Suchergebnisse

In countries with multiparty political systems, we assume--if the system is going to work--that parties have relatively stable positions on policy, that these positions diverge, and that voters make choices based on policy preferences. Yet much of the research on voter behavior and party competition does not support these assumptions. In Party Competition, James Adams applies the insights of behavioral research to an examination of the policy strategies that political parties (and candidates) employ in seeking election. He argues that vote-seeking parties are motivated to present policies that appeal to voters, whose bias toward these policies is based in part on reasons that have nothing to do with policy. He demonstrates that this strategic logic has profound implications for party competition and responsible party government. Adams's innovative fusion of research methodologies presents solutions to issues of policy stability and voter partisanship. His theory's supported by an in-depth analysis of empirical applications to party competition in Britain, France, and the United States in the postwar years. Party Competition and Responsible Party Government will appeal to readers interested in the study of political parties, voting behavior and elections, as well as to scholars specializing in French, British, and American politics. James Adams is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara

The spatial model of elections identifies factors that motivate party elites to shift their policy positions, including changes in voters' policy preferences, rival parties' policy shifts, past election results, and changes in party elites' valence images with respect to dimensions of evaluation such as competence and integrity. I review empirical studies on multiparty elections, i.e., elections involving three or more major parties, that evaluate party elites' policy responses to these factors, along with empirical studies on the electoral consequences of parties' policy shifts. This review reveals a paradox: on the one hand, empirical studies conclude that parties systematically shift their policy positions in response to the factors that spatial modelers have identified. On the other hand, there is only weak and inconsistent empirical evidence that voters actually perceive parties' policy shifts, and/or that these shifts have significant electoral consequences. Thus the predictions of spatial theory are largely verified, whereas the assumptions that underpin spatial theory are called into question. Adapted from the source document.

The spatial maps of parties' policy programmes published by the Manifesto Research Group (MRG) for the European Consortium for Political Research reveal the following empirical patterns: that parties differentiate their policy positions from one another; that parties rarely leapfrog each other; that parties shift their positions overtime but only within 'ideologically delimited' areas of the policy space. These findings are not well explained by existing spatial models of party competition, which typically predict policy convergence and which moreover do not examine temporal patterns of party policies. This article modifies the standard Downsian model to incorporate a concept originally developed by Chapman that, in addition to policies, voters are motivated by non-policy considerations arising from such factors as party leaders' images, social-psychological attachments rooted in class, religion, ethnicity and so on. For this 'biased vote' model I present illustrative arguments that vote-seeking parties are motivated to differentiate their policy positions from each other, and that over time they can be expected to vary their policy proposals but without leapfrogging - predictions that accord well with the MRG's empirical findings. I apply the biased vote model to empirical data on the distributions of voter preferences in recent British and French elections. My results support the illustrative arguments, and also suggest that these arguments apply even when the degree of voter bias in the electorate is quite low. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)