Transcript Unit 6: Parties and Votes - University of California, San

UNIT 6: PARTIES AND
VOTES
Ware CH 11 and Mueller and Strom 112-140
Guiding Questions
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When are parties likely to adopt a votemaximizing strategy?
What factors shape how parties position themselves
to win votes?
How can we model party competition?
What are the strengths/weaknesses of these
models?
When Should Parties Seek Votes?
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Voting certainly “matters” in democracies.
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But votes, in and of themselves, are rarely useful.
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We can conceive of the voting process as delegating authority
from the citizenry to the political elite.
We typically see votes as instrumental to achieving other
goals.
When would vote seeking strategies be likely?
1) When parties want to increase their bargaining weight.
2) When elections are competitive (i.e. outcome is
unclear).
3) To reach certain “thresholds”
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Example: majority/minority government, minimum threshold
for representation, etc.
Downs’s Assumptions about Voters
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Downs 1957
Models party competition spatially.
1) Voters hold preferences over the types of policy they want
government to enact.
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2) These preferences can be represented along a single leftright dimension.
3) Voters are rational, but not well informed about connections
between their preferences and the policies political parties
advocate.
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These preferences are linked to their interests, and are exogenous to
parties.
Takes preferences as exogenous (or ‘given’)
Thus, voters vote for the party positioned closest to them.
Downs’s Assumption about Parties
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Downs 1957
1) Parties seek to maximize their vote share.
2) Parties position themselves along the left/right spectrum
adapting their policy positions based on their perceptions of
voter interests.
 Parties are loosely bound by past history.
 Prevents parties from “leap-frogging” other parties.
3) Parties use ideology as a tool to mobilize mass electorates.
 That is, policy is viewed instrumentally (i.e. it wins votes).
Downs and Number of Parties
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4) Number of political
parties is dependent upon
the shape of distribution of
voters.
 Single peaked: two party
system is likely.
 Multi-peaked: multiparty
system is likely.
Two party systems create
incentives for parties to
converge at the position of
the median voter.
 Multiparty systems do not.
Evaluating Spatial Models of Voting
STRENGTHS
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Downs 1957
Important contributions
regarding:
1) Spatial modeling of party
competition
2) Identification of issue
dimensions which frame
politics.
3) Linkages between
campaign promises and
governmental performance
explained as a function of reelection prospects.
WEAKNESSES
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Dunleavy 1991
Questions assumption that
voter preferences are
exogenous to parties.
Government parties can
shape preferences via:
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1) social engineering
2) social relativities
3) context management.
Opposition parties can
shape preferences via:
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1) exploiting social tensions
2) strategic agenda setting
Conclusions: Parties as Unitary Actors
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Modeling parties as unitary actors can be useful theoretically,
but problematic when describing reality.
Tsebelis (1990)
 Party competition is a ‘nested game’ party leaders “play”
on two levels: electorate and activists.
Party activists can constrain the ability of parties to shift
positions in response to changes in the electorate.
 The ideal political position or platform may not be
acceptable to activists.
But maintaining policy positions preferable to activists may
come at a cost: possibility of entering office or winning votes
may be affected.
Case Study: the Netherlands
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Examine:
 Dutch Labor Party (PvdA)
 Why were policy goals so dominant for so long
within the party?
 What did an emphasis on policy goals do for the
PvdA’s vote winning abilities?
 What did it take for office seeking goals to be
privileged over policy goals?
 How did the push for votes shape the party’s
behavior?
Schedule
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Game: Elections
Unit Theme: Parties and Ideology
 Readings:
 Ware
CH 1
 Mueller and Strom pgs. 89-111
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Unit Theme: Coalition Formation
 Readings:
 Reserves:
Laver and Schofield, Lijphart
 Dalton and Wattenberg CH 9
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Game: Coalections.