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Existing research suggests that voters tend to respond positively to legislator independence due to two types of mechanism. First, dissent has an indirect effect, increasing a legislator's media coverage and personal recognition among constituents (profile effects). Secondly, constituents react positively to dissent when this signals that the legislator has matching political or representational preferences (conditional evaluation). This article presents a third effect: dissent acts as a valence signal of integrity and trustworthiness. Consistent with the valence signalling mechanism, it uses new observational and experimental evidence to show that British voters have a strong and largely unconditional preference for legislators who dissent. The findings pose a dilemma for political systems that rely on strong and cohesive parties.

The concept that encompasses to a significant extent and at multiple levels the participation of citizens is that of participatory democracy. This requires people, communities or different social groups to be involved in decision-making and resource management. Participatory democracy is a continuous process, with risks, requiring organization, collaboration, identification of common goals in a group

Existing research suggests that voters tend to respond positively to legislator independence due to two types of mechanism. First, dissent has an indirect effect, increasing a legislator's media coverage and personal recognition among constituents (profile effects). Secondly, constituents react positively to dissent when this signals that the legislator has matching political or representational preferences (conditional evaluation). This article presents a third effect: dissent acts as avalence signalof integrity and trustworthiness. Consistent with the valence signalling mechanism, it uses new observational and experimental evidence to show that British voters have a strong and largely unconditional preference for legislators who dissent. The findings pose a dilemma for political systems that rely on strong and cohesive parties.

A review essay on a book by Harold Clarke, David Sanders, Marianne Stewart, & Paul Whiteley, Political Choice in Britain (Oxford: Oxford U Press, 2004). 12 References.

It has been a standard result of the stochastic, or probabilistic, spatial model of voting that vote maximizing candidates, or parties, will converge to the electoral mean (the origin). This conclusion has appeared to be contradicted by empirical studies.Here, a more general stochastic model, incorporating 'exogeneous' valence, is constructed. Contrary to the standard result, it is shown in Theorem 1 of this paper that a potentially severe domain constraint (determined by the electoral and stochastic variance, valence as well as the dimension of the space) is necessary for the existence of equilibrium at the electoral mean. A more stringent condition, independent of the dimension of the space, is shown to be sufficient. An empirical study of Israel for 1992 shows that the necessary condition failed. This suggests that, in proportional electoral systems, a pure strategy equilibrium will almost always fail to exist at the electoral mean. Instead, in both the formal and empirical models, each party positions itself along a major electoral axis in a way which is determined by the valence terms.A second empirical analysis for Britain for the elections of 1992 and 1997 shows that, in fact, the necessary and sufficient condition for the validity of the 'mean voter theorem' was satisfied, under the assumption of unidimensionality of the policy space. Indeed the low valence party, the Liberal Democrat Party, did appear to locate at the electoral center. However, the high valence parties, Labour and the Conservatives, did not. This suggests that, in polities based on plurality rule, valence is a function of activist support rather than a purely exogenous factor. Theorem 2 shows, as in Britain, that exogeneous and activist valence produce opposite effects.

It has been a standard result of the stochastic, or probabilistic, spatial model of voting that vote maximizing candidates, or parties, will converge to the electoral mean (the origin). This conclusion has appeared to be contradicted by empirical studies. Here, a more general stochastic model, incorporating 'exogeneous' valence, is constructed. Contrary to the standard result, it is shown in Theorem 1 of this paper that a potentially severe domain constraint (determined by the electoral & stochastic variance, valence as well as the dimension of the space) is necessary for the existence of equilibrium at the electoral mean. A more stringent condition, independent of the dimension of the space, is shown to be sufficient. An empirical study of Israel for 1992 shows that the necessary condition failed. This suggests that, in proportional electoral systems, a pure strategy equilibrium will almost always fail to exist at the electoral mean. Instead, in both the formal & empirical models, each party positions itself along a major electoral axis in a way which is determined by the valence terms. A second empirical analysis for Britain for the elections of 1992 & 1997 shows that, in fact, the necessary & sufficient condition for the validity of the 'mean voter theorem' was satisfied, under the assumption of unidimensionality of the policy space. Indeed the low valence party, the Liberal Democrat Party, did appear to locate at the electoral center. However, the high valence parties, Labour & the Conservatives, did not. This suggests that, in polities based on plurality rule, valence is a function of activist support rather than a purely exogenous factor. Theorem 2 shows, as in Britain, that exogeneous & activist valence produce opposite effects. 2 Tables, 4 Figures, 39 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2004.]