Spatial voting in non-partisan cities: A case study

In spatial voting theory, voters choose the candidate whose policy preferences are most like their own. This requires that (a) voters and candidates have policy preferences that can be meaningfully summarized in terms of low-dimensional “ideal points” on a left-right scale; (b) voters are able to discern, either directly or through relevant cues, the ideal points of the candidates who are running for office; and (c) voters incorporate this information into the choices they make at the ballot box. Perhaps more than in any other elections, it is not clear that any of these requirements are met in non-partisan municipal elections: policy preferences may not be ideologically structured, information may be inadequate, and voters may choose candidates for reasons other than ideology. This makes non-partisan municipal elections an especially hard test for spatial voting theory. Using novel data from both municipal candidates and eligible voters in a major non-partisan municipal election in Canada, we show that municipal policy attitudes are ideologically structured and that these municipal policy ideal points are strongly related to mayoral and council vote choice. Thus, despite the institutional and informational obstacles, spatial voting can play an important role in non-partisan municipal elections.     

Going Maverick: How Candidates Can Use Agenda-Setting to Influence Citizen Motivations and Offset Unpopular Issue Positions

Holding an unpopular position on an issue important to voters can endanger a candidate??s electoral success. What is the candidate??s best agenda-setting strategy? To focus on other issue positions congruent with the same ideological stereotype, shoring up support among like-minded voters? Or to ??go maverick?? by discussing some issues that signal liberal positions and some that signal conservative positions? Existing voting models suggest the answer depends on voter preferences, since going maverick should have symmetric effects??support among voters who agree with the candidate??s positions will decrease, proportionally, as support increases among voters who disagree. We argue, however, that stereotype incongruence prompts these voters to process information differently, yielding asymmetric effects. We test our expectations experimentally, using a fictional candidate webpage to show how the benefits of going maverick can outweigh the costs.     

Do Poor Citizens Vote for Redistribution,Against Immigration or Against the Establishment? A Conjoint Experiment in Denmark

What is the link between socioeconomic disadvantage and vote choice? The literature on this question is fragmented and points to motivations based on welfare policy, immigration policy or anti‐establishment sentiments. To test which of these motives explains differences in voting behaviour between classes, a conjoint experiment in which fictitious candidates present randomly assigned positions was designed. The experiment evaluated the relative importance of the position on welfare, immigration and anti‐establishment as well as candidates’ occupational background. By splitting the analyses into lower, middle‐ and upper class voters, it was found that lower class voters are most distinct from other voters in their preferences for anti‐establishment candidates. Strikingly, lower class voters even support welfare retrenchment, as long as it is an anti‐establishment candidate proposing it. The experiment also found a general tendency to vote against career politicians across classes and remarkably few differences regarding immigration preferences.     

An analysis of legislative inefficiency and ideological behavior

This paper explores the theory of legislative inefficiency and the role of ideological preferences of legislators. It is shown that inefficiency can be caused by many factors other than legislative ideological behavior. Three major sources are emphasized: cost of voting and policy position information asymmetries across groups of voters and barriers to entry in political competition. Ideological preferences of legislators is not a cause of inefficiency independently. Legislators who care about both policy and winning will give inefficient representation to their constituents only when groups of voters are prevented from participating equally in the legislative process.     

Voter reactions to candidate background characteristics depend on candidate policy positions

Do personal background characteristics of a political candidate affect voter evaluations when voters also know the candidate's policy position? Several studies have shown that voters infer personal traits and policy positions from candidate characteristics such as gender, family background and occupation. However, in most elections, voters do not evaluate candidates absent of any policy information. We investigate whether the influence of personal background characteristics vanishes when policy information regarding a candidate is available to the voters. Using a survey experiment, we confirm that voters infer both personal traits and policy positions from the background characteristics of a candidate, and we furthermore show that explicit information on policy positions moderates the relationship between background characteristics and candidate evaluations. However, policy information does not simply crowd out the effects of candidate background characteristics. Instead, policy information can change the valence of background characteristics, turning otherwise disadvantageous characteristics into an electoral advantage.     

Keeping the other candidate guessing: Electoral competition when preferences are private information

We analyze a, model of two candidate competition in which candidate and voter preferences are private information. If candidates simultaneously commit to policy platforms the uncertainty about candidate preferences reinforces the incentive for platform divergence. After a candidate observes the other candidate’s stance but before she learns about voter preferences she may face regret about her choice. This ex post irrationality suggests that a 1 period model may not capture the relevant incentives. In a multi-period proposal game in which candidates first make non-binding public proposals and then they make binding public proposals (similar to Ledyard, 1989) we find that candidates are uninformative during the first stage, as they have a disincentive to reveal their preferences to the opposing candidate. This finding offers an explanation for candidate ambiguity or inconsistency early in an election which does not involve efforts to deceive voters. Candidates may be trying to keep their opponent guessing. With a strong pre-election commitment technology, candidates can only be deterred from this type of behavior if they anticipate that a sizeable number of voters (more than a majority) will vote contrary to their preferences over policy.     

Ideology,Salience, and Complexity: Determinants of Policy Issue Incongruence between Voters and Parties

How come voters and their parties agree or disagree on policy issues? We claim that voter–party mismatches are due to a lack of information of voters regarding parties' positions. Three mechanisms determine levels of information: ideology, salience, and complexity. We test these ideas drawing on a large sample of policy statements (50) presented to voters and party leaders prior to regional elections in Belgium. Contrary to existing studies, we include predictors on all three levels: issue, voter, and party level. We find support for our claim. Major ideological divides such as the left–right divide yield useful information to the voters about where parties stand. Salience also generates information for voters, or makes information more accessible for voters, which decreases the odds that they have a different stance than their party. Our measures of complexity yielded the expected results too. When the task of voting is made more difficult, voters succeed less in voting for a party that matches their preferences.     

Policy divergence in multicandidate probabilistic spatial voting

Existing models of multicandidate spatial competition with probabilistic voting typically predict a high degree of policy convergence, yet in actual elections candidates advocate quite divergent sets of policies. What accounts for this disparity between theory and empirical observation? I introduce two variations on the basic probabilistic vote model which may account for candidate policy divergence: 1) a model which incorporates candidate-specific variables, so that candidates may enjoy nonpolicy-related electoral advantages (or disadvantages); 2) a model which allows nonzero correlations between the random terms associated with voters' candidate utilities, thereby capturing situations where voters view two or more candidates as similar on nonpolicy grounds. I report candidate equilibrium analyses for each model, which show far greater policy divergence than exists under the standard probabilistic vote model. I then analyze the strategic logic which underlies these results.

     

Strategic poll responses when elections create mandates

Larger margins of victory impart mandates that pull government policy toward a winner's platform. Voters with centrist preferences then may find pre-election polls useful. Centrists wish to moderate mandates and may abstain rather than vote for the nearest candidate. If polls are known to elicit voting intentions, then races will tend to be closer than predicted, and turnout will be highest in races predicted to be tight. However, voters at the extremes will respond to polls with guile – indeed all voters will. As a result, centrists cannot rely on pre-election polls, and poll results have no effect on voting.     

Economic voting in Hungary, 1998–2008

This study investigates retrospective voting and issue voting, and their change over time in a transitioning country. Sociotropic, as well as egocentric economic evaluations, and policy issues of parties are expected to play an increasing role in party preferences of citizens over time. Data consist of 41 Hungarian cross-sectional surveys, between 1998 and 2008. Results of conditional logistic regression models reveal that voters reward incumbent parties when they see improvements in their personal or the national economic situation, and punish them if the economy deteriorates. Distance from a given party on the left–right scale also decreases the chance of voting for that party. Voting behavior is changing during transition. The evaluations of the national economy and personal situation have an increasing impact on party preferences over time. We found educational heterogeneity in the extent of economic voting.     

Voter behavior under STV-PR: Solving the puzzle of the Irish party system

This paper examines voter preferences when voters are allowed to rank order large numbers of candidates both within and between different parties (STV-PR). How voters complete such a ballot has consequences both for models of voting behaviour and also for patterns of party competition. More concretely, although such a system should promote a great deal of candidate centered voting behaviour, this does not, in fact, seem to occur for the case we examine. While Irish voters do seem to exhibit multiple party loyalties they are, nevertheless, party and not candidate specific loyalties. The consequences of this for both a Michigan account of party loyalty and also standard interpretations of Irish party competition are discussed.     

Expected utility or learned familiarity? The formation of voters' coalition preferences

In most modern parliamentary democracies, it is unlikely that single party governments will be formed, meaning that a voter's preferred party presumably has to share cabinet offices and negotiate policy compromises in a coalition government. This raises the question of how voters evaluate potential (coalition) governments, especially since recent studies have shown that coalition preferences influence voting behaviour. In this paper, we combine theories of voting behaviour, government formation and political learning to derive expectations regarding the factors that may impact voters' coalition preferences. We test our hypotheses by analysing survey data from the German federal and state levels. The results of a mixed logit regression analysis support our arguments: Voters' coalition preferences not only depend on the perceived policy distance between the positions of voters and the most distant party within combinations of parties, but also on predominant patterns of government formation.     

Assessing the citizen – candidate model

Citizen–candidate models postulate a politics without political parties. Any citizen may become a candidate for office. A winner is chosen from among the candidates by voting with ties broken by the flip of a coin. All voters have preferences over a set of policies. The winning candidate adopts his preferred policy. It is proved on certain assumptions that there exists an equilibrium in these models and that the equilibrium is efficient. The significance of the proof is tested here with reference to the paradox of voting, the exploitation problem, the transposition of the Nash equilibrium from markets to politics, and constitutional constraints. The quest for a political equilibrium leads in the end to the recognition of a minimal rock-bottom requirement for cooperation and negotiation in democratic government.     

European Parliament Elections and Political Representation: Policy Congruence between Voters and Parties

It is often said that European Parliament elections fail as an instrument to express the will of the European people. However, while the elections are not contested at the European level and are often dominated by national issues, this does not necessarily imply that they fail to connect policy views of voters and representatives. This article examines policy congruence between voters and candidates, utilising the candidate and voter surveys of the European Election Study 2009. First, it demonstrates that policy preferences of candidates and voters are constrained by three separate policy dimensions. Second, it shows that the quality of representation is high in terms of left/right, the main dimension of conflict in European politics, but lower on the cultural and European integration dimensions. Finally, it establishes that in some cases the aggregation of national parties in political groups in the European Parliament poses problems for effective political representation.     

Does online voting change the outcome? Evidence from a multi-mode public policy referendum

Do online and offline voters differ in terms of policy preferences? The growth of Internet voting in recent years has opened up new channels of participation. Whether or not political outcomes change as a consequence of new modes of voting is an open question. Here we analyze all the votes cast both offline (n = 5.7 million) and online (n = 1.3 million) and compare the actual vote choices in a public policy referendum, the world's largest participatory budgeting process, in Rio Grande do Sul in June 2014. In addition to examining aggregate outcomes, we also conducted two surveys to better understand the demographic profiles of who chooses to vote online and offline. We find that policy preferences of online and offline voters are no different, even though our data suggest important demographic differences between offline and online voters.     

Appealing broadly while appearing unified: Resolving an electoral dilemma

Political parties have an electoral incentive to appear ideologically unified, but also to appeal broadly to different groups of voters with diverse preferences. This paper suggests that parties respond to both incentives through the distribution of candidate issue positions. Members of Parliament (MPs) are responsible for their party's national reputation and thus rarely take positions that diverge from those of their party. Non-incumbent candidates, on the other hand, are mostly visible within their electoral district and thus more likely to diverge from party positions that are unpopular among their constituents. These possibilities are tested with candidate position taking data from nine voting advice applications in Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Switzerland. The results are consistent with the theoretical expectations and have important implications for the way representation works in parliamentary democracies as well as for the broader literature on the topic.     

Voter‐weighted environmental preferences

This article examines the political economy of preferences with respect to the environment using a new stated preference survey that presents the first benefit values for national water quality levels. The mean valuation greatly exceeds the median value, as the distribution of valuations is highly skewed. The study couples the survey valuations with unique and extensive information on respondent voting patterns. Preferences of registered voters are similar to the preferences of the population at large, but median voters value water quality more than nonvoters. The strongest contrast related to voter‐weighted preferences is among voters for different candidates, as those who voted for Gore in the 2000 presidential election have the highest environmental values. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Does Sex Encourage Commitment? The Impact of Candidate Choices on the Time-to-Decision

The sex of a congressional candidate can influence voting choices, but does candidate sex also influence the timing of those choices? This paper examines that question in light of other information that voters weigh in making their decisions. Using a national survey from the 2006 election, and a unique dataset of political informants, we find that the sex of the candidate conveys ideological information that permits voters to make swifter judgments. Additionally, it reduces the probability of a delayed decision by supplying information helpful to the choice between candidates—even in the absence of ideology. In fact, the impact of candidate sex rivals other variables that are traditionally used to explain the time-to-decision. Consistent with the literature on sex stereotypes, we find a stronger influence for Democratic than Republican female candidates.     

A computational electoral competition model with social clustering and endogenous interest groups as information brokers

We extend the basic model of spatial competition in two directions. First, political parties and voters do not have complete information but behave adaptively. Political parties use polls to search for policy platforms that maximize the probability of winning an election and the voting decision of voters is influenced by social interaction. Second, we allow for the emergence of interest groups. These interest groups transmit information about voter preferences to the political parties, and they coordinate voting behavior. We use simulation methods to investigate the convergence properties of this model. We find that the introduction of social dynamics and interest groups increases the separation between parties platforms, prohibits convergence to the center of the distribution of voter preferences, and increases the size of the winning set.     

Projection effects and strategic ambiguity in electoral competition

Theories from psychology suggest that voters’ perceptions of political positions depend on their non-policy related attitudes towards the candidates. A voter who likes (dislikes) a candidate will perceive the candidate’s position as closer to (further from) his own than it really is. This is called projection. If voters’ perceptions are not counterfactual and voting is based on perceived policy positions then projection gives generally liked candidates an incentive to be ambiguous. In this paper we extend the standard Downsian model in order to investigate under what conditions this incentive survives in the strategic setting of electoral competition.