3. How Two-Party Elections
Can Lead to Democracy
• Responsible-party government
• Electoral Competition
• Retrospective Voting/Electoral
Reward and Punishment
4. Responsible-party
Government
• Based on idea of elections providing a
real choice or alternative.
• Assumptions:
• Each of two parties is cohesive and unified
• Each party takes a clear policy position
that differentiates the two
• Citizens accurately perceive these
positions, vote on the basis of them
• Winning party will follow through on their
promises
5. Responsible-party
Government
Evaluation:
• Doesn’t guarantee popular sovereignty or
political equality
• Doesn’t guarantee winning party will take
popular policy positions – just the least
unpopular.
• Parties are NOT unified or cohesive, don’t
always take clear stands on issues.
• Voters do not vote solely on the issues
• Parties don’t always keep their promises.
8. Electoral Competition
Assumptions:
• Two parties take clear, unified
stands on issues.
• Citizens vote based on issues.
• Parties do what they promised.
9. Electoral Competition
Problems:
• Both parties likely to support the same
policies: those most favored by voters.
• Parties will tend to take policy stands
near midpoint of public opinion
• Doesn’t promise the parties will
educate or mobilize voters
10. Electoral Competition
Evaluation
• Ensures democratic control only if
parties are unified and take clear
stands
• The need to raise campaign funds
could endanger concept of democracy.
• For democracy to work, voters have to:
• Vote only on issues + know
positions taken by parties
• Neither of these is likely
12. Retrospective Voting
• People vote for incumbents when times are
good, against them when times are bad.
• Each election, retrospective judgments about
how incumbent officials have done in the past.
• Parties compete by emphasizing competence,
way they reflect public’s goals, NOT by taking
specific policy stands.
13. Retrospective Voting
• Voters don’t bother to form preferences
on complex issues – just voting on past
performance.
• Politicians have strong incentives to solve
problems people want solved.
14. Retrospective Voting
Evaluation:
• Simplicity – requires very little of voters.
• Allows voters to focus only on most
crucial issues
• Relies on selfishness of politicians
not altruism.
Problem: may encourage politicians to
produce deceptively happy results just
before an election.
15. Retrospective Voting
Evaluation(cont’d):
• Allows time for deliberation,
experimental/unpopular policies
Problem: gets rid of bad political leaders
only after disasters happen, no guarantee
next group will do any better.
16. Models of Voting Behavior
• The sociological model
• The social-psychological
model
• The rational choice model
17. Sociological (Columbia)
Model
• Developed in 1940’s @ Columbia
University after “consumer preference”
theory went bust.
• “Consumer Preference” theory was a
bust because they found people made up
their minds well in advance of
advertising campaigns.
18. Sociological (Columbia)
Model
• Alternative theory: sociological variables –
characteristics of groups – strongly
correlated with vote choice.
• SM uses group-level characteristics to
explain how people vote.
• Socio-economic status (SES)
• Religion
• Place of Residence
19. Who votes?
• Higher incomes, more formal education.
• Very young unlikely to vote.
• Unemployed have a very low rate of
turnout.
• Latinos have especially low turnout rate,
but it is increasing.
• Crucial factor in voter turnout is level of
formal education - could be a proxy for
income.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24. Problems with the
Sociological Model
• Certain group differences still associated
with voter choice, but SM can’t explain
WHY.
• Group behaviors have changed over time.
• Model based on small-n research sample,
larger sample studies had difficulty with
replication.
25. Socio-Psychological
(Michigan) Model
Explains vote choice not as product
of group characteristics but of
individual attitudes.
32. Rational Choice Model
• The decision to show up & vote, particular
choices made in polling booth = products of
rational calculation.
• Individuals will vote if benefits of voting
outweigh costs.
• Individuals will vote for candidates closest
to their beliefs on issues.
33. Anthony Downs
(Voter Rationality)
• Information Costs – what does it cost in
time, money, effort to be informed.
• People will be informed if benefits
outweigh the costs.
• Often cost outweighs benefits.
• Take into account benefits of voting
• Expected benefits = benefits X probability
of affecting the outcome of the vote
34. Voter Rationality
• Heuristics – “cognitive shortcuts”
• People don’t need a lot of information to
make reasonable voting decisions.
• Toilet Paper
• Gladwell’s Blink
• Too much information adds to costs
• Heuristics like Party ID proven to allow
people to make reasonable decisions.
35. Voter Rationality
• Problems:
• Can lead to errors: non-optimal decisions vs.
“reasonable”
• Information can make a difference
• Rational for individuals to be uninformed, but
collectively this is irrational.
• Ignores costs at the collective level
• More informed public = more accountable elites
• Uninformed public susceptible to manipulation.
36. Rational Choice Model
Problems:
• Theory is a poor match with reality:
Indications are that Americans are poorly
informed about politics.
• Michigan Model continues to provide the
most accepted explanations of voting
behavior.
