The assumption is that mobilizing an electorate is done by taking clear positions and not a centrist position. Then a second question was supposed to measure the strength of that identification with the question "do you consider yourself a Republican, strong, weak or leaning towards the Democratic Party? A distinction must be made between the affective vote of the psycho-sociological model and the cognitive vote of the theories of the economic model. Ecological regression represents one extreme: the presumption that voting behavior changes systematically across groups but only changes randomly, if at all, within groups. The utility function of this model is modified compared to the simple model, i.e. Reinforcement over time since adult voters increasingly rely on this partisan identification to vote and to face the problems of information, namely partisan identification seen as a way of solving a problem that all voters have, which is how to form an idea and deal with the abundance and complexity of the information that comes to us from, for example, the media, political campaigns or others in relation to the political offer. Prospective voting says that the evaluation is based on what the parties and candidates are going to say. On the basis of this, we can know. This article reviews the main theoretical models that explain the electoral behavior sociological model of voting behavior, psychosocial model of voting behavior and rational choice theory , stressing the continuity and theoretical complementarity between them. On this basis, four types of voters can be identified in a simplified manner: It is possible to start from the assumption that the characteristics of these different voters are very different. Proximity means the closeness of the voter's interests to the political proposals that are made with the parties. Another possible strategy is to rely on the judgment of others such as opinion leaders. They try to elaborate a bit and find out empirically how this happens. But there are studies that also show that the causal relationship goes in the other direction. Ideology can also be in relation to another dimension, for example between egalitarian and libertarian ideology. Sociological Model (Columbia Model) Social-Psychological Model (Michigan Model) Economic / Rational Choice Model (Rochester Model) 5 Sociological Model. Numbers abound, since we have seen that, in the end, both models systematically have a significant effect. Its weak explanatory power has been criticized, and these are much more recent criticisms in the sense that we saw when we talked about class voting in particular, which from then on saw the emergence of a whole series of critics who said that all these variables of social position and anchoring in social contexts may have been explanatory of participation and voting at the time these theories emerged in the 1950s, but this may be much less true today in a phase or period of political misalignment. Basic Idea What you are vote choice ; Key foundational studies ; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, Gaudet (1944) The Peoples Choice Berelson, Lazarsfeld, McPhee (1954) Voting On the other hand, preferences for candidates in power are best explained by the proximity model and the simple directional model. The idea is that a party is ready to lose an election in order to give itself the means to win it later by giving itself time to form an electorate. In directional models with intensity, there are models that try to show how the salience of different issues changes from one group to another, from one social group to another, or from one candidate and one party to another. Pp. Professor Political Science Buena Vista University Two basic concerns: Turnout ("Who votes?") Key questions: What are the characteristics and attitudes of voters vs. nonvoters? One possible strategy to reduce costs is to base oneself on ideology. Pages pour les contributeurs dconnects en savoir plus. Four landmark studies connected with the presidential elections of 1940, 1948, 1952, and 1956 mark the establishment of scholarly survey-based research on voting behavior (Rossi 1959). There are a whole host of typologies in relation to issues, and we distinguish different types of issues such as position issues and issues that are more or less emotional. Even more plausibly, election campaigns are built around several issues. This theory is not about the formation of political preferences, they start from the idea that there are voters with certain political preferences and then these voters will look at what the offer is and will choose according to that offer. There is a direct link between social position and voting. Lazarsfeld's book created this research paradigm. When the voter is in the same position, i.e. The idea was that there were two possible responses that are put in place by members of that organization: one of "exit", to withdraw, to go to another organization. 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. On the other hand, to explain the electoral choice, we must take into account factors that are very far from the vote theoretically, but we must also take into account the fact that there are factors that are no longer close to the electoral choice during a vote or an election. While in the United States, several studies have shown that partisan identification is an important explanatory power on electoral choice, in other contexts this is less true. We must assess the costs of going to the polls, of gathering the information needed to make a decision, but also the value of one's own participation, since the model is also supposed to explain voter turnout. Finally, some studies show that high levels of education lead to weaker attachments to parties. the translation of personal preference into a voluntary action designed to influence public policy A representative democracy. The idea is to create a party that forges ideologies and partisan identities. a new model of legislative behavior that captures when and how lawmakers vote differently than expected. 0000005382 00000 n There may be one that is at the centre, but there are also others that are discussed. 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. There are other variants or models that try to accommodate this complexity. In Personality traits and party identification over time published in 2014 by Bakker, Hopmann and Persson, the authors attempt to explain partisan identification. 0 There has also been the criticism of abstention as the result of rational calculation. JSTOR. The strategic choices made by parties can also be explained by this model since, since this model postulates an interdependence between supply and demand, we address the demand but we can also address the supply. That is what is called the proximity vote, that is, having a preference over a policy. This paper examines two models used in survey research to explain voting behavior and finds that both models may be more or less correct. The external factors would be the factors that, in the basic theory of the psycho-sociological approach, it would seem that this is what can do but if we have a certain partisan attachment to vote for another party because we are influenced by one or other of these factors but, basically, we keep our partisan attachment and the next time when these factors change, we return to the normal vote corresponding to the partisan attachment. This is linked to a decrease in class voting and a loss of traditional cleavages. For most theories, and in particular Matthews' Simple Directional Model theory, the neutral point determines direction. So there is an overestimation in this model with respect to capacity. That discounting depends on where the policy is right now in relation to what the party is promising, and that is the directional element. As for the intensity model, they manage to perceive something more, that is to say, not only a direction but an intensity through which a political party defends certain positions and goes in certain political directions. We can talk about two major theories or two major models or even three models. The idea is that it is in circles of interpersonal relations even if more modern theories of opinion leaders look at actors outside the personal circle. The explanatory factors and aspects highlighted by these different models are always taken into account. There was a whole series of critics who said that if it's something rational, there's a problem with the way democracy works. 43 17 These authors have tried to say that the different explanatory theories of the vote can be more or less explanatory in the sense of having more or less importance of explanatory power depending on the phases in which one is in a process of alignment and misalignment. Partisan attachment is at the centre of the graph influencing opinions on certain issues being discussed or the attitudes of certain candidates. The psycho-sociological model initiated the national election studies and created a research paradigm that remains one of the two dominant research paradigms today and ultimately contributed to the creation of electoral psychology. 0000000866 00000 n The scientific study of voting behavior is marked by three major research schools: the sociological model, often identified as School of Columbia, with the main reference in Applied Bureau of Social Research of Columbia University, whose work begins with the publication of the book The People's Choice (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944) Other researchers have tried to propose combined models that combine different explanations. Today, there is an attempt to combine the different explanations trying to take into account, both sociological determinants but also the emotional and affective component as well as the component related to choice and calculation. 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