Yes we can! Valence politics and electoral choice in America, 2008

2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold D. Clarke ◽  
Allan Kornberg ◽  
Thomas J. Scotto ◽  
Jason Reifler ◽  
David Sanders ◽  
...  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Whiteley ◽  
Harold Clarke ◽  
David Sanders ◽  
Marianne Stuart

This paper responds to Evans and Kat’s critique of the valence politics model of electoral choice. Their critique is deficient in several respects. First, the authors do not test the valence politics model, which is motivated by a theory of voting rather than a claim about the relationship between generalized measures of “party preference” and “party performance.” Second, Evans and Kat do not provide theoretical grounding for partisanship, which they claim is strongly exogenous to other variables of interest. Third, there are several specification and testing problems with their structural equation model. We study the properties of the valence model using a vector error correction model of aggregate monthly survey data gathered throughout the New Labour Era. Consistent with theoretical expectations, key valence politics variables constitute a powerful cointegrated system in which the dynamics of partisanship are endogenous to other variables in the system.


2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Clarke ◽  
David Sanders ◽  
Marianne Stewart ◽  
Paul Whiteley

2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold D. Clarke ◽  
Thomas J. Scotto ◽  
Allan Kornberg

2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 476-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Ho ◽  
Harold D. Clarke ◽  
Li-Khan Chen ◽  
Dennis Lu-Chung Weng

Author(s):  
Elizabeth Suhay ◽  
Bernard Grofman ◽  
Alexander H. Trechsel

Electoral persuasion rests at the center of the democratic process. Politicians, parties, interest groups, members of the media, and citizens themselves are constantly communicating with one another about electorally relevant topics. These communications will ultimately influence—although not always in predictable ways—voters’ choices and, therefore, election outcomes and the direction of government. Scholarship on this important topic has exploded in recent decades. Yet, there have been relatively few efforts to synthesize the accumulated knowledge. In this volume, we bring together accomplished scholars who study one or more aspects of electoral persuasion—who communicates with whom about democratic politics, what they communicate about and why, how and where they communicate, and with what effect. The result is a vibrant collection of US-based and international perspectives on the relevant actors, their motivations and methods of persuasion, and their varied influences on electoral choice.


2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS G. HANSFORD ◽  
BRAD T. GOMEZ

This article examines the electoral consequences of variation in voter turnout in the United States. Existing scholarship focuses on the claim that high turnout benefits Democrats, but evidence supporting this conjecture is variable and controversial. Previous work, however, does not account for endogeneity between turnout and electoral choice, and thus, causal claims are questionable. Using election day rainfall as an instrumental variable for voter turnout, we are able to estimate the effect of variation in turnout due to across-the-board changes in the utility of voting. We re-examine the Partisan Effects and Two-Effects Hypotheses, provide an empirical test of an Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis, and propose a Volatility Hypothesis, which posits that high turnout produces less predictable electoral outcomes. Using county-level data from the 1948–2000 presidential elections, we find support for each hypothesis. Failing to address the endogeneity problem would lead researchers to incorrectly reject all but the Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis. The effect of variation in turnout on electoral outcomes appears quite meaningful. Although election-specific factors other than turnout have the greatest influence on who wins an election, variation in turnout significantly affects vote shares at the county, national, and Electoral College levels.


1988 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Rivers
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Ciccolini ◽  
Juho Härkönen

Scholarly explanations of the survival of left parties and the upsurge in mainstream politics discontent often refer to voters' intergenerational mobility resulting from the post-industrial transition. As the occupational structure evolves, voters across generations are exposed to heterogenous life chances, and the social elevator progressively alters class voting patterns. Yet empirical evidence for the electoral implications of social ascent and decline as well as their reasons is mixed at best – likely because most empirical studies seek for homogenous average mobility effects. To address this limitation, we analyse the diverse consequences of mobility across social groups in a quasi-descriptive fashion by applying a cutting-edge ANOVA-based OLS model. Contrarily to prior studies, this approach allows us to identify class-specific mobility effects on voting (ceteris paribus), consistently with theory. Our analyses draw on individual-level detailed information on both intergenerational social mobility and political behaviour from the European Social Survey (rounds 1-9) across 19 Western European countries. Although scholarly accounts on the consequences of social mobility averagely find little to no support in our analyses, we do observe some significant and substantial class-specific effects of both social ascent and descent on voting choice.


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