Showing papers on "Voting behavior published in 1994"

Shortcuts versus encyclopedias: information and voting behavior in california insurance reform elections

Abstract: Voters in mass elections are notorious for their apparent lack of information about relevant political matters. While some scholars argue that an electorate of well-informed voters is necessary for the production of responsive electoral outcomes, others argue that apparently ignorant voters will suffice because they can adapt their behavior to the complexity of electoral choice. To evaluate the validity of these arguments, I develop and analyze a survey of California voters who faced five complicated insurance reform ballot initiatives. I find that access to a particular class of widely available information shortcuts allowed badly informed voters to emulate the behavior of relatively well informed voters. This finding is suggestive of the conditions under which voters who lack encyclopedic information about the content of electoral debates can nevertheless use information shortcuts to vote as though they were well informed.

Ideology and the theory of political choice

Abstract: There is no unified theory that can explain both voter choice and where choices come from. Hinich and Munger fill that gap with their model of political communication based on ideology.Rather than beginning with voters and diffuse, atomistic preferences, Hinich and Munger explore why large groups of voters share preference profiles, why they consider themselves "liberals" or "conservatives." The reasons, they argue, lie in the twin problems of communication and commitment that politicians face. Voters, overloaded with information, ignore specific platform positions. Parties and candidates therefore communicate through simple statements of goals, analogies, and by invoking political symbols. But politicians must also commit to pursuing the actions implied by these analogies and symbols. Commitment requires that ideologies be used consistently, particularly when it is not in the party's short-run interest.The model Hinich and Munger develop accounts for the choices of voters, the goals of politicians, and the interests of contributors. It is an important addition to political science and essential reading for all in that discipline."Hinich and Munger's study of ideology and the theory of political choice is a pioneering effort to integrate ideology into formal political theory. It is a major step in directing attention toward the way in which ideology influences the nature of political choices." --Douglass C. North." . . represents a significant contribution to the literature on elections, voting behavior, and social choice." --Policy CurrentsMelvin Hinich is Professor of Government, University of Texas. Michael C. Munger is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina.

The comparative Study of electoral Systems

Abstract: Preface Foreword About the Contributors PART I INTRODUCTION 1. The Impact of Political Institutions PART II THE PROJECT 2. 'Big Social Science' in Comparative Politics 3. Methodological Challenges PART III ELECTORAL PARTICIPATION 4. Socio-economic Status and Non-voting 5. Electoral Systems, Efficacy, and Voter Turnout PART IV POLITICAL PARTIES, CANDIDATES, AND ISSUES 6. Multiple Party Identifications 7. Candidate Recognition in Different Electoral Systems 8. Who Represents Us Best? One Member or Many? 9. Economic Voting 10. The Ease of Ideological Voting 11. How Voters Cope With the Complexity of Their Political Environment PART V EXPRESSIVE AND INSTRUMENTAL VOTING 12. Expressive versus Instrumental Motivation of Turnout, Partisanship, and Political Learning 13. District Magnitude and the Comparative Study of Strategic Voting PART VI POLITICAL SUPPORT 14. Institutional Variation and Political Support: An Analysis of CSES Data from 29 Countries 15. Effectiveness and Political Support in Old and New Democracies Appendix 1: Final Report of the 1995-6 Planning Committee Appendix 2: The micro-level questionnaire of Module 1 Appendix 3: The macro-level questionnaire of Module 1 References Index

Issues, candidate image, and priming: the use of private polls in kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign

Abstract: Interpretations of electoral campaigns have pointed to two mutually exclusive strategies: candidates are expected to focus either on policy issues or on personal image. We argue, however, that social psychologists' notion of priming offers an empirically grounded and theoretically plausible campaign strategy for treating image and issues as interconnected strategic concerns. Based on both quantitative and historical analysis of John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, we find that the candidate's policy positions were related to results from his private public opinion polls. Archival and interview evidence suggests that Kennedy deliberately used these popular issues to shape the electorate's standards for evaluating his personal attributes (rather than to win over utility-maximizing voters). We conclude that the study of priming offers one important approach to reintegrating research on candidate strategy and voter behavior.

Macroeconomic Conditions and Electoral Politics in East Central Europe

Abstract: While the economic voting literature is extensive, scholars have paid relatively little attention to the question of how or whether the economy affects voting behavior in nonWestern democracies. I address this issue by examining national elections in three recent East Central European democracies: Bulgaria, the former Czech and Slovak Federated Republic, and Poland. Using aggregate interregional data, the macroeconomic impact on turnout and voter choice is assessed in elections held from 1990 to 1992. I argue that the effect of economic adversity on turnout is withdrawal and that the effect on party choice is punishment for incumbents held responsible for economic reform and reward for both mainstream and extremist challengers. Implications for the study of elections and the future of electoral politics in East Central Europe are discussed.

Is There Personalization in Politics? Candidates and Voting Behavior in Germany

Abstract: In analyzing the democratic political process, political leader- ship is important. One element of leadership is the role politicians play in shaping public perceptions of politics. A particular concern in this respect is that television with emphasis on the individual may in the long run depoliticize politics in the eyes of citizens and the political process itself. Another aspect of leadership is the extent to which candidates for, and holders of, high political office influence voters' electoral choices. Data from a large content-analysis of the 1990 German general election as well as survey data from a series of German election studies are used to test the extent to which various measures of personalization display the expected rise in importance. All findings support the notion that, at least in Germany, personalization cannot be observed. This result emphasizes the role of the institutional make-up of a given political system by stress- ing the difference between presidential and parliamentary states.

Information aggregation through costly political action

Abstract: Information about various policy alternatives is dispersed among the individual members of a society. Prior to a vote over the alternatives, some people take costly political action to signal their private information to voters. By informing voting decisions, political action has potential to decrease the likelihood that voters cast 'mistaken' votes. Perhaps surprisingly, preelection communication may be counterproductive. The dispersed information is partially aggregated by the vote and political action may contribute 'noise' to the voting process. In some cases, the voting mechanism is more likely to implement the full-information voting outcome in the absence of preelection political action. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.

Beyond Rokeach's Equality-Freedom Model: Two-Dimensional Values in a One-Dimensional World

Abstract: This article supports a two-value model of political ideology, similar to that proposed by Rokeach (1973), through the validation of two value orientation scales, international harmony and equality and national strength and order. Drawing on data from five samples, these value orientations are shown to be independent, robust, and predictably related to other value constructs, social attitudes, voting behavior, and political activism. The two-dimensional model is reconciled with the ubiquitous left-right attitudinal continuum through differentiating between the psychological world of ideas and the political world of action. Political institutions have traditionally imposed a trade-off mentality on decision-making behavior, and the left-right dichotomy is a useful heuristic for making trade-offs when other options are not apparent. This paper argues that individuals adopt a framework that is different from that imposed by political institutions. Their framework allows both security conscious and protective values to be held alongside humanitarian and sharing values, and their liberalism-conservatism can be predicted by the degree to which one value orientation outweighs the other. The middle ground on liberalism-conservatism, therefore, is not the sole domain of the politically naive or disinterested: It is also the domain of those with balanced yet strong social value commitments who may experience lack of engagement with left-right political discourse.

Retrospective and Prospective Voting in Presidential-Year Elections

Abstract: This paper addresses the debate over whether retrospective or prospective economic voting has the greater impact on electoral behavior. Considering the presidential elections of 1984 and 1988, we develop models of the effects of economic evaluations on voting in presidential and congressional elections. First, we test this model for the overall electorate. Then, we divide our sample between voters who do and do not hold government economic policies responsible for fluctuations in personal and national well-being. We find that retrospective economic judgments have the stronger and more consistent impact on voting behavior in nearly every case. We discuss the implications of these findings for elections research.

Political efficacy: Enhancing the construct and its relationship to mobilization of people

Abstract: Political efficacy is a term used to represent an individual's perceived ability to participate in and influence the political system. It has been suggested that political efficacy is composed of two distinct components: internal and external political efficacy (Balch, 1974; McPherson, Miller, Welch, & Clark, 1977). The purpose of this article is to work toward an even broader and more precise conceptualization of political efficacy and its relationship to mobilization of people. Collective political efficacy is proposed as a third component in the political efficacy construct. Research findings presented in the article offer some exploratory information concerning the relationships of this new component with the other political efficacy components. The findings are from a research project that involved the creation of a Homeless Persons Union. In addition to examining relationships among the political efficacy components, findings revealing effects of the intervention are briefly described in order to examine further the role of political efficacy in relation to mobilization of people.

A Structural Theory of Vote Choice: Social and Political Networks and Electoral Flows in Britain and the United States

Abstract: The question of how social and political networks influence political behavior stands at the theoretical heart of this article. A general hypothesis details the patterns of crisscrossing and overlapping lines of division and cohesion as they relate to voting decisions: As individuals vary in their membership in mutually reinforcing social and political networks, they vary in the likelihood of persistently voting for the same political party and never voting for other parties. Analyses of panel data on British (1964-1966; 1966-1970; 1964-1966-1970; 1970-1974) and American voters (1956-1960) found supporting evidence for a series of hypotheses and empirical generalizations derived from the general proposition.

Political Talk Radio: A Stereotype Reconsidered

Abstract: Despite its popularity and controversial character, few studies of political talk radio have been conducted. Little evidence for the hypothesis that political talk radio leads to alienation, social and political isolation, cynicism, and political withdrawal was found among a population-based sample of 525 adults in San Diego, California. Respondents reported widespread exposure to talk radio, although they often did not discriminate accurately among political, nonpolitical, and other program ming. Exposure was associated with traditional forms of political participation, beliefs in self-efficacy linked to specific political behaviors, and psychological involvement in politics. Increased penetration of the public may have altered the nature of the political talk radio audience so that exposure to talk radio is more closely associated with customary forms of political involvement than with social and political alienation.

The effect of information on voting behavior and electoral outcomes: An experimental study of direct legislation

Abstract: This paper reports on the use of laboratory experiments to identify the effect of information on voting behavior and electoral outcomes in the direct legislation environment. I showed that when incompletely informed voters know that the setter has paid a certain amount to contest an election, they can use this information to increase the likelihood that they cast the same votes they would have cast had they possessed complete information. As a consequence of the way voter strategies were affected by information, the likelihood that the “incomplete information” electoral outcome was the same as the electoral outcome that would have been chosen by a completely informed electorate increases, as does the responsiveness of direct legislation outcomes to “complete information” voter preferences. While this research does not resolve long standing questions about the responsiveness of democratic institutions, it does add to what we understand about responsiveness by demonstrating conditions under which incompletely informed voters can generate the electoral outcomes that they would have if better informed. This research also informs the debate about the use of the referendum and initiative to determine policy. My answer to the question: “Is direct legislation is a useful mechanism for obtaining policy outcomes that correspond to the “will of the majority” or is it a way for small, wealthy interest groups to subvert the “popular will,”” is that direct legislation can be both. When voters are badly informed (or the electoral alternatives are reasonably complex), and there are no effective information cues available, small groups who have enough resources to obtain agenda control can use direct legislation to obtain preferred outcomes. When meaningful cues are available (or the effect of electoral alternatives are easy to understand), then direct legislation can be useful tool for the implementation of majority-preferred policies.

A Critique of the Self-Interested Voter Model: The Case of a Local Single Issue Referendum

Abstract: In recent years, economists have sought to extend the logic of marginal analysis to topics not traditionally considered within the domain of the discipline. Among the areas to which this analysis has been expanded is political behavior under a research program widely known as public choice.1 The empirical tradition of public choice uses the utility maximization behavioral assumption of economic theory to construct and estimate models of voting behavior [Mueller 1989; Mitchell 1990]. At the conceptual level, this assumption permits inclusion of direct self-interest, altruism, and community duty in explanations of decisions on whether and how to vote. However, predictive empirical models of voter choice typically specify an individual's utility function solely in terms of direct self-interest [Feldman 1984, 229]. Within the empirical public choice literature, direct tests of the self-interested voter assumption have been hampered by two data problems. First, while hypotheses are about motivations and responses of individual voters, the data available is usually aggregate census data or voting precinct data. The problems of using aggregate data in testing hypotheses about individual voter decision making have been noted in several studies [Deacon and

Electoral Systems, Party Competition, and Strength of Partisan Attachment: Evidence from Three Countries

Abstract: This article brings together the literatures on individual voting behavior and on the effect of electoral systems. While most students of tactical voting stress the link between voter choice and electoral systems, we argue that electoral systems shape not just the incentives of vote choice, but also have an impact on the deeper psychology of attachment to political parties. We argue that party identification is shaped not just by personal factors but also, and perhaps more importantly, by party and electoral systems. We present evidence from three countries--Australia, Canada, and Germany--consistent with our argument.

Reward Without Punishment: Economic Conditions and the Vote:

Abstract: It is often suggested that voter dissatisfaction is a more important determinant of behavior than satisfaction. In the familiar terms of economic voting, this negativity bias implies that voters are more likely to punish than reward incumbents for the status of the economy. However; economic conditions affect not only how people vote but whether they vote, such that during periods of poor economic performance much of the public resentment toward the in-party is absorbed by abstention (Rosenstone 1982). Thus, the impact of recession is muted by the reduced propensity of those suffering its effects to actually vote. Given this fact, it appears that the president's party is more consistently rewarded for its economic successes than it is punished for its failures. It is often suggested that dissatisfaction with governmental performance is a more important determinant of political behavior than is satisfaction. Citizens, it is argued, are more likely to press for an amelioration of grievances than to express their satisfaction with the status quo. Consequently, the argument continues, there is a propensity for poor governmental performance to bear a stronger relationship with electoral behavior than positive performance. This phenomenon, often thought of as "negative voting," is a manifestation of a more general negativity bias, such that voters tend to give greater weight "to negative information relative to equally extreme and equally likely positive information" (Lau 1985). The classical voting behavior literature is replete with suggestions of negative voting. In the two best-known examples, Key (1966) posits that "people vote only against, never fort' while Campbell et al. (1960) conjecture that the electorate "is more likely to punish an incumbent party for its mistakes than reward it for its successes'" While negativity is only a minor theme in these works (offered more as a hypothesis than an empirically demonstrated fact),

Elections at home and abroad : essays in honor of Warren E. Miller

Abstract: Elections are the cornerstone of democratic government, yet among scholars several major issues remain unresolved in the study of voting choice. Incorporating work by a host of international scholars, Elections at Home and Abroad addresses a number of these issues to expand the frontiers of voting studies. The contributors to this volume take as their point of departure the breadth of work done by Warren E. Miller, a key player in the development of scientific voting studies in the United States and Europe. They examine such issues as party partisanship, divided government, voting contexts, theories of voting, and relationships between political elites and mass publics. Reflecting Miller's own view, the volume includes much work on cross-national studies. For comparativists and Americans, Elections at Home and Abroad speaks to anyone engaged in questions of voting behavior, public opinion, and political parties.

Political shirking and the last term problem: Evidence for a party-administered pension system

Abstract: Studies of political shirking have disagreed both over whether the voting behavior of Members of Congress changes in their last term, and over the manner in which last term shirking can be controlled: through electoral sorting, or through a pension system. This paper presents evidence that Members of Congress who leave the House to run for statewide office do alter their voting behavior between the two sessions of their last House term, and that this change includes an ideological shift toward their state party delegations. The results suggest that a party-driven pension system influences the voting of House members who aspire to higher office, but that the pension system is not sufficient to control the last term shirking likely to occur if term limitations were imposed on House members.

Question wording and mass policy preferences: The comparative impact of substantive information and peripheral cues

Abstract: Understanding the dynamics of mass political behavior requires attention to the mechanisms and processes citizens use in evaluating political affairs. At its structural core, a political appraisal has much in common with most of the other decisions individuals must make each day. Consequently, insight can be gained by examining political judgments from the perspective of those psychological theories concerned with information processing and decision making. More specifically, because the American citizen typically must maximize cognitive efficiency when evaluating political phenomena, those psychological mechanisms that facilitate expedience and simplicity in decision making are likely to operate on a great diversity of political judgments. Hence theoretical perspectives concerning the role of heuristic principles of judgment may be of considerable utility for the study of mass political behavior. One such perspective, the heuristic‐systematic model, is discussed. The tenets of the heuristic‐systematic mo...

The Politics and Economics of Constitutional Choice: Voting in Canada's 1992 National Referendum

Abstract: National referendums have been used with increasing frequency in democracies to decide important political issues, but systematic studies of voting behavior in these events remain in short supply. This article employs national survey data to study voting in Canada's 1992 national referendum on constitutional reform. Attitudes toward the referendum proposal and process and its possible consequences for the country had important effects on the vote. However, net of these and other factors, voters' economic evaluations were influential. The political economy of the vote was such that widespread dissatisfaction with a faltering economy eroded support for the referendum proposal by lowering support for a government that had negotiated the constitutional accord and campaigned vigorously on its behalf.

Voting and imitative behavior

Abstract: Political behavior generates private benefits by helping people fit in with desired friends. A voter imitates other voters, but at the same time they imitate him. An equilibrium solution requires exogenous variables: the narrow self-interest of the participants. The reduced form makes one's vote a function of the narrow self- interest of others as well as one's own. In accord with the model, a person's party identification depends on his ethnic group's current income and its income in 1909 as well as his own income. I. INTRODUCTION What determines how people vote? Most economists, such as Peltzman [1980], have emphasized self-interested motivations. But Kau and Rubin [1982] and Kalt and Zupan [1984] claim that ideology, based in part on altruism, influences voting patterns. Both hypotheses have the same fundamental flaw: they focus on the consequences of the policies for which people vote. In the Peltzman model a person votes for those policies which maximize his real income. I call this narrow self-interest. In the standard altruism models of economists, a person maximizes some weighted average of the real income of himself and others.[1] However, an individual's vote has a minuscule impact on the outcome of any election. Therefore, his vote for a policy yields extremely small expected returns through the impact of that policy on the voter. Other returns from voting will dominate in determining behavior, if such returns exist. Some economists, for example, Brennan and Buchanan [1984], have recognized this problem with the standard or "economic" view. No one, however, has developed an alternative theory based on other returns to voting. The key point of this paper is that political behavior can generate private benefits by helping people fit in with desired friends and associates: a "herd effect" to give this phenomenon a name. Political positions are thus chosen not because they produce the desired outcomes for voters, but rather because voters want to associate with certain people who have certain positions; that is, people imitate others in choosing political positions. The idea for imitation in political positions is hardly new. Berelson et al. [1954] provide a prima facie case for imitation in voting behavior. They found that a person's political position was closely related to the political positions of his coworkers and friends. Of course, these results could be attributable to the fact that these groups share common characteristics, but the Berelson data also show that people change their political position toward that of their associates--a phenomenon more difficult to explain by the common characteristic hypothesis. Imitation is uninteresting as a predictor of behavior by itself, however. A voter imitates other voters, but at the same time they imitate him. An equilibrium solution requires exogenous variables. I assume these to be the narrow self-interest of the participants. The resulting model differs from a simple narrow self-interest model. In the reduced form, one's political decision is a function of the narrow self-interest of others as well as one's own narrow self-interest. Imitation along with the self-interest of the participants leads both to additional tests of imitation and makes the imitation model of interest in understanding political behavior. Imitation could be an attempt to please others who have a primitive preference for friends who imitate themselves. Alternatively, imitation could signal an offer of friendship by the imitator. Without invoking preferences for friends who imitate, such signalling could therefore explain why people care whether somebody imitates their political behavior or not. Imitation could also arise from another process. People's views of appropriate behavior could be determined by the behavior of those with whom they associate.[2] Narrow self-interest can also generate a form of imitation: imitating the behavior of people with like interests who are more informed. …

Why did economic models falsely predict a bush landslide in 1992

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION On July 27, 1992, Robert Samuelson wrote: Fair's formula anticipates a Bush landslide by 56 to 44 percent. Even if the economy doesn't grow at all, Bush's margin is 54 to 46. Economic models now familiar to most economists predicted an imminent landslide victory in 1992 for former President George Bush. Needless to say, the landslide did not materialize. Economic models of voting behavior in U.S. Presidential elections, popularized by Fair (1978, 1982, 1988) and extended by Gleisner (1992) and others, rely primarily upon key macroeconomic variables (e.g., inflation and economic growth rates) and incumbency to predict the outcomes of Presidential elections. Overall, the models' predictive power had been impressive until 1992, with the exception of 1976, when Watergate and the resulting Presidential pardon for Richard M. Nixon caused the models to overestimate President Ford's strength. Why, then, did the model falsely predict a Bush landslide in 1992, with a predicted victory margin of eight to 12 percentage points? One possibility is that 1992 was a "bad draw" for the model, a potential hazard for all statistical models. That is, unforeseen factors completely unique to the 1992 election--similar to the effect of Watergate in the 1976 election--upset the model's usually strong power. In particular, the emergence of Ross Perot as a strong third candidate in 1992 is a possible factor. However, election-day exit polls do not support this explanation. The polls suggested that Perot drew votes evenly from Bush and Clinton (Facts on File, 1992). The analysis here examines a different possibility--that the model's failure in 1992 reflects a fundamental misspecification from which one may glean new insight into the behavior of the U.S. electorate. One source of potential misspecification is the omission of important "non-economic" issues. In particular, the recent demise of the Soviet Union and the now unchallenged superpower status of the United States suggest that national security considerations have declined in importance. Indeed, media coverage of the 1992 election often mentioned this phenomenon. Samuelson (1992) for example noted that, "The Cold War is over, suggesting a major political shift." However, Fair's (1978, 1988) previous attempts to incorporate a proxy for national security issues, while suggestive, were not successful in significantly increasing the model's explanatory power. The apparent insignificance of national security considerations appears to be the consequence of omitting nonlinear interactions between economic and noneconomic factors. Binary-choice models based upon voter utility in general do not yield linear behavior if utility functions are quasi-concave. Of course, linear models often yield powerful approximations to behavior. The critical question thus is whether nonlinear behavior is important in the present case. Hence, the analysis here examines interactions between economic and non-economic (i.e., national-security) factors. A second potential misspecification is the exclusion of a more narrowly political variable: the number of consecutive terms a party has been in power. Presidential elections are binary outcomes; only one partisan candidate is elected to office. If voters prefer a convex combination of the two parties, then voters may become more supportive of the opposition with each successive term for an incumbent. Voters may be increasingly drawn to opportunities to "balance" the long-run electoral outcome. Thus, the number of consecutive terms for an incumbent party may be inversely related, all else the same, with its electoral support. If so, then the traditional advantage of incumbency diminishes with each consecutive electoral term. Indeed, Abramowitz (1988) finds that the influence of Presidential incumbency is positive after one term in office but negative after two or more terms. II. MODEL The analysis here follows Fair's (1978) theoretical approach, where economic performance determines a voter's utility, extended to include noneconomic determinants (Fair, 1978, 1988). …

Abortion Attitudes and Vote Choice in the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Elections

Abstract: Existing research has failed to discover a significant impact of abortion attitudes on voting behavior in national elections, despite evidence that abortion is an issue with great potential for political mobilization and partisan realignment. This article reexamines this issue and finds that pro-choice attitudes do influence voting behavior at the individual level in national elections. No evidence is found for a similar effect among those with intense antiabortion attitudes.

Voting and the Spirit of American Democracy: Essays on the History of Voting and Voting Rights in America

Abstract: This overview of the historical development of the right to vote is the first to appear in over twenty years. Writing in a succinct and lively manner, leading historians and political scientists trace the history of American voting from the colonial period to the present, incorporating the latest scholarship on suffrage reform, woman suffrage, black voting rights, and electoral participation. They explain how voting practices changed over time as the result of broad historical forces such as economic growth, demographic shifts, the results of war, and the rise of political reform movements. By viewing voting within a broad historical context, this book distinguishes itself from narrow, specialized studies, making it a valuable volume for students and general readers.

The use and effect of political propaganda in democracies

Abstract: This paper examines the influence of political propaganda on voters and analyses the behavior of the interest groups in the face of the influence being exercised. By propaganda semitruths are distributed among the electorate. The decision taken by a voter results from his basic opinion and from the parts of information he receives. The analysis shows that the greater the likelihood of a certain decision being reached by a fully informed electorate, the more probable it is that the same decision will be reached by a rationally uninformed electorate. The pecuniary interest of an interest group is, however, also positively correlated with the probability that the electorate reaches a decision which is agreeable to that interest group. It has finally become apparent that the results of the approach concur well with empirical studies.

Whatever Happened to Political Education

Abstract: Schools are always involved with political learning. The nature of that political learning, though, is always likely to change and in recent years there have been very significant shifts. This paper argues that the National Curriculum has deliberately neglected to promote professional forms of political learning which will be termed political education and replaced them instead with education for citizenship. The bulk of this argument is based on an analysis of literature although use is made of data gathered from a small sample of experts in the field of political learning.

Politics in multiparty context: multiplicative specifications, social influence, and electoral choice

Abstract: Explanations of electoral choice most frequently focus on the isolated characteristics of voters and examine those characteristics using linear, additive formulations. We explore two alternatives. We first argue that in a multiparty electoral context, the structuring influence of ideology on the vote often will be best represented with a multiplicative specification. Second, we contend that the impact of individual-level traits such as ideology will be moderated by the political climate of the voter's social context. We test these alternative formulations using data concerning the 1989 elections in Honduras, where two major parties and two minor parties vied for support. Multinomial logistic regression results demonstrate that a multiplicative and contextual specification substantially outperforms a more conventional modeling strategy. In explaining electoral choice, political scientists have focused considerable attention on characteristics of the individual voter. Voting behavior most frequently is depicted as a consequence of individual traits such as education, occupation, income, ideology, and partisan affiliation (e.g., Campbell et al. 1960; Jackson 1975; Markus and Converse 1979; Nie, Verba, and Petrocik 1976; Page and Jones 1979). When concentrating on characteristics such as these, analysts implicitly introduce two general assumptions to their models of the vote. First, most models of electoral choice posit the existence of additive relationDAMARYS CANACHE is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Pittsburgh. JEFFERY J. MONDAK is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh. ANNABELLE CONROY is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Pittsburgh. They thank Mitchell Seligson, who coordinated the Central American Public Opinion Project. Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 58:509-538 ( 1994 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research All rights reserved. 0033-362X/94/5804-0004$02.50 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.176 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 06:29:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 510 Damarys Canache, Jeffery J. Mondak, and Annabelle Conroy ships among the variables. Second, explanatory variables typically represent only the isolated demographic characteristics and political predispositions of the individual voter, and only such individual-level traits are considered to be potential determinants of the vote. The pervasiveness of these assumptions throughout the voting literature is easily understood in light of the parsimony of additive models and the relative ease with which individual-level data can be obtained. However, these assumptions also raise significant substantive concerns that are rarely addressed by students of electoral behavior. In this article we demonstrate that multiplicative and contextual explanations of electoral choice can substantially outperform more conventional specifications both normatively and empirically. We will begin by outlining the logic of multiplicative and contextual modeling strategies. These perspectives will then be tested empirically through analysis of electoral choice in a multiparty political context. Specifically, our data are drawn from a survey conducted in Honduras in 1991. The survey includes questions concerning the 1989 Honduran elections, the third elections following a decade of military dictatorship in that country. Unique features of the survey's design will allow us to explore the electoral significance of a mix of individual-level and contextual factors. Additive and Multiplicative Explanations of Electoral