CiteULike: Tag election

A Method of Scaling with Applications to the 1968 and 1972 Presidential Elections

John Aldrich — 2007-05-04T13:14:13-00:00

The American Political Science Review, Vol. 71, No. 1. (1977), pp. 111-130.

Signaling and Election Motivations in a Voting Model with Common Values and Responsive Candidates

Ronny Razin — 2008-07-01T12:22:26-00:00

Econometrica, Vol. 71, No. 4. (2003), pp. 1083-1119.

In this paper we focus on strategic voting behavior when both an election and a signaling motivation affect voters' behavior. We analyze a model of elections with two candidates competing on a one-dimensional policy space. Voters are privately and imperfectly informed about a common shock affecting the electorate's preferences. Candidates are assumed to choose policy in response to information gleaned from election results and according to exogenous factors that may lead to polarization in candidates' policy choices. We analyze a subset of symmetric equilibria in which strategies are symmetric to candidates' names and private signals (CSS equilibria). We show that signaling and election motivations pull voters to vote in different directions. We provide conditions that show the relation between the amount of information aggregated in the election and the motivation that influences voting behavior the most. Finally, we show that when candidates are responsive and polarized, all CSS equilibria are inefficient in the limit.

Incumbent performance and electoral control

John Ferejohn — 2008-07-01T07:19:09-00:00

Public Choice, Vol. 50, No. 1. (1 January 1986), pp. 5-25.

Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition

Timothy Besley — 2008-07-01T05:44:51-00:00

The American Economic Review, Vol. 85, No. 1. (1995), pp. 25-45.

This paper develops a model of the political economy of tax-setting in a multijurisdictional world, where voters' choices and incumbent behavior are determined simultaneously. Voters are assumed to make comparisons between jurisdictions to overcome political agency problems. This forces incumbents into a (yardstick) competition in which they care about what other incumbents are doing. We provide a theoretical framework and empirical evidence using U.S. state data from 1960 to 1988. The results are encouraging to the view that vote-seeking and tax-setting are tied together through the nexus of yardstick competition.

Electoral Platforms, Implemented Policies, and Abstention

Humberto Llavador — 2008-07-01T10:10:05-00:00

Social Choice and Welfare, Vol. 27, No. 1. (2006), pp. 55-81.

Abstract This paper distinguishes between electoral platforms and implemented policies through a non-trivial policy-setting process. Voters are sophisticated and may care not only about the implemented policy but also about the platform they support with their vote. We find that while parties tend to polarize their positions, the risk of alienating their constituency prevents them from radicalizing. The analysis evidences that the distribution of the electorate, and not only the (expected) location of a pivotal voter, matters in determining policies. Our results are consistent with the observation of polarized platforms and moderate policies, and the alienation and indifference components of abstention.

Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections With Private Information

Timothy Feddersen — 2008-07-01T07:16:00-00:00

Econometrica, Vol. 65, No. 5. (1997), pp. 1029-1058.

We analyze two-candidate elections in which voters are uncertain about the realization of a state variable that affects the utility of all voters. Each voter has noisy private information about the state variable. We show that the fraction of voters whose vote depends on their private information goes to zero as the size of the electorate goes to infinity. Nevertheless, elections fully aggregate information in the sense that the chosen candidate would not change if all private information were common knowledge. Equilibrium voting behavior is to a large extent determined by the electoral rule, i.e., if a candidate is required to get at least x percent of the vote in order to win the election, then in equilibrium this candidate gets very close to x percent of the vote with probability close to one. Finally, if the distribution from which preferences are drawn is uncertain, then elections will generally not satisfy full information equivalence and the fraction of voters who take informative action does not converge to zero.

Roll Calls, Party Labels, and Elections

James Snyder — 2008-07-14T14:40:17-00:00

Political Analysis, Vol. 11, No. 4. (2003), pp. 419-444.

We develop a model of legislative policymaking in which individual legislators are concerned with both policy and reelection. Legislators' preferences are private information, and they have two means of communicating their preferences to voters. First, they each have a “party label” that credibly identifies an interval within which their ideal points must lie. Second, their roll call votes may convey additional information about their preferences. Each legislator must therefore tailor his or her votes to his or her district in order to forestall a reelection challenge from the opposing party. In equilibrium, nonsincere voting records will occur mostly in moderate districts, where extreme incumbents are vulnerable to challenges from relatively centrist candidates. In those districts, the most extreme legislators may even choose to vote sincerely and retire rather than compile a moderate voting record. Thus, both roll call scores and candidate types will be responsive to district type. An empirical test of shifts in roll call scores of retiring House members in moderate districts confirms these findings.

Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits

Timothy Besley — 2008-07-15T06:20:03-00:00

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 110, No. 3. (1995), pp. 769-798.

This paper analyzes the behavior of U.S. governors from 1950 to 1986 to investigate a reputation-building model of political behavior. We argue that differences in the behavior of governors who face a binding term limit and those who are able to run again provides a source of variation in discount rates that can be used to test a political agency model. We find evidence that taxes, spending, and other policy instruments respond to a binding term limit if a Democrat is in office. The result is a fiscal cycle in term-limit states, which lowers state income when the term limit binds.

Competing for Endorsements

Gene Grossman — 2008-07-01T09:21:02-00:00

The American Economic Review, Vol. 89, No. 3. (1999), pp. 501-524.

Endorsements are a simple language for communication between interest-group leaders and group members. The members, who share policy concerns, may not perfectly understand where their interests lie on certain issues. If their leaders cannot fully explain the issues, they can convey some information by endorsing a candidate or party. When interest groups endorse legislative contenders, the candidates may compete for backing. Policies may favor special interests at the expense of the general public. We examine the conditions under which parties compete for endorsements, the extent to which policy outcomes are skewed, and the normative properties of the political equilibria.

Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective

Daron Acemoglu — 2006-11-17T18:16:28-00:00

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 115, No. 4. (2000), pp. 1167-1199.

During the nineteenth century most Western societies extended voting rights, a decision that led to unprecedented redistributive programs. We argue that these political reforms can be viewed as strategic decisions by the political elite to prevent widespread social unrest and revolution. Political transition, rather than redistribution under existing political institutions, occurs because current transfers do not ensure future transfers, while the extension of the franchise changes future political equilibria and acts as a commitment to redistribution. Our theory also offers a novel explanation for the Kuznets curve in many Western economies during this period, with the fall in inequality following redistribution due to democratization.

Voting by Successive Elimination and Strategic Candidacy

Bhaskar Dutta — 2008-07-14T07:11:55-00:00

Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 103, No. 1. (March 2002), pp. 190-218.

We study the impact of strategic choices of self-interested candidates of whether or not to enter an election. We focus on strategic candidacy in the context of the tree and binary voting procedures used by small groups such as committees. We offer a comprehensive analysis for the special but important case of voting by successive elimination. Strategic candidacy slightly enlarges the set of candidates that can be equilibrium outcomes relative to the traditional analysis which takes the set of candidates as fixed. Pareto-dominated candidates can be elected in equilibrium under voting by successive elimination when strategic candidacy is considered, in contrast with a fixed set of candidates. Journal of Economic Litterature Classification Numbers: D71, D72.

Electoral competition with privately-informed candidates

Dan Bernhardt — 2008-07-01T05:31:47-00:00

Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 58, No. 1. (January 2007), pp. 1-29.

This paper formulates and analyzes a general model of elections in which candidates receive private signals about voters' preferences prior to committing to political platforms. We fully characterize the unique pure-strategy equilibrium: After receiving her signal, each candidate locates at the median of the distribution of the median voter's location, conditional on the other candidate receiving the same signal. Sufficient conditions for the existence of pure strategy equilibrium are provided. Though the electoral game exhibits discontinuous payoffs for the candidates, we prove that mixed strategy equilibria exist generally, that equilibrium expected payoffs are continuous in the parameters of the model, and that mixed strategy equilibria are upper hemicontinuous. This allows us to study the robustness of the median voter theorem to private information: Pure strategy equilibria may fail to exist in models "close" to the Downsian model, but mixed strategy equilibria must, and they will be "close" to the Downsian equilibrium.

Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics

Gene Grossman — 2007-10-31T01:09:23-00:00

The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 63, No. 2. (1996), pp. 265-286.

We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a legislature. The parties have fixed positions on some issues, but vary their positions on others in order to attract votes and campaign contributions. In this context, we examine whether special interest groups are governed by an electoral motive or an influence in their campaign giving, and how their contributions affect the equilibrium platforms. We show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups. The party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests.

Election Goals and the Allocation of Campaign Resources

James Snyder — 2008-07-14T14:28:37-00:00

Econometrica, Vol. 57, No. 3. (1989), pp. 637-660.

This paper compares the equilibrium behavior and outcomes in a model of two-party competition for legislative seats, under two different assumptions about the parties' goals: (i) parties maximize the expected number of seats won, and (ii) parties maximize the probability of winning a majority of the seats. The two goals may lead to qualitatively different behavior, and studying the differences yields insights into the relationship between the goals, and the role of assymetries between the parties.

Comparative Politics and Public Finance

Torsten Persson — 2007-06-22T15:31:21-00:00

The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 108, No. 6. (2000), pp. 1121-1161.

We propose a model with micropolitical foundations to contrast different political regimes. Compared to a parliamentary regime, the institutions of a presidential-congressional regime produce fewer incentives for legislative cohesion but more separation of powers. These differences are reflected in the size and composition of government spending. A parliamentary regime has redistribution toward a majority, less underprovision of public goods, and more rents to politicians; a presidential-congressional regime has redistribution toward powerful minorities, more underprovision of public goods, but less rents to politicians. The size of government is smaller under a presidential regime. This last prediction is consistent with cross-country data.

The control of politicians: An economic model

Robert Barro — 2008-07-01T05:16:50-00:00

Public Choice, Vol. 14, No. 1. (1 March 1973), pp. 19-42.

Elections, Governments, and Parliaments in Proportional Representation Systems

David Baron — 2008-07-01T05:15:36-00:00

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 116, No. 3. (2001), pp. 933-967.

This paper presents a theory of parliamentary systems with a proportional representation electoral system, a formateur selected based on party representation in parliament, and parties that cannot commit to the policies they will implement once in government. Government formation involves efficient protocoalition bargaining, and elections yield unique strong Nash equilibrium outcomes. Depending on the status quo, minimal-majority, surplus, or consensus governments can form. If parties and voters are myopic and the status quo is subject to shocks, consensus governments and centrist policies occur only in a crisis. Otherwise, governments are minimal winning, and policies reflect only the preferences of the government parties.

Social choice and electoral competition in the general spatial model

Jeffrey Banks — 2008-07-01T04:55:56-00:00

Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 126, No. 1. (January 2006), pp. 194-234.

This paper extends the theory of the core, the uncovered set, and the related undominated set to a general set of alternatives and an arbitrary measure space of voters. We investigate the properties of social preferences generated by simple games; we extend results on generic emptiness of the core; we prove the general nonemptiness of the uncovered and undominated sets; and we prove the upper hemicontinuity of these correspondences when the voters' preferences are such that the core is nonempty and externally stable. Finally, we give conditions under which the undominated set is lower hemicontinuous.

A note on forward induction in a model of representative democracy

Francesco De Sinopoli — 2008-07-01T06:34:58-00:00

Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 46, No. 1. (January 2004), pp. 41-54.

The citizen-candidate approach, proposed to study the performance of representative democracies, builds on a multi-stage game where the same agents are asked whether or not to become a candidate and, successively, to vote. Consistently, the solution concept adopted in Besley and Coate (Quart. J. Econ. 112 (1997) 85-114) conforms to backward induction rationality. In this note we remark that it does not conform to forward induction rationality. Some results on stable sets are then obtained.

Bounds for Mixed Strategy Equilibria and the Spatial Model of Elections,

Jeffrey Banks — 2008-07-01T04:51:58-00:00

Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 103, No. 1. (March 2002), pp. 88-105.

We prove that the support of mixed strategy equilibria of two-player, symmetric, zero-sum games lies in the uncovered set, a concept originating in the theory of tournaments, and the spatial theory of politics. We allow for uncountably infinite strategy spaces, and as a special case, we obtain a long-standing claim to the same effect, due to R. McKelvey (Amer. J. Polit. Sci.30 (1986), 283-314), in the political science literature. Further, we prove the nonemptiness of the uncovered set under quite general assumptions, and we establish, under various assumptions, the coanalyticity and measurability of this set. In the concluding section, we indicate how the inclusion result may be extended to multiplayer, non-zero-sum games. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D72.

Large Poisson Games

Roger Myerson — 2008-07-01T15:25:45-00:00

Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 94, No. 1. (September 2000), pp. 7-45.

Existence of equilibria is proven for Poisson games with compact type sets and finite action sets. Then three theorems are introduced for characterizing limits of probabilities in Poisson games when the expected number of players becomes large. The magnitude theorem characterizes the rate at which probabilities of events go to zero. The offset theorem characterizes the ratios of probabilities of events that differ by a finite additive translation. The hyperplane theorem estimates probabilities of hyperplane events. These theorems are applied to derive formulas for pivot probabilities in binary elections, and to analyze a voting game that was studied by Ledyard. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C63, C70.

Interest Groups and the Electoral Control of Politicians

James Snyder — 2008-07-11T07:47:53-00:00

Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 92, No. 3. (2 February 2008), pp. 482-500.

We study an under-utilized source of data on legislative effectiveness, and exploit its panel structure to uncover several interesting patterns. We find that effectiveness rises sharply with tenure, at least for the first few terms even after controlling for legislators institutional positions, party affiliation, and other factors. Effectiveness never declines with tenure, even out to nine terms. The increase in effectiveness is not simply due to electoral attrition and selective retirement, but appears to be due to learning-by-doing. We also find evidence that a significant amount of "positive sorting" occurs in the legislature, with highly talented legislators moving more quickly into positions of responsibility and power. Finally, effectiveness has a positive impact on incumbents' electoral success, and on the probability of moving to higher office. These findings have important implications for arguments about term limits, the incumbency advantage, and seniority rule.

Political equilibria with electoral uncertainty

Norman Schofield — 2007-03-27T18:53:47-00:00

Social Choice and Welfare, Vol. 28, No. 3. (April 2007), pp. 461-490.

The Swing Voter's Curse

Timothy Feddersen — 2007-05-23T18:55:40-00:00

The American Economic Review, Vol. 86, No. 3. (1996), pp. 408-424.

We analyze two-candidate elections in which some voters are uncertain about the realization of a state variable that affects the utility of all voters. We demonstrate the existence of a swing voter's curse: less informed indifferent voters strictly prefer to abstain rather than vote for either candidate even when voting is costless. The swing voter's curse leads to the equilibrium result that a substantial fraction of the electorate will abstain even though all abstainers strictly prefer voting for one candidate over voting for another.

Incentives to cultivate a personal vote: A rank ordering of electoral formulas

John Carey — 2008-07-01T06:22:46-00:00

Electoral Studies, Vol. 14, No. 4. (December 1995), pp. 417-439.

Seat allocation formulas affect candidates' incentives to campaign on a personal rather than party reputation. Variables that enhance personal vote-seeking include: (1) lack of party leadership control over access to and rank on ballots, (2) degree to which candidates are elected on individual votes independent of co-partisans, and (3) whether voters cast a single intra-party vote instead of multiple votes or a party-level vote. District magnitude has the unusual feature that, as it increases, the value of a personal reputation rises if the electoral formula itself fosters personal vote-seeking, but falls if the electoral formula fosters party reputation-seeking.

The swing voter's curse with adversarial preferences

Jaehoon Kim — 2008-07-01T09:41:21-00:00

Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 135, No. 1. (July 2007), pp. 236-252.

We analyze voting behavior in a large electorate in which voters have adversarial state-contingent preferences with incomplete information about the state of the world. We show that one type of voter can suffer from the swing voter's curse à la Feddersen and Pesendorfer [The swing voter's curse, Amer. Econ. Rev. 86 (1996) 408-424], and go on to characterize the symmetric Nash equilibria of this model under different parameter values. We prove that unlike settings with nonadversarial preferences, there are equilibria in which in one state of the world, a minority-preferred candidate almost surely wins the election and thus the election may fail to correctly aggregate information. Indeed, we show that the fraction of the electorate dissatisfied with the result can be as large as .

The Mean Voter Theorem: Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Convergent Equilibrium

Norman Schofield — 2008-07-01T12:36:27-00:00

Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 74, No. 3. (2007), pp. 965-980.

Accepted Paper Series

Singularity theory and core existence in the spatial model

Jeffrey Banks — 2008-07-01T04:30:11-00:00

Journal of Mathematical Economics, Vol. 24, No. 6. (1995), pp. 523-536.

When the dimension of the outcome space in a voting game is sufficiently high, a core outcome will fail to exist for almost all utility profiles. Previous work by Schofield and McKelvey has identified critical dimensions for this generic non-existence, employing results on singularities of mappings and transversal intersections. In this paper we demonstrate that their proofs are incorrect, and determine the right dimensions implied by their singularity approach.

The Impact of Federal Spending on House Election Outcomes

Steven Levitt — 2007-11-07T19:49:58-00:00

The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 105, No. 1. (1997), pp. 30-53.

Lies, damned lies, and political campaigns

Steven Callander — 2008-07-01T06:19:37-00:00

Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 60, No. 2. (August 2007), pp. 262-286.

Despite a pervasive presence in politics, lying has not traditionally played a role in formal models of elections. In this paper we develop a model that allows candidates in the campaign stage to misrepresent their policy intentions if elected to office, and in which the willingness to lie varies across candidates. We find that candidates more willing to lie are favored, but that this advantage is limited by the electoral mechanism and to such an extent that more honest candidates win a significant fraction of elections. Most notably, the possibility that some candidates lie more than others affects the behavior of all candidates, changing the nature of political campaigns in an empirically consistent manner. This effect also implies that misleading conclusions will be drawn if homogeneous candidate honesty is assumed.

A Signaling Model of Repeated Elections

Kenneth Shotts — 2008-07-01T13:25:27-00:00

Social Choice and Welfare (October 2006), pp. 251-261.

I develop a two period model of elections in which voters' first period actions affect candidates' estimates of voter preferences and thus affect second period electoral and policy outcomes. I find an equilibrium in which centrist voters abstain in the first election, despite facing zero costs of voting and having a strict preference between the alternatives before them. The reason centrists abstain is to signal their preferences to future candidates and thereby promote future policy moderation.

Elections, Coalitions, and Legislative Outcomes

David Austen-Smith — 2008-07-01T04:15:22-00:00

The American Political Science Review, Vol. 82, No. 2. (1988), pp. 405-422.

Predictions of electoral behavior in a multiparty setting should be a function of the voters' beliefs about how parties will perform following an election. Similarly, party behavior in a legislature should be a function of electoral promises and rewards. We develop a multistage game-theoretic model of three-party competition under proportional representation. The final policy outcome of the game is generated by a noncooperative bargaining game between the parties in the elector legislature. This game is essentially defined by the vote shares each party receives in the general election, and the parties' electoral policy positions. At the electoral stage parties and voters are strategic in that they take account of the legislative implications of any electoral outcome. We solve for equilibrium electoral positions by the parties and final policy outcomes.

The Development of a Party-Orientated Electorate in England, 1832-1918

Gary Cox — 2008-07-02T06:51:46-00:00

British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 16, No. 2. (1986), pp. 187-216.

It has long been the accepted view that twentieth-century British voters tend to base their vote decisions chiefly upon the partisan affiliations of the candidates, rather than upon the candidates' personal policy beliefs or characteristics; voters are 'party-orientated' rather than 'candidate-orientated'. This article focuses upon three previously unanswered questions: (1) when did English voters become party-orientated? (2) why did they do so? and (3) what were the consequences? After demonstrating statistically that English voting behaviour changed markedly during the nineteenth century (based upon an analysis of over a thousand election contests between 1832 and 1918), the causal relationships between electoral choice and Parliamentary behaviour are examined.

An Economic Model of Representative Democracy

Timothy Besley — 2005-03-06T16:09:04-00:00

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 112, No. 1. (1997), pp. 85-114.

This paper develops an approach to the study of democratic policy-making where politicians are selected by the people from those citizens who present themselves as candidates for public office. The approach has a number of attractive features. First, it is a conceptualization of a pure form of representative democracy in which government is by, as well as of, the people. Second, the model is analytically tractable, being able to handle multidimensional issue and policy spaces very naturally. Third, it provides a vehicle for answering normative questions about the performance of representative democracy.

Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization

Jason Brownlee — 2008-07-31T08:44:30-00:00

(23 July 2007)

Far from sweeping the globe uniformly, the 'third wave of democratization' left burgeoning republics and resilient dictatorships in its wake. Applying more than a year of original fieldwork in Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, and the Philippines, Jason Brownlee shows that the mixed record of recent democratization is best deciphered through a historical and institutional approach to authoritarian rule. Exposing the internal organizations that structure elite conflict, Brownlee demonstrates why the critical soft-liners needed for democratic transitions have been dormant in Egypt and Malaysia but outspoken in Iran and the Philippines. By establishing how ruling parties originated and why they impede change, Brownlee illuminates the problem of contemporary authoritarianism and informs the promotion of durable democracy.

The Demise of One-Party Politics in Mexican Municipal Elections

Jonathan Hiskey — 2008-02-20T02:15:17-00:00

British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 35, No. 02. (2005), pp. 257-284.

Effectiveness of Electoral Systems for Reducing Government Corruption: A Game-Theoretic Analysis

Roger Myerson — 2008-06-20T00:34:27-00:00

Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 5, No. 1. (January 1993), pp. 118-132.

A theoretical model is developed for predicting the relative effectiveness of different electoral systems for reducing government corruption. We consider voting games in which parties with known corruption levels and known positions on a major policy question compete for legislative seats. We find that approval voting and proportional representation are fully effective, in the sense that all equilibria exclude corrupt parties from legislative seats. Plurality voting is partly effective, in the sense that there always exist some equilibria that exclude corrupt parties. Borda voting is ineffective because, for some political situations, no equilibria can guarantee the exclusion of corrupt parties. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number D72.

Getting Out the Vote: Party Mobilization in a Comparative Perspective

Jeffrey Karp — 2008-04-15T01:32:14-00:00

British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 38, No. 01. (2007), pp. 91-112.

The Changing Party of the Institutional Revolution: Electoral Competition and Decentralized Candidate Selection

Joy Langston — 2008-02-20T01:27:02-00:00

Party Politics, Vol. 12, No. 3. (1 May 2006), pp. 395-413.

We know little about how formerly hegemonic parties react to drastic changes in the external political environment. Under non-competitive electoral conditions, the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) was characterized by centralized legislative recruitment and candidate selection that delivered a large percentage of coveted senate candidacies to national-level party politicians and bureaucrats. This centralized and nationalized recruitment gave the leader of the PRI enormous control over his wide-flung political elite. Since elections have become competitive, the PRI has decentralized its recruitment of senate candidates, searching out those most popular with state voters. This work compares the PRI candidates' backgrounds from the non-competitive and competitive periods, and runs a logistical regression to ascertain if there is a relation between competition and types of party politicians winning nominations. The article demonstrates, using first-of-its-kind data on professional backgrounds of candidates (rather than sitting legislators), that legislative recruitment in a federal context has been decentralized in Mexico. 10.1177/1354068806063088

Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition

2008-07-11T06:01:04-00:00

(30 May 2006)

The Rationality of Economic Voting and the Macroeconomic Regime

Motoshi Suzuki — 2008-06-07T04:52:49-00:00

American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 35, No. 3. (1991), pp. 624-642.

Since voter rationality plays a major role in theories of political economics, it is important for political analysts to investigate the extent of voter sophistication. A conventional strategy for addressing this question is to determine what decision rule voters appear to use by estimating rival political support models that embody varying assumptions about voter rationality. However, under some circumstances, such a strategy may be incapable of identifying the descriptively superior model due to an observational equivalence problem. The paper estimates the competing political support models under alternative macroeconomic regimes and finds evidence favoring the nonrationalist or adaptive model.

Supreme Court Decisions on Electoral Rules after Mexico's 1994 Judicial Reform: An Empowered Court

Jodi Finkel — 2008-02-20T02:58:27-00:00

Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 35, No. 04. (2003), pp. 777-799.

Rational Choice Theory and the Paradox of Not Voting

Timothy Feddersen — 2007-10-12T19:54:42-00:00

Die Prognosegüte von Wahlbörsen und Meinungsumfragen zur Bundestagswahl 2005

Lena-Maria Schaffer — 2007-04-21T16:51:32-00:00

Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Vol. 46, No. 4. (13 December 2005), pp. 674-681.

Integrating Voting Theory and Roll Call Analysis: A Framework

Joshua Clinton — 2007-03-18T12:23:09-00:00

(2003), pp. 381-396.

Scholars of legislative studies typically use ideal point estimates from scaling procedures to test theories of legislative politics. We contend that theory and methods may be better integrated by directly incorporating maintained and to be tested hypotheses in the statistical model used to estimate legislator preferences. In this view of theory and estimation, formal modeling (1) provides auxiliary assumptions that serve as constraints in the estimation process, and (2) generates testable predictions. The estimation and hypothesis testing procedure uses roll call data to evaluate the validity of theoretically derived to be tested hypotheses in a world where maintained hypotheses are presumed true. We articulate the approach using the language of statistical inference (both frequentist and Bayesian). The approach is demonstrated in analyses of the well-studied Powell amendment to the federal aid-to-education bill in the 84th House and the Compromise of 1790 in the 1st House.

Hair loss and electability: The bald truth

Lee Sigelman — 2007-11-10T00:05:55-00:00

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, Vol. 14, No. 4. (1 December 1990), pp. 269-283.

This study probes one particular component of the well documented linkage between personal appearance and impression formation by investigating the extent to which and the mechanisms through which bald and balding men are underrepresented in high elective office. Study 1 compares the prevalence of hair loss among governors and members of Congress, on the one hand, and the general public, on the other, and concludes that officeholders are much more likely to have a full head of hair than would be expected of men of their age. Study 2 poses an experimental test of voter bias against bald and balding candidates by presenting voters in a simulated congressional race with materials depicting otherwise identical candidates in either their natural bald or balding condition or wearing a professionally fitted hairpiece. No voter bias against bald or balding candidates is apparent, a finding that suggests that the causal mechanism underlying underrepresentation of bald and balding men is not voter bias.

Gender, Candidate Image and Electoral Preference

Johns — 2007-06-27T11:01:35-00:00

British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 9, No. 3. (August 2007), pp. 434-460.

Beauty or the Beast? The Effects of Appearance, Personality, and Issue Information on Evaluations of Political Candidates

Thomas Budesheim — 2007-11-09T23:53:05-00:00

Pers Soc Psychol Bull, Vol. 20, No. 4. (1 August 1994), pp. 339-348.

Two studies investigated the effects of image and issue information on evaluations of political candidates. The extent to which voters base their evaluations on stereotypic image information (i.e., candidates' physical attractiveness) and nonstereotypic image information (i.e., individuating personality descriptions of the candidates) was examined. Also of interest were the factors that lead to image-based, as opposed to issue-based, evaluations of the candidates. Results demonstrated that (a) physical appearance influenced evaluations even when individuating personality information was provided, (b) subjects' evaluations were less influenced by their agreement with the candidates' issue positions when image information was presented than when it was not, and (c) subjects' evaluations were less influenced by issue agreement when a candidate's image was evaluatively mixed than when it was evaluatively consistent. 10.1177/0146167294204001

Facial appearance affects voting decisions

Anthony Little — 2007-10-22T20:08:53-00:00

Evolution and Human Behavior, Vol. 28, No. 1. (January 2007), pp. 18-27.

Human groups are unusual among primates in that our leaders are often democratically selected. Faces affect hiring decisions and could influence voting behavior. Here, we show that facial appearance has important effects on choice of leader. We show that differences in facial shape alone between candidates can predict who wins or loses in an election (Study 1) and that changing context from war time to peace time can affect which face receives the most votes (Study 2). Our studies highlight the role of face shape in voting behavior and the role of personal attributions in face perception. We also show that there may be no general characteristics of faces that can win votes, demonstrating that face traits and information about the environment interact in choice of leader.

Issue Preferences, Socialization, and the Evolution of Party Identification

Charles Franklin — 2007-10-04T02:57:09-00:00

American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 28, No. 3. (1984), pp. 459-478.

The traditional view that party identification develops at an early age, is remarkably stable throughout life, and is relatively unaffected by other political attitudes has been recently challenged by evidence that adult partisanship is in fact quite responsive to other political attitudes such as policy preferences, retrospective evaluations, and past votes. The author tests predictions based on the traditional and revisionist views by estimating a model of party identification which considers the effects of parental socialization and policy preferences on the party identification of young adults. In addition, the author estimates the reciprocal effects of partisanship on policy preference.