Rational Expectations or Heuristics?: Strategic Voting in Proportional Representation Systems

In: Party politics: an international journal for the study of political parties and political organizations, Band 14, Heft 1, S. 31-49

Abstract

The process of formation of electoral expectations in proportional representation systems is analysed in this article. Contrary to Duvergerian or electoral coordination theories, by using survey and in-depth elite interview data from Spain in the 1970s and 1980s, it is shown that strategic voting depends on heuristics (i.e. extrapolations from the previous election) rather than on rational expectations. The main implication is that strategic voting is possible in large districts.