A Unified Theory of Voting
Directional and Proximity Spatial Models

The authors develop a unified model that incorporates voter motivations and assess its empirical predictions in the US, Norway, and France.

Samuel Merrill, III (Author), Bernard Grofman (Author)

9780521665490, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 September 1999

230 pages, 33 b/w illus. 40 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.32 kg

'… the most significant contribution of this book is that it successfully derives explanations for macroscopic phenomenon, such as the nature of party system and government alternations, based on the proximity, directional and mixed models of micro-level voting behaviour.' Japanese Journal of Political Science

This book addresses the questions: how do voters use their own issue positions and those of candidates to decide how to vote? Does a voter tend to choose the candidate who most closely shares the views of the voter or rather a candidate who holds more extreme views due to the fact that the voters discount the candidates' abilities to implement policy. The authors develop a unified model that incorporates these and other voter motivations and assess its empirical predictions - for both voter choice and candidate strategy - in the US, Norway, and France. The analyses show that a combination of proximity, direction, discounting, and party ID are compatible with the mildly but not extremely divergent policies that are characteristic of many two-party and multiparty electorates. All of these motivations are necessary to understand the linkage between candidate issue positions and voter preferences.

1. Introduction
Part I. Models of Voter Behavior: 2. Alternative models of issue voting
3. A unified model of issue voting: proximity, direction, and intensity
4. Comparing the empirical fit of the directional and proximity models for voter utility functions
5. Empirical model fitting using the unified model: voter utility
6. Empirical fitting of probabilistic models of voter choice in two-party electorates
7. Empirical fitting of probabilistic models of voter choice in multiparty electorates
Part II. Models of Party or Candidate Behavior and Strategy: 8. Equilibrium strategies for two-candidate directional spatial models
9. Long-term dynamics of voter choice and party strategy
10. Strategy and equilibrium in multicandidate elections
11. Strategy under alternative multicandidate voting procedures.

Subject Areas: Elections & referenda [JPHF]