The theoretical account of voting behavior drew heavily upon the metaphor of a 'funnel of causality'. The external factors would be the factors that, in the basic theory of the psycho-sociological approach, it would seem that this is what can do but if we have a certain partisan attachment to vote for another party because we are influenced by one or other of these factors but, basically, we keep our partisan attachment and the next time when these factors change, we return to the normal vote corresponding to the partisan attachment. The system in the United States is bipartisan and the question asked was "Do you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat or otherwise? 0000003292 00000 n
By finding something else, he shaped a dominant theory explaining the vote. This is the idea of collective action, since our own contribution to an election or vote changes with the number of other citizens who vote. 0000005382 00000 n
There is an idea of interdependence between political supply and demand, between parties and voters, which is completely removed from other types of explanations. . The goal of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the measurement of suicide severity based on the Columbia suicide severity rating scale. From the perspective of the issue vote, there are four main ways to explain how and why voters are going to vote a certain way and why parties are going to position themselves. This approach has often been criticized as a static approach since socio-economic or even socio-demographic characteristics do not change in the short term and yet the vote increasingly changes in the short term, what is called in electoral volatility, i.e. We can talk about two major theories or two major models or even three models. Ecological regression represents one extreme: the presumption that voting behavior changes systematically across groups but only changes randomly, if at all, within groups. This model leaves little room for the ideology which is the idea that by putting so much emphasis on the emotional voter and feelings, it leaves little room for the ideology that is central to explaining the economic model of the vote. Partisan identification becomes stronger over time. 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. But more generally, when there is a campaign, the issues are discussed. Then a second question was supposed to measure the strength of that identification with the question "do you consider yourself a Republican, strong, weak or leaning towards the Democratic 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. That is called the point of indifference. _____ were the first widespread barriers to the franchise to be eliminated. 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. 0000002253 00000 n
Proximity means the closeness of the voter's interests to the political proposals that are made with the parties. Several studies show that the impact of partisan identification varies greatly from one context to another. it takes a political position that evokes the idea of symbolic politics in a more salient way. According to Downs, based on the prospective assessment that voters make of the position that voters have and their position on various issues, voters arrive at and operate this shortcut by situating and bringing parties back to an ideological dimension that may be a left-right dimension but may also be another one. These are possible answers more to justify and account for this anomaly. Voting for a candidate from one party in one race and for the other party's candidate in another race is known as. Theoretically, it is possible to have as many dimensions as there are issues being discussed in an election campaign. This economic theory of the vote, this rationalist theory, has a great advantage over the other models, which is that it does not only focus on voters, that is to say, it does not only focus on political demand, but it also looks at supply and especially at the interaction between supply and demand. The role of the centrality of partisan identification has been criticized, especially today, because partisan identification plays a role that is still important but much less important than it used to be and may be much less important than some researchers within this paradigm have postulated. In this approach, it is possible to say that the voter accepts the arguments of a certain party because he or she feels close to a party and not the opposite which would be what the economic model of the vote postulates, that is to say that we listen to what the party has to say and we will choose that party because we are convinced by what that party says. 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. This study presents an automated and accurate . to 1/n,and thus the expected utility of voting is proportional to N/n, which is approximately independent of the size of the electorate.3 In the basic rational-choice model of voting and political participation (see Blais 2000 for an overview and many references), the relative util-ity of voting, for a particular eligible voter, is: U = pB . The idea is to see what are all the factors that explain the electoral choice. In Person: 971 W Duval St. Ste. Maximizing utility is done in proximity to certain issues. 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. Lazarsfeld's book created this research paradigm. [14] They try to answer the question of how partisan identification is developing and how partisan identification has weakened because they look at the stability over time of partisan identification. trailer
With regard to the limits, methodological individualism has often been evoked, saying that it is an exclusively micro-sociological perspective that neglects the effect of social structure. On that basis, voters calculate the utility income of the different parties and then they look at and evaluate the partisan differential. Fiorina proposed an alternative way to explain why voters vote for one party rather than another, or a different answer to how the position of different candidate parties can be assessed. The influence of friends refers to opinion leaders and circles of friends. There are two important issues in relation to the spatial theory of voting. This is something that remains difficult in theory, we don't know how much the voter will discount. 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. Some parties have short-term strategies for maximizing voting and others have long-term strategies for social mobilization. Voters have knowledge of the ideological positions of parties or candidates on one or more ideological dimensions and they use this knowledge to assess the political positions of these parties or candidates on specific issues. However, this is empirically incorrect. 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. 0000010337 00000 n
In the Michigan model, the idea of stakes was already present but was somewhat underdeveloped, and this perspective on the role of stakes in the psychosocial model lent itself to both theoretical and empirical criticism from proponents of rationalist models. 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 importance of symbols lies in what arouses emotions. 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. They find that partisan identification becomes more stable with age, so the older you get, the more partisan identification you have, so it's much easier to change when you're young. Comparative Political Studies, 27(2), 155189. From that point on, there has been the development of a whole body of literature on political psychology. is premised on the assumption that elections connect the will of the people to the actions of government. p. 31). carried out by scholars at Columbia. Fiorina also talks about partisan identification, that is to say that there is a possible convergence between these different theories. Value orientations refer to materialism as well as post-materialism, among other things, cleavages but no longer from a value perspective. The idea of intensity can also be seen as the idea that there are certain issues, that there are certain political positions that put forward symbols and some of these symbols evoke making these two issues more visible to voters but in the sense of making voters say that this particular party is going in that direction and with a high intensity. In Personality traits and party identification over time published in 2014 by Bakker, Hopmann and Persson, the authors attempt to explain partisan identification. Three elements should be noted. It is possible to determine direction based on the "neutral point" which is the point in the middle, or it is also possible to determine direction from the "status quo". 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. Ideal point models assume that lawmakers and bills are represented as points in a latent space. For Przeworski and Sprague, there may be another logic that is not one of maximizing the electorate in the short term but one of mobilizing the electorate in the medium and long term. We must also, and above all, look at the links between types of factors. The problem of information is crucial in the spatial theories of voting and who would need an answer to fully understand these different theories. Symbolic politics says that what is important in politics are not necessarily the rationally perceived positions or the political positions of the parties but what the political symbols evoke in relation to certain issues. This creates a concern for circularity of reasoning. Sociological Model (Columbia Model) Social-Psychological Model (Michigan Model) Economic / Rational Choice Model (Rochester Model) 5 Sociological Model. If certain conditions are present, such as good democratic functioning within the party, activists will have the opportunity to exercise "voice" and influence positions. Pages pour les contributeurs dconnects en savoir plus. Often, in the literature, the sociological and psycho-sociological model fall into the same category, with a kind of binary distinction between the theories that emphasize social, belonging and identification on the one hand, and then the rationalist and economic theories of the vote, which are the economic theories of the vote that focus instead on the role of political issues, choices and cost-benefit calculations. Radical approach regards class-based (structural) model as outdated and insufficient to explain . On the other hand, this is true for the directional model; they manage to perceive a policy direction. 1948, Berelson et . 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. We talk about the electoral market in the media or the electoral supply. Professor Political Science Buena Vista University Two basic concerns: Turnout ("Who votes?") Key questions: What are the characteristics and attitudes of voters vs. nonvoters? In other words, they are voters who are not prepared to pay all these costs and therefore want to reduce or improve the cost-benefit ratio which is the basis of this electoral choice by reducing the costs and the benefit will remain unchanged. 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. La dernire modification de cette page a t faite le 11 novembre 2020 00:26. One of the merits, which can be found in Lazarsfeld's book entitled The People's Choice published in 1944 is that this model marks a turning point in the study of political behaviour. Downs already put ideology at the centre of his explanation. The sociological model at the theoretical level emphasizes something important that rationalist and economic theories have largely overlooked, namely, the importance of the role of social context, i.e., voters are all in social contexts and therefore not only family context but also a whole host of other social contexts. The degree of political sophistication, political knowledge, interest in politics varies from voter to voter. 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. There is also the economic vote, which is the role of the economy. These criticisms and limitations are related to the original model. This model of directional proximity with intensity illustrates what is called symbolic politics which is related to the problem of information. The economic model of the vote puts the notion of electoral choice back at the centre. Often, in Anglo-Saxon literature, this model is referred to as the party identification model. xxxiii, 178. The Neighborhood Model. The idea of prospective voting is very demanding. 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. We are not ignoring the psychological model, which focuses on the identification people have with parties without looking at the parties. The simple proximity model is that the voter will vote for the party or parties that are in the same direction. The theories that are supposed to explain the electoral choice also explain at the same time the electoral participation in particular with the sociological model. This article reviews the main theoretical models that explain the electoral behavior sociological model of voting behavior, psychosocial model of voting behavior and rational. For the sociological model we have talked about the index of political predisposition with the variables of socioeconomic, religious and spatial status. the translation of personal preference into a voluntary action designed to influence public policy There has been a lot of criticism that has allowed the idea of issue voting to develop in a rationalist context and models. The third criterion is rationality, which is that based on the theory of rational choice, voters mobilize the limited means at their disposal to achieve their goals, so they will choose the alternative among the political offer that costs them the least and brings them the greatest possible benefit. Voters try to maximize the usefulness of the vote, that is, they try to vote for the party that makes them more satisfied. 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 People's Choice (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944) xref
There are other cleavages that cut across Republicans and Democrats that should be taken into account to explain the pattern. It is multidimensional also in the bipartisan context of the United States because there are cleavages that cut across parties. 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. Understanding voters' behavior can explain how and why decisions were made either by public decision-makers, which has been a central concern for political scientists, [1] or by the electorate. Voting requires voters to know the candidates' positions on issues, but when there are several candidates or several parties, it is not very easy for some voters in particular. 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