mobilisation of the PSOE especially affected those who had clear political preferences, whereas the PP's mobilisation had stronger effects on less politically aware voters.     

Assimilation and contrast effects in voter projections of party locations: Evidence from Norway, France, and the USA

In the standard Downsian model, voters are assumed to choose parties based on the extent of ideological proximity between the voter's own position and that of the party. Yet it is also well known that there are rationalization and projection effects such that voters tend to misestimate the policy platforms of candidates or parties to which they are sympathetic by overstating the correspondence between those positions and the voter's own preferences (see, e.g., Markus & Converse 1979; Granberg & Brent 1980; Granberg & Holmberg 1988; Merrill & Grofman 1999). Here we follow insights in the psychological literature on persuasion (Sherif & Hovland 1961; Parducci & Marshall 1962) by distinguishing between assimilation and contrast effects. Assimilation refers to shortening the perceived ideological distance between oneself and parties one favors; contrast refers to exaggerating the distance to parties for which one does not intend to vote. Using survey data on voter self–placements and party placements on ideological scales for the seven major Norwegian parties, five major French parties, and two major American parties we show that both assimilation and contrast effects are present in each country to a considerable degree.We also investigate the possible effects of randomness in party placement and scale interpretation – effects that can easily be confounded with assimilation but not so easily with contrast.     

Measuring party orientations towards European integration: Results from an expert survey

Abstract Some observers have held that political parties have been minor players in the process of European integration due to the low salience of the issue and the prevalence of intra party disagreement over European questions. Although recent scholarship and the rising salience of European issues have brought increased attention to the role of political parties, the study of the relationship between party positions and both public opinion and policy outcomes has been hampered by an absence of comparable data on party positions. This research note presents the findings of an expert survey on party positions on the issue of European integration. In addition to estimates of the parties' positions on the issue itself, this survey provides information on the importance of the issue of European integration to each party, and the extent of internal dissent within parties. The data also indicate that parties have, on average, become increasingly pro–European over the period 1984–1996. Both the salience of the issue of integration and the extent of intra–party disagreement have increased during this period. However, deep intra–party divisions appear less prevalent than commonly believed.     

Assimilation and contrast effects in voter projections of party locations: Evidence from Norway,France, and the USA

Abstract. In the standard Downsian model, voters are assumed to choose parties based on the extent of ideological proximity between the voter's own position and that of the party. Yet it is also well known that there are rationalization and projection effects such that voters tend to misestimate the policy platforms of candidates or parties to which they are sympathetic by overstating the correspondence between those positions and the voter's own preferences (see, e.g., Markus & Converse 1979; Granberg & Brent 1980; Granberg & Holmberg 1988; Merrill & Grofman 1999). Here we follow insights in the psychological literature on persuasion (Sherif & Hovland 1961; Parducci & Marshall 1962) by distinguishing between assimilation and contrast effects. Assimilation refers to shortening the perceived ideological distance between oneself and parties one favors; contrast refers to exaggerating the distance to parties for which one does not intend to vote. Using survey data on voter self–placements and party placements on ideological scales for the seven major Norwegian parties, five major French parties, and two major American parties we show that both assimilation and contrast effects are present in each country to a considerable degree.We also investigate the possible effects of randomness in party placement and scale interpretation – effects that can easily be confounded with assimilation but not so easily with contrast.     

Measuring party orientations towards European integration: results from an expert survey

Some observers have held that political parties have been minor players in the process of European integration due to the low salience of the issue and the prevalence of intra party disagreement over European questions. Although recent scholarship and the rising salience of European issues have brought increased attention to the role of political parties, the study of the relationship between party positions and both public opinion and policy outcomes has been hampered by an absence of comparable data on party positions. This research note presents the findings of an expert survey on party positions on the issue of European integration. In addition to estimates of the parties' positions on the issue itself, this survey provides information on the importance of the issue of European integration to each party, and the extent of internal dissent within parties. The data also indicate that parties have, on average, become increasingly pro–European over the period 1984–1996. Both the salience of the issue of integration and the extent of intra–party disagreement have increased during this period. However, deep intra–party divisions appear less prevalent than commonly believed.     

Marginalisation or legitimation? Mainstream party positioning on immigration and support for radical right parties

Abstract

Does mainstream party positioning contribute to marginalising or legitimising niche party positions? This article argues that voter perceptions of the legitimacy and credibility of niche party positions play a role in individuals’ propensity to vote for niche parties. It finds that the adoption of more restrictive immigration positions by mainstream parties increases the likelihood that those people who do not recognise the issue competence of radical right parties on immigration will vote radical right. However, for individuals who already perceive the radical right to be competent on immigration, mainstream party adoption of more restrictive immigration positions has no effect on propensity to vote radical right. In addition, the increase in the propensity of individuals to vote radical right is predominantly a function of mainstream left parties adopting more restrictive immigration positions. These results imply that mainstream parties risk fuelling radical right party support by adopting more restrictive immigration positions.     

Beyond assimilation and contrast: Information effects,ideological magnification,and the vote

Spatial voting models assume that parties and candidates advertise their ideological positions to maximize electoral support. Voters, however, view party locations through a distorted lens. The presence of these assimilation and contrast effects has been extensively described by the existing literature. Yet while many studies acknowledge the importance of information biases in survey responses, we lack the tools to explicitly incorporate them into existing spatial models of voting. This paper proposes a strategy that incorporates information effects in existing spatial models of the vote, using a heteroscedastic proximity model. We test the proposed model on data from eighteen democracies. Results demonstrate how information stretches or compresses the ideological space and open up new avenues for future work.     

Issue Voting as a Constrained Choice Problem

Prevalent models of issue voting view vote choice as a choice among party policies. Choice sets are implicitly assumed to be the same for all voters, and their composition is left to researchers' discretion. This article aims to relax such assumptions by presenting a model with a varying probability of inclusion in the choice set. We apply the “constrained choice conditional logistic regression” to survey data from the 1989 parliamentary election in Norway to examine the effects of party identification of voters and electoral viability and policy extremity of parties on individual voters' choice set compositions. Further, we look into the effect of parties' policy positions on their electoral fates under alternative assumptions about the composition of voters' choice sets. We find that voters' choice set composition conditions both the effects of their policy considerations on vote choice and those of parties' policy offerings on their electoral fates.     

Mind the gap: How party–voter incongruence fuels the entry and support of new parties

This article examines to what extent ideological incongruence (i.e., mismatch between policy positions of voters and parties) increases the entry of new parties in national parliamentary elections and their individual-level electoral support. Current empirical research on party entry and new party support either neglects the role of party–voter incongruence, or it only examines its effect on the entry and support of specific new parties or party families. This article fills this lacuna. Based on spatial theory, we hypothesise that parties are more likely to enter when ideological incongruence between voters and parties is higher (Study 1) and that voters are more likely to vote for new parties if these stand closer to them than established parties (Study 2). Together our two studies span 17 countries between 1996 and 2016. Time-series analyses support both hypotheses. This has important implications for spatial models of elections and empirical research on party entry and new party support.     

Equilibria in multi-party systems

This paper deals with equilibria in multi-party systems, not excluding systems with two parties. The model has a one-dimensional policy space for the positions of parties and voters. Furthermore it assumes an arbitrary continuous density of voters, voters vote for the nearest party, and parties try to maximize the number of votes. Sufficient and necessary conditions for equilibria are given, and from these conditions it is deduced that for systems with a large number of parties equilibria are rare, unless the density of voters is uniform.