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UNIT 6: PARTIES AND

VOTES
Ware CH 11 and Mueller and Strom 112140

Guiding Questions

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?

Voting certainly matters in democracies.

But votes, in and of themselves, are rarely useful.

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

Example: majority/minority government, minimum


threshold for representation, etc.

Downss Assumptions about Voters

Downs 1957
Models party competition spatially.
1) Voters hold preferences over the types of policy they
want government to enact.

2) These preferences can be represented along a single


left-right dimension.
3) Voters are rational, but not well informed about
connections between their preferences and the policies
political parties advocate.

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.

Downss Assumption about Parties

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

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

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
re-election prospects.

WEAKNESSES

Dunleavy 1991
Questions assumption
that voter preferences
are exogenous to
parties.
Government parties can
shape preferences via:

1) social engineering
2) social relativities
3) context management.

Opposition parties can


shape preferences via:

1) exploiting social
tensions
2) strategic agenda setting

Conclusions: Parties as Unitary Actors

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

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 PvdAs 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 partys
behavior?

Schedule

Game: Elections
Unit Theme: Parties and Ideology
Readings:
Ware

CH 1
Mueller and Strom pgs. 89-111

Unit Theme: Coalition Formation


Readings:
Reserves:

Laver and Schofield, Lijphart


Dalton and Wattenberg CH 9

Game: Coalections.

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