There is little room for context even though there are more recent developments that try to put the voter's freedom of choice in context. 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 premise of prospective voting is too demanding for most voters. Value orientations refer to materialism as well as post-materialism, among other things, cleavages but no longer from a value perspective. Merrill, Samuel, and Bernard Grofman. These are voters who proceed by systematic voting. The ideological space can be defined as a left-right ideological space but can also be defined more precisely in relation to certain issues. 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. Theoretically, it is possible to have as many dimensions as there are issues being discussed in an election campaign. "The answer is "yes", as postulated by spatial theories, or "no", as stated by Przeworski and Sprague, for example. Lazarsfeld's book created this research paradigm. It is also possible to add that the weight of partisan identification varies from one voter to another. For Lazarsfeld, "a person thinks politically as he or she is socially". is premised on the assumption that elections connect the will of the people to the actions of government. 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. startxref [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. We see the kinship of this model with the sociological model explaining that often they are put together. maximum proximity, as the party, his or her utility increases, and when the voter moves away from the party, his or her utility decreases. The idea is that this table is the Downs-Hirschman model that would have been made in order to summarize the different responses to the anomaly we have been talking about. What explains historical variation in voter turnout? Comparative Political Studies, 27(2), 155189. Nowadays, the internet is the most used communication environment, and therefore it becomes very important to try to determine the behavior of users regarding internet use. For many, voting is a civic duty. The curve instead of the simple proximity model, or obviously the maximization from the parties' point of view of electoral support, lies in the precise proximity between voters' preferences and the parties' political programs on certain issues, in this case this remains true but with a lag that is determined by discounting from a given status quo. Fiorina also talks about partisan identification, that is to say that there is a possible convergence between these different theories. Within the ambit of such a more realistic, limited-rational model of human behavior, mitigation outcomes from . We leave behind the idea of spatial theories that preferences are exogenous, that they are pre-existing and almost fixed. 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. There has been a lot of criticism that has allowed the idea of issue voting to develop in a rationalist context and models. In spring of 2021, key people working in homelessness services in Vancouver flew to San Diego to learn about the Alpha Project's model . It is a rather descriptive model, at least in its early stages. If certain conditions are present, such as good democratic functioning within the party, activists will have the opportunity to exercise "voice" and influence positions. Professor Political Science Buena Vista University Two basic concerns: Turnout ("Who votes?") Key questions: What are the characteristics and attitudes of voters vs. nonvoters? For example, there is Lazarsfeld's theory with the idea that opinion leaders can be seen as people to whom we attribute a strong trust and maybe even an esteem in relation to the political judgment they may have and therefore, by discussing with these people, it is possible to form an electoral choice and therefore there is no need to go and pay these costs of gathering information. In this model, there is a region of acceptability of positional extremism which is a region outside of which the intensity of the positions or the direction shown by a party cannot go because if it goes beyond that region, the voter will no longer choose that party. There is also a literature on whether certain parties have certain issues, which voters believe are the parties that are better able to deal with a certain issue. 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 is an act of altruism. The utility function of the simple proximity model appears, i.e. 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, he conceives the origin and function of partisan identification in a different way from what we have seen before. This is called prospective voting because voters will listen to what the parties have to say and evaluate on the basis of that, that is, looking ahead. We are not ignoring the psychological model, which focuses on the identification people have with parties without looking at the parties. On the basis of this analysis a behavioral model is constructed, which is then tested on data from a Dutch election survey. In other words, this identification is part of the self-image one can have of oneself. From the point of view of parties and candidates, the economic model and in particular the model that was proposed by Downs in 1957 and which predicts a convergence of a party position towards the centre. These criticisms and limitations are related to the original model. The spatial theory of the vote postulates that the electoral choice is made in the maximization of individual utility. But there are studies that also show that the causal relationship goes in the other direction. A distinction is made between the sociological model of voting from the Columbia School, which refers to the university where this model was developed. They are both proximity choices and directional choices with intensity, since there are voters who may choose intensity and others who may choose direction. On that basis, voters calculate the utility income of the different parties and then they look at and evaluate the partisan differential. Voters assess the utility income of parties and candidates. If we take into account Przeworski and Sprague's idea that there can be a mobilization of the electorate in a logic of endogenous preference and non-maximization of the utility of voters. The idea is that voters are not really able to really evaluate in a forward-looking way the different positions of the parties. The idea is that each voter can be represented by a point in a hypothetical space and this space can be a space with N dimensions and each dimension represents an election campaign issue, so that this point reflects his or her ideal set of policies, i.e. Another strategy is the so-called "shortcut" that voters take within the rationalist framework of voting, since they are confronted with the problem of information and have to choose on the basis of this information. The concept and this theory was developed in the United States by political scientists and sociologists and initially applied to the American political system with an attachment to the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party. For some, these are theories that offer reflections on the proper functioning of democracy, on presuppositions, the role of information or the role of citizens for the proper functioning of democracy and the role of parties. With regard to the question of how partisan identification develops, the psycho-sociological model emphasizes the role of the family and thus of primary socialization, but several critics have shown that secondary socialization also plays a role. There is the idea of the interaction between a political demand and a political offer proposed by the different candidates during an election or a vote. Lazarsfeld was interested in this and simply, empirically, he found that these other factors had less explanatory weight than the factors related to political predisposition and therefore to this social inking. Studies have shown that, for example, outside the United States, a much larger proportion of voters who change their vote also change their partisan identification. It is possible to create a typology that distinguishes between four approaches crossing two important and crucial elements: "is voting spatial? This model of voting behavior sees the voter as thinking individual who is able to take a view on political issues and votes accordingly. 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. Has the partisan identification weakened? 0000001124 00000 n The anomaly is that there is a majority of the electorate around the centre, but there are parties at the extremes that can even capture a large part of the preferences of the electorate. The initial formation of this model was very deterministic in wanting to focus on the role of social inclusion while neglecting other aspects, even though today there is increasingly a kind of ecumenical attempt to have an explanation that takes into account different aspects. McClung Lee, A. The government is blamed for the poor state of the economy. The political consciousness of individuals is based on social experiences and has little weight outside these experiences. The second question is according to which criteria to determine the individual utility of voters. 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. The idea is to create a party that forges ideologies and partisan identities. These theories are the retrospective voting theories and the theories of ideological space. This is more related to the retrospective vote. This approach emphasizes a central variable which is that of partisan identification, which is a particular political attitude towards a party. Thus, voters find it easier to assess performance than declared plans during an election campaign. models of voting behavior -the columbia school (1940s) -the Michigan school (1950s) the columbia school -1940s -social determinism -voter brand loyalty (party id) -selective perception/projection -minimal campaign effect -cross-pressures -high interest+low partisanship are rare minimal campaign effect . There was a whole series of critics who said that if it's something rational, there's a problem with the way democracy works. 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. Pages pour les contributeurs dconnects en savoir plus. The sociological model is somewhat the model that wants to emphasize this aspect. At the aggregate level, the distribution of partisan identification in the electorate makes it possible to calculate the normal vote. 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. There is a small degree of complexity because one can distinguish between attitudes towards the candidate or the party, attitudes towards the policies implemented by the different parties and attitudes about the benefits that one's own group may receive from voting for one party rather than another. We need to find identification measures adapted to the European context, which the researchers have done. When the voter is in the same position, i.e. Voting behavior is a form of electoral behavior. The extent to which the usefulness of voters' choices varies from candidate to candidate, but also from voter to voter. So, voters evaluate the positions of the parties and from these positions, this party is a left-wing party and this party is a right-wing party. For most theories, and in particular Matthews' Simple Directional Model theory, the neutral point determines direction. One must assess the value of one's own participation and also assess the number of other citizens who will vote. 0000007835 00000 n 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. These are models that should make us attentive to the different motivations that voters may or may not have to make in making an electoral choice. There are different strategies that are studied in the literature. We project voters' preferences and political positions, that is, the positions that parties have on certain issues and for the preferences that voters have on certain issues. 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